Part I — How to Make Sourdough More (or Less) Sour (2024)

FAQs

Part I — How to Make Sourdough More (or Less) Sour? ›

If you like your bread to be less sour, use water at about 80˚F. If you like to increase the sourness, use warm water at about 90˚F to really get the yeasts and acid producers going.

A larger amount of bacteria will develop resulting in more sour flavored bread. Smaller Amount of Levain: Use a smaller amount of levain in your recipe. This will decrease the overall ph and give a more sour flavor to your bake.

Salt inhibits the acid producers more than the yeast, which means that once the levain is mixed into the main dough, the ability to produce acid is somewhat diminished.

If you have too much starter compared to the additional flour and water you're adding, your hungry starter consumes all the nutrients and then it's not as bubbly.

If you don't get rid of the excess, eventually you'll have more starter than your feedings can sustain. After a few days, your daily 1/4 cup flour and water won't be enough to sustain your entire jar of starter, and your starter will be slow and sluggish, not much better than discard itself.

The signature sourdough flavor comes from a combination of lactic and acetic acids, created as the dough rises and ferments. Refrigerating the dough encourages the production of more acetic acid, which is the tangier of the two. Thus, this bread with its refrigerated starter has the ideal balance of sour flavor.

Acetic acid, or vinegar, is the acid that gives sourdough much of its tang. Giving acetic acid-producing organisms optimal conditions to thrive and multiply will produce a more tangy finished product.

My starter is very acidic. How can I de-acidify it? Try feeding your starter a high feeding ratio (e.g., 1:5:5) and discard and refeed right after the starter rises and peaks. This is known as the “peak-to-peak” method.

What happens if you don't put salt in sourdough? ›

Without salt, your dough will rise faster than it normally would, leading to less flavor development and a weaker structure. To incorporate the salt, mix it with a few teaspoons of water. Return your dough to the mixer, tear it into three to six pieces, and drizzle the liquid on top.

The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour. Why do you need to use these two types of flour?

% levain to flour ratio. Typically 10% to 30%, depending on how long you want the dough to ferment.

More stretch and folds. Typically, people do about 3-5 stretch and folds in the process of making a loaf of sourdough bread. If you do 2-4 more of them, it helps produce a more sour dough.

stir your starter in between feedings - try stirring it twice in between feedings and really give it a chance to get oxygen into the mix. This will help to activate your starter without too much effort.

Never allow any form of metal such as a spoon or lid to come into direct contact with the stored, un-used sourdough starter as it will cause a chemical reaction that will contaminate and blacken the implement and eventually in time will kill (loose all activity) the starter and a blackish blue or pink liquid will ...

Use More Wholegrain Flours In Your Sourdough Starter & Dough

Wholegrain flours have more complex carbohydrates that encourage more acetic acid producing bacteria. Rye flour is a popular choice for making a sourdough starter because it creates a bubbly, active starter very quickly.

You can reduce the sour flavor