4 Sourdough Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid

These are 4 mistakes you can easily avoid when making sourdough bread. After watching this video you will know how to spot the mistakes and how to avoid them.

The mistakes we are having a look at:

1) Underfermented. You didn't ferment your sourdough bread for long enough.
2) Lack of dough strength. Knead your dough more or reduce the water amount
3) Underbaked. You need to bake your bread longer
4) Severely overfermented. You pushed the fermentation for too long. Your bread becomes very flat and the dough is sticky.

#sourdough #bread

[philme]

I like that "reading the crumbs" has the feeling of a peer review where another scientist has to make sense of and interpret the data. And yet it is also like an art critique, because merely pointing out flaws can be soul crushing for the creator if it doesn't feel like the criticism is "on your side" trying to help. This is a great communal way to learn.

[miric]

What a great idea to critique commenters’ bread. Nice service you’ve provided to all of us. Thanks!

[Wdelhagen]

Thanks Hendrik and thanks to all the folks who submitted pics. I'm always trying to be a better proof sleuth with my bread post-mortems and these examples help me calibrate my fermentation detection skillz. Please keep doing this!

[mrgreenbudz]

Good morning and thank you for all your videos and help. You are correct that even if your loaf isn't a masterpiece it is 100 times better than store-bought bread. My breads are slowly getting better and better with each one I feel. I still have a long way to go. Thank you again.

[Adrian-wwjj]

This is exactly the clinic I just needed. Thank you a lot for this video.💯

[ScrapHappy]

This is one of the most helpful videos I’ve found to help me figure out what’s been going wrong. Thank you!!

[newtkeeper]

Thank you for putting the Fahrenheit value!!! So cool.

[carolcheung]

Thank you so very much for diagnosing various samples of sourdough bread. I have so many failures but I didn't give up.

[j]

I have baked that first loaf a ton of times. Flat and disappointing. My issue was using my levain before the peak. I now always wait until I see my levain start to fall and have never baked like the first loaf again. This would be my number one tip.

[clarabartha]

Love this style of video in reviewing bread submission issues!

[turuanu]

I've been watching videos on sourdough for more than a year, but you really only learn by hands-on baking. I bake with 100% whole grain by grinding my own soft wheat. It's the best I can find here in Costa Rica. I recently had a breakthrough with your video on stiff starter. Now, I just may have understood why my bread is not really domey, though delicious and fluffy. I revive the stiff starter at 9. By 11 it's doubled. I make the dough around noon. I do all the stretches and folds, let it grow until 6pm, then put it in the fridge until the following morning. I must say we turn off the fridge at night because we have problems with the solar panel batteries. Anyway, in the morning I shape the loaves, wait for them to almost double, I bake... and they're flat. Today I just used the starter straight from the fridge at 3pm, did the 3 or 4 folding, at 6 I'll put it in the fridge for more than 12 hours, then shape and bake it. I can't wait to see if it makes a difference!

[ShathaAz]

I appreciate your existence. Thank you so much 🌷.

[innik]

Hello! So based on the big air pockets, does it mean that chiabatta bread is also underfermented? Thank you.

[freeheeler]

I’ve learned a lot from your videos! Thanks!

[ExperimentalistBrewing]

I loved this and miss your videos reviewing the sourdough reddit! Also your URL is genius, and really made me laugh. 😀

[francinekeane]

Thanks once again Hendrik great video. One question not related. Would adding malt syrup molasses or honey add to overall hydration?

[rlwalker]

Thanks again for all the information and hints.

[MichaelRei]

Gluten Tag! Can you do a video showing the correlation between ambient temperature and percentage of rise necessary to properly ferment the dough. Thanks

[candywalker]

When you say “underfermented” do you mean after the flours, water, salt and starter are mixed, you’ve done your stretch and folds or coil and folds? (I assume). You don’t mean not letting your starter rise/work long enough. Thanks for all your help!

[malyhard]

Hello! How to known when stiff starter is ready / active? I converted my starter to a stiff according to your scheme then i made two loafs with my regular starter and stiff. I used 20% regular and 15% stiff. After 7 hours on my regular starter dough doubled in size but with stiff maybe 10-15%. After 9 hours i couldn't wait any longer so i put in into fridge. Next day i wanted to end bulk fermentation in room temperature and after 3-4h my dough was overfermented and gluten has been eaten but the sample showed maybe 30% incrase. I was feeding starter 3 days and after last feed i used it after 5 hours. Maybe too early? BTW. My yesterday's breads would fit this thread. They was without strength and came out flat but with pretty good ears. :D