Sourdough Baking can seem intimidating at first glance but after a couple bakes it will seem pretty simple. The work of sourdough baking is done in small increments of time spread out over a long, flexible period of time, so you can make sourdough baking fit into any schedule.

Understanding the seven stages of sourdough baking will help you feel comfortable with sourdough baking quickly.

Stage 1: PREP STARTER (4-8 hours)

Every sourdough baker keeps a starter, a slurry of flour and water that is inoculated with the yeast and bacteria. These microbes produce gasses that puff up our bread. and acids that give sourdough bread a distinctive flavor.

We feed our starter regularly with flour and water, like a pet, to keep it healthy and active. When fed, the starter will become more active with microbes over the course of several hours, becoming full of bubbles, expanding to 2 or more times in volume. Eventually the microbes will consume the majority of the food and the starter will deflate.

On days when we are baking a loaf of bread, we want to feed our starter early enough so that we can transfer the starter to our bread around the time when it is most active, called “at peak”, when it has expanded to its max size. A straight sided starter jar makes tracking this easy as you just mark the starting height on the jar with a rubber band and then watch for it to double or more in size.

Temperature is key to an active, healthy starter. For most bakers keeping your starter in the “Goldilocks Zone” of 75-82ºF (24-28ºC) is a good target. This temperature range is a good middle ground for encouraging both the yeasts and bacteria in the starter to multiply. It will create a starter with a mild sweet and sour profile. 

Stage 2: MIX INGREDIENTS (15-30min)

When your starter is ready, you can assemble your ingredients and mix them according to your recipe.

We are working with living ingredients when we make sourdough, and all living things require water to live. Adding water to our other ingredients is what starts all of the processes we are harnessing through the rest of the bake.

No matter what type of bread you are making, you want to be sure the dry ingredients are fully incorporated with the wet ingredients to avoid lumps and other issues.

Unlike yeast baking, you don’t need to knead a sourdough dough at this stage to develop the gluten. The longer proofing time of sourdough baking inherently develops gluten in the dough, so sourdough requires much less effort than a yeasted loaf. Kneading doesn’t hurt anything though so if you feel like taking your frustrations out on a lump of dough…go for it.

Stage 3: PROOF & STRENGTHEN THE DOUGH (4-12+ hours)

Typically, we proof our bread twice in sourdough baking. Stage 3 is the “bulk”, first proof when all of your dough is fermented together to develop flavor and the elastic-strength that allows it to puff up in the oven. It can last 4-12 hours or more depending on the temperature of your kitchen and the ingredients you are using.

The flavor of bread develops with time, as the enzymes and acids accumulate in the bread.

At the same time, we are trying to cultivate the elastic quality in our dough to capture the expanding gasses inside. Dough takes on this rubbery quality when it forms “gluten”.

As mentioned above, we don’t do much kneading to cultivate gluten in our sourdough dough. Time, water and sourdough acids cultivate a lot of gluten for us. We help it along by doing a few “stretch & folds” during this stage, spaced out throughout this stage. Basically, grabbing a side of our dough, pulling it up in the air until we feel tension, and flip back on itself a few times. You will feel the way your dough tightens with handling and then relaxes when left alone.

Judging the right time to end the bulk stage is an art that even experienced bakers constantly are refining. Using volume increase, like with our starter, is a good rough guide to know when to move to the next baking stage. Recipes will recommend anywhere from a 25-100% rise. Something like 50% is a good place to start. A dough that is ready will be lighter, full of bubbles, and have an elastic quality.

As you progress, you can make your own choices on how to balance the need to create flavor and gluten with the amount of handling to create the kind of bread you love.

Stage 4: SHAPE (a few minutes per loaf)

Once the dough has formed gluten and flavor, it is shaped into loaves. Typically, it is roughly shaped, allowed to rest, and shaped again, and then placed into a similarly shaped vessel like a banneton or a bowl.

The goal here is to create the shape of bread you want but also this is an important step to getting the puff you want in your bread.

While shaping you will want to learn to tighten and lock the outer skin of the loaf in place. A tight outer skin will puff more in the oven.

Stage 5: PREPARE TO BAKE (45min-a couple hours on the counter or 12-24hrs in the fridge)

Preparing to bake a shaped loaf of sourdough varies a lot depending on the style of bread you are making. A pan loaf is a bit different than an artisan loaf and very different from making bagels, pizza or a focaccia.

The overarching goal is to allow the dough to relax again before baking, to ferment longer to develop more flavor, and control the amount of potential energy that will be expressed as a puff in your loaf.

In the case of an artisan style bread, you will leave your shaped loaf to proof on the counter for 45min to perhaps a few hours depending on room temperature and how much you fermented it during the bulk stage. Or just stick in the fridge overnight and bake it sometime the next day.

Your loaf is ready to bake when it has relaxed again. If you left it out on the counter a rule of thumb is the “poke test”. Poke the dough with your finger, if the hole bounces back it is too soon. If the hole doesn’t fill in you are later, bake it as quickly as possible. What you want is a slowly filling hole.

Turn out the dough into your baking vessel.

Typically, you will score the bread before baking by making some slashes in the surface to allow the bread to expand in the oven.

Stage 6: BAKE (40min-80min depending on the recipe)

Baking transforms the dough into bread. For the first 12-20 minutes the dough will puff quickly as water becomes steam and the gasses in the loaf expand to fill out the gluten balloon (your loaf) you have created during the previous stages. This puff is called “ove spring”, it ends when the crust hardens.

To maximize oven spring, it is best to bake at a higher initial temperature in a moist environment. Home bakers use enclosed baking vessels like Dutch ovens and enamel roasters to enclose the bread in a moist environment. We also often add a spritz of water inside the vessel to further add moisture before baking.

After 20min the crust is set, and the rest of the bake is to allow the crust to brown and develop flavor while the interior becomes fully cooked.

Bake an artisan loaf until about 208ºF internal temperature and browned to your liking.

Stage 7: COOL (until cool to touch)

There is a vicious pleasure to tearing into a freshly cooked loaf, but it isn’t actually finished baking when it comes out of the oven.

As it cools, the inside of the bread completes cooking and the interior crumb is set.

Allowing a loaf of sourdough bread to fully cool gives it a more defined texture and lengthens its keeping qualities.

So, allow bread to cool until fully cool to touch.

And then tear into it with glee.