I have a recipe I like, sometimes I sub a portion of bread flour for wholemeal, other times I just use bread flour. I do like 4 stretch and folds, sometimes less. It proofs for anywhere between 3-6 hours (Australia, so warm here). I shove it in rhe fridge anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days before baking. I bake it for around 35 minutes covered at 230c, then 5-15 minutes uncovered at 200c.
I'm just after edible here, not after perfect. I guess I just want to see if other people are unserious about bread as I am.
by AgitatedMagpie
34 Comments
Yes. I wouldn’t be able to make bread if I couldn’t do it this way. They’re not pretty but they taste great. I have an 18 month old and watch my 2 year old nephew full time. No way I could do bread and handle them if I followed “rules” 🤪
Yes much the same – my only concession to taking it seriously is to weigh the flour and water, so that it’s easy to repeat when I’ve figured out what works best for whatever flour or mix I’ve chosen.
Yes. I use whatever flour I have, only weigh the flour and I’m very very relaxed about timings. I’ve made enough bread now that I can tell by the look and smell when dough is ready.
I measure with a cup my flour and water and use about half my jar of starter and use a mixer for most of the work. If it looks too runny I add flour, too dry I adf water.
No way I can commit to x fold after x minutes strictly. So I stretch and fold when I can.
It is always edible and much better than most bread I buy. The only problem is if I make a great loaf, I can’t reproduce it because I don’t know exactly what I did.
100% but tbf most ppl are too serious about weight without considering humidity and different flours requiring more water to hydrate.
I needed to read this… I got into this for the fun of it, am still building up my starter, but some posts here make it look like rocket science. Glad I’ll be able to make bread without revisiting my algebra!
I used to bake in bulk, build my own bread oven, sold it to the local restaurant, and lived by my timer. Now I just bake for us, I am way more relaxed, and even when it isn’t fit for the cover of a magazine the sandwiches are still excellent.
Well that looks good to me. Honestly once you know what good looks like you can experiment. Country loaves are very forgiving.
I measure with measuring cups. My scale broke a couple years ago and my feeling is if bread could be made for hundreds of years using starter and no scale it will work now as well.
I go by feeling, smell and the lazier the better. Then I go here or insta and everyone overcomplicates soooo much it hurts my head.
Yeah, me as well 1000 fuckin percent. I’ve posted pictures of my loaves on Instagram and such where I’ll get people that are like “sourdough is so intimidating, that looks beautiful”. So many people get caught up in what some social media influencer is saying and don’t understand that humans have been making bread for thousands of years. It does not have to be identical every time to get a good result.
Nope
I stopped following most rules and instructions and just go for it. My breads are turning out better the more I experiment and build my own confidence.
Sourdough is similar to horses…. it smells our fear.
I’ll still follow a recipe for specific inclusions, but over all my basic recipe is 100g starter, 500g bread flour, 10g salt, 350g liquid (either water or beer). Give or take depending on inclusions. 3-4 rounds of s&f, 8-12 hrs bulk, then 12+ hours cold. It works for me, but my house is kept cold 😅
Ah yes, ye old “until it looks and feels right” method. Been making good bread since bread has existed.
Yup. It’s all easy math and chucking stuff in a bowl sitting on a kitchen scale. I have a basic recipe I just play around with. It’s never terrible and usually amazing. 🙂
My toddler could eat a loaf of bread a day if we would let him. I’m just here to keep us from going bankrupt.
I had no idea how to make bread or sourdough starter so in 2024 I went to a one day workshop where they gave me a starter and a recipe. Since then I just follow the same recipe (I try to stick to the quantities though I like to add extra stuff like pumpkin seeds and rosemary!)
Now when it comes to letting the dough rise…I keep forgetting about it so I’m probably making super over proofed bread, but eh, it turns out fine. It looks okay and it tastes great.
Now in 2026 I decided to stick a plastic band over my sourdough jar to see if it ever doubles. I never checked before, I just fed it per the instructions I got at the workshop and used it when I wanted to make bread and it rises just fine 😅
Yup. I do rough measurements without a scale and just go by vibes lol. Works every time.
Rules are for beginners and commercial bakers 👌🏻
Yep! I say all the time that people did this on the Oregon trail…. It’s not that deep. This looks so tasty!
