My Beginner Sourdough Routine (That Fits a Busy Life)
A lot of sourdough tutorials make it sound like you need a bakery schedule, monk-level patience and a degree in fermentation sciences.
You don’t. You just need… life that has pockets of time.
My Sourdough Philosophy
I call this routine: “Good enough for delicious bread.” Not perfect. Not artisan. Just reliably yummy bread for real humans.
Tools I Actually Use
A jar for starter
A large, glass bowl
A kitchen scale (optional, but is extra helpful when it comes to baking bread)
A Dutch oven (or baking sheet + steam tray)
Parchment paper
A bowl scraper (or a bench scraper)
That’s it. No stress gadgets.
Feeding Schedule
I keep a small starter in the fridge 95% of the time.
Night before baking:
Pull from fridge
Feed equal parts flour + water (about 50g each)
Leave out overnight
Next morning:
Starter should be bubbly + active. Time to bake! (To see if your starter is ready to use, do the float test– drop a dime-size bit of starter into a cup with cold water and see if it floats.)
Basic Beginner Loaf
Look, if I’m taking two days out of my life to make bread, I’m making more than one loaf. I always double the recipe (but recently I’ve even quadrupled it and put loaves in the freezer for later). I know this is a beginner recipe, but the amount of ingredients doesn’t impact the ease/difficuty of making the bread in my opinion. The below ingredients are for two loaves. You’ll thank me later! (You can always half the ingredients if you would rather just make one.)
Ingredients
800g bread flour
200g whole wheat flour
600g warm water
100g active starter
25g fine sea salt
Steps
In the evening, mix the starter and water in a large bowl then add the flours and salt. Mix everything till shaggy. Then mix by hand for about three or four minutes, mixing and folding until the flour is fully incorporated with no dry parts. The more you work it, the more hydrated it will get. The dough will be sticky.
Cover the bowl with a damp towel or shower cap for 30 minutes.
Complete at least three sets of stretch and folds, letting the dough rest 30 to 45 minutes between each set. This helps activate the gluten, so I typically try to do five or six sets if I can. If not, no biggie!
After the last fold, cover and let bulk ferment overnight. You will know when the dough is ready when it shakes, has some bubbles and is about doubled in size (you can mark the bowl with tape the night before to help with this).
Once the dough is ready the next morning, pour it out on a floured surface. Cut the dough in half.
With moist fingers (I find it easiest to have a small bowl of water near me to keep them wet as I work), stretch the dough into a rectangle shape. Then stretch the dough towards you and fold it up to meet the center and gently press down. Rotate and continue all the way around the dough. Using a bench or bowl scraper, flip the dough over and let it rest for 10 minutes.
Line a bowl or flour a banneton. Clear residual flour from the work surface, and spritz with water to dampen to help the dough grip the surface. Cup your hands and pull the dough towards you, working all the way around the dough. It should form a dome-like shape with taught skin. Flour hands as needed as the dough will be sticky. Then dust it with flour and flip it over, bottom side up, into the banneton or bowl with the scraper. Sprinkle the bottom with flour. Let rise for 30 to 45 more minutes.
Set the oven to 500F. Place a sheet pan or pizza stone on the bottom shelf to help protect the bottom of the loaf from burning. Use parchment paper leaving enough around the edge to transfer the bread in and out of the pot.
Score the dough with a lame. You don’t have to do anything fancy! Just about a half an inch deep is fine. You can also make cuts with scissors, which gives the loaf a dino scale look!
Place the bread on the middle rack in the oven with the lid on, reducing the heat to 450F and baking for 20 minutes. Then remove the lid and continue baking for another 15 to 20 minutes (for one loaf).
Don’t do all the work for two days and then ruin it by immediately cutting into it! Let it cool completely, which typically takes an hour or more. For bread that I’m freezing, I slice it and put it in a ziploc bag.
What I Do With Discard
Pretzel bites
Pancakes/waffles
Granola
Coffee cake
Molasses cookies
Pumpkin bars
And potentially my favorite– pizza dough
Honestly? Discard is the best part.
Why Sourdough is Scrunchy
It’s slow, intentional, and homemade…but it also lets you work around your life.
It’s okay to:
refrigerate the dough if you need to leave
adjust feeding times
use AP flour if that’s what you have
Your sourdough should fit you, not the other way around.
