5 Reasons Why You Don't Succeed At Sourdough Baking | Part 1

Those are 5 likely reasons why you don't do as well in sourdough baking as you could do. I'll be showing 5 beginner mistakes that can easily be avoided and will make you a better sourdough baker.

This video is part of a series. We will be covering the whole process from start to finish chronologically. This is the first video and will focus on the foundation of baking.

Tools:
All the tools I use have been tested by me and have made me amazing bread. Consider using some of the below affiliate links if you want to support me. If not, just go to the website directly.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:15 Wrong technique for bread category
2:05 Calibrating the water amount
3:45 Not active enough sourdough starter
5:55 Too acidic sourdough starter
8:13 Not building enough dough strength
9:38 Outro

#sourdough

[the_bread_code]

Moin and Gluten Tag fellow hobby bakers. This video will be part of a series that is still in the making. What are the mistakes you notice other people doing very often? What was the piece of knowledge you wish you had known when you started baking? Please drop a comment and I'll make sure to add it to the video if I see fit. You all rock, happy baking and may ze gluten be with you!

[UrbanSikeborg]

P.S. And many thanks for not having any background music while you are talking. So many Youtubers drench their presentations in loud, monotonous music that only distracts and makes what should be a stimulating presentation an ordeal to try to listen to and learn from.

[CarlaTudor]

Moin Hendrik! I tried your 1-5-5 ratio this week and it works! Thank's for the tip, I did not think 10 grams would work, but it worked great. I leave it overnight and the next morning it rises out of the pot. I think the temperature of the weather, I am your neighbour from The Netherlands, can be credited too. Keep up the good work, I love watching you and hearing a bit of German from time to time.

[connectking]

Yep..your English is better than my German👍

[kristianseppanen]

I have watched a lot of sourdough videos last couple of years and your videos have the answer to so many questions that I had, like I've had success rate of maybe 70% but now I maybe know how to improve it. So thank you a lot! Greetings from finland

[kellykinetic]

My new found piece of insight is to be gentle with the folds esp towards the end. We don't want to extinguish too many of those wonderful bubbles within the boule!!

[tsunami]

Best advice from my experience baking sourdough bread is to be aware of your room ambient temperature. Fermentation is dependent on that. Most people will have a room temperature of about 70-75 degrees F, my room temperature is 82-85 degrees F. This drastically shortens the fermentation time and I learned I had to adjust for that or else my dough would overferment and get really sticky. Another piece of advice is what Bread Code said about the different hydration of various flours. I found adding whole grain whole wheat/bread flour to my dough allowed me to handle my dough better and made it less sticky.

[jankuni]

Thank you for this video. It was very helpful. You covered topics that other bakers don’t cover. I hope one day I’ll be able to make beautiful breads like you.

[harrypeacefulwarrior]

Bravo, Sir! Thank you! I'm a Beginner, just started last March. Your tip about reducing the hydration sounds like a key issue, with my almost good Oven Spring. I have slavishly measured everything, as you describe, but, only have one Facebook friend who also bakes sourdoughs and ryes. Thank you! Danke! I'm looking forward to more, shared this with a friend I just shared my Starter with.

[baileysizzle]

Vielen Dank! Ich habe viel von deinen Videos gelernt. Your English is so good! I wouldn't worry about it at all. Thanks again!

[anacarolinapekny]

Your videos are awesome, very informative! Greetings from Brazil!

[chezaraeyothers]

Really been enjoying your contract, thanks for your work! It's Friday which means tomorrow is Sourdough Saturday!!

[georgehibberd]

Top tips for me was knowing that there was such a thing as over-fermentation and the great techniques of how to handle a high-hydration dough on this channel.

[aaraguz]

I needed you engineering aproach to bread making. Maybe because I'm an engineer myself I couldn't get explanations talking about the "feel of the dough". I needed facts to understand the whole process, so I'm glad to have bumped into your videos. Viele Dank!

[richardfenngriffin]

The video is so informative - thank you! I made a sourdough last night/this morning but it came out looking like a flat tyre. I think your video has pointed m me to the problem which is my starter is too acidic. In now going to change the ratio to 1:5:5 and see if that produces something better looking. Love the videos they are very informative.

[TechforSenior]

Great Video. I have problems with lack of oven spring and too acidic taste. I will change my feeding ratio. Thanks.. I subscribed.

[markthomasson]

Living in Scotland it is a bit cool for getting the starter really active. This time I put the jar in a warm water bath, frothed up just like you show. Also good boy and weighed out properly. Though still not managed to stop it spreading, had to you a backing tin and it was fine.
Thanks

[UrbanSikeborg]

Thank you, Sir, much appreciated. One thing that took some time for me to learn was why I couldn't just reuse all the starter I kept in the fridge and add flower and water to that. Felt like a waste to discard high-quality flour like that. I noticed the starter was a bit more sour but didn't know that this acidity had been breaking down the gluten net in the starter. In recipes with larger quantities of starter (like 250 grams instead of 50), reusing the entire starter (+ feeding) meant that the flour from the old starter couldn't develop much gluten anymore, plus the "acid load" from the starter was too high and inhibited the fermentation, so the bread degassed.
I bake one wheat bread once a week. 24 hours before, I take just one tablespoon of the old starter, feed that spoonful with twice or three times the weight in flour and water. Once it's bubbly and happy after some eight hours, I repeat this process. The following morning the starter has tripled in sized, ready to use.
I also appreciated that you emphasized how the properties of the flour used affect the bread. I've tried various recipes, in the beginning following them slavishly to the gram and minute, only to realize that the flour I use (an organic stone-milled wheat and ditto spelt, with 11% protein) demands various tweekings of the recipe in terms of water content, kneeding and prooving times.
Oh, and I'd never throw away any starter discard! I store it in a separate jar in the fridge and make pancakes or other things with it occasionally.

[kirstenholder]

Goeie more!! just finished my exams for the term and now I will bake sourdough Also I love this recipe

[kallebuchholz]

Das ist das Video was ich brauche. Ich habe vor drei Jahren angefangen zu backen und seit circa einem halben Jahr (chinesische Quarantänenzeit) versuche ich mich an Sauerteigbrot. Zu Beginn folgte ich blind Internet Rezepten und das Ergebnis war mal so mal so. Die Information die ich brauche, sind also genau diese: welche Variablen gibt es und wie ich sie meinen Umständen an. Einer meiner Umstände ist zum Beispiel, dass es dir jeden Tag um die 35° warm ist. D.h. alles fermentiert hier wie eine Rakete.