My starter is not a 1:1:1 or a 1:2:3 or in anyway a consistent ratio. I do use equal parts water and flour, but the starter part of it can be whatever I have in my jar.
Pretty much. Always comes out tasty
I moved countries and gave away most of my starter to a friend (“smuggled” 30g for myself), then shared with them my “standard” recipe/process, where everything is “usually”, “approximately”, some range for the flours, hydration, everything. They said (jokingly) how unscientific I was. I guess many have been convinced sourdough baking has rigid rules and variations are about precise optimization to one’s specific circumstances.
From my experience and experimentations, there’s a lot more leeway, unless you aim for that “perfect” crumb, ear, crust and everything, every time (whatever “perfect” means to you). I prefer to be adaptable and constantly learning.
Couldn’t tell you what my starter ratio is. I eyeball the amounts when I feed it. It’s happy and healthy and I bake twice a week.
I lurk on this Reddit quite a bit looking for tips and it’s served me well but it’s nice to see a post like this 😂 I wing it with my sourdough’s. I’ve started eyeballing more and I’ve had some pretty great loaves out of it so far. I also found using bakers percentages easier than following recipes.
Pretty much! I bake because I enjoy it but I’m also doing a half a dozen other things at the same time. While I understand people who chase perfection, many bread influencers make sourdough sound like rocket science. It reminds me of a guy I met at a dinner party who went on for like 10 minutes about the perfect ratio of oil to vinegar in a salad dressing. I wanted to stab him with my fork! Some people just take all the fun out of things.
Mostly by the seat of my pants here. I used to be very rigid about the whole process — exact measuring, timing every step, etc. All that care really didn’t pay off as much as I thought it would. I think it’s more important when you’re just getting started than in the end once you get a sense of things.
Same here. I took the 75% whole wheat recipe from the book “Salt, water, flour, yeast” and that’s it. My wife likes to try this and that, uses levain and all, but I just don’t bother.
It’s a very good bread and my family likes it. It just optimized the process by making a pre mixed flour box.
Same for pizza. I have one recipe, usually with poolish, and that’s it for me.
I look at it this way – people have been making sourdough for THOUSANDS of years. Long before digital scales and thermometers and electric ovens. Winging it is perfectly fine.
Yes, I have a base recipe/method that I prefer.
I do alter the starter amount based on what my kitchen temperature will be overnight for the bulk fermentation (5-30%). And I switch up which combination of flours I am using. But the method stays similar loaf to loaf – Autolyse, 2 hrs stretch and folds, bulk ferment overnight, shape, refrigerate 8-46 hours, Bake, Cool.
I had to change process when I switched to a high extraction flour, but I prefer this fresher flour from the mill and that it is like an already blended white + whole wheat flour. I actually had to get help from another baker here to sort out how to work with that specific flour because the grocery store flours never needed autolyse with the long fermentation I typically do.
Every now and then I will try out different baker’s recipes and in that case I will follow their methods closely the first time to see if there is anything substantially different in the bread outcome. But so far the weekly bread is the same method over and over.
Some of the other recipes I really like take more attention than I can give on a regular basis, even if they make a better bread than the weekly loaf 😀
I mean I am not as relaxed as you but essentially I also go very easy with the sourdough – even the feeding of my starter is like that. I think you can also “feel” when the bread isn’t going to bake well or the opposite, when the dough feels great. Same for the starter. I switch it up all the time and just go with the flours I have in stock and definitely don’t take it all too serious
Yep!!! I have adhd and just cannot manage all of the math and percentages and ratios, feels too tasky. I just go do whatever and hope for the best. So far have made delicious bread, sometimes it doesn’t rise as much as I hoped but always tastes great!
https://preview.redd.it/mdn60ewpk3ig1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ca77294a5c42f09444095b0fc34c10cdd077165
It’s fun but it’s also like trying to appease some finicky deity. Will they shine upon me and grant me an edible loaf? Or will they smite me with a gummy dense crumb? I never know but I always come back for more every week. What does that say about me? 🤣
I’ve been making sourdough for 7 years now.
I don’t bother weighing or measuring anything, just mix it all up and leave it for a day or 2. Cook it when it is bubbly. Don’t get much oven bounce, but it is always decent.
I go for decent with minimal effort, rather than faffing around trying to get it perfect.