Ten Tips for Sourdough Success

Are you baking with sourdough but feel that there is still room for improvement? Here are ten tips for successful sourdough baking.

1. Make sure your starter has been fed at least once and became bubbly before using your starter to bake. Crackers and waffles are not as critical, but for bread baking, an active bubbly starter is vital. For best results, feed your starter twice, giving time to expand each time, before baking.

2. Patience, patience, patience! Sourdough does not work in a hurry. Give the wild yeast in your starter time to work. Time is also what softens your whole wheat, makes your bread softer, and may increase the nutritional value.

3. Find a schedule that works for you. I actually like the sourcedough timetable. With commercial yeast, if bread needs to be shaped or baked, it needs attention immediately. Sourdough is more adaptable. I often mix up bread dough while I'm washing up the breakfast dishes. I can ignore the dough all morning while we are having school. At lunchtime, I shape the dough into loaves. By late afternoon, I pop the bread in the oven for some fresh warm bread by the time my husband comes home. You will find a timetable that works for your schedule.

4. Always save some starters. This is obvious - but I can't tell you how many times I almost used up all my starter in a recipe. I've nursed it back to life with not much more than the starter clinging to the sides of the bowl. This is a good excuse to share a favorite starter with a friend - so I can always ask for some starter back if I lose it completely.

5. Sourdough likes it warm. Not hot, not cold, but just right. Have all your ingredients at room temperature before mixing. If your flour is in the freezer, let it warm up first.

6. If you have a Bosch mixer, all the sourdough bread recipesI have shared can be doubled. If you are just learning, I wouldn't recommend doubling, but once you are making bread successfully, baking a double batch and freezing the extra loaves is a blessing for a busy mom.

7. Sourdough grows best in a slightly wet dough. The dough should not be excessively sticky, but during the long rising time, much of the excess moisture will be absorbed. Kneading a wet dough is easier with a machine. When hand kneading, I find that making my hands wet and using a dough scraper, I can avoid adding any extra flour.

8. For accurate measuring, stir your starter before measuring. Even better, weigh your ingredients.

9. For an enriched dough, you can add any of the optional ingredients from the potato bread recipe , into any of the othersoft bread recipes. Mashed potatoes, potato water, egg, vital gluten, soy lecithin and vitamin C will all help bread in various ways. You can read about specific dough enhancers here. If you are not pleased with your sourdough bread, give one, or all of these dough enhancers a try.

10. I don't know why, but scoring the top of my sourdough bread seems to enhance the oven spring. I slash the top of the loaf immediately before sliding the loaves into the oven. If I forget, they don't seem to raise as high.

Any other sourdough baking tips that you'd like to share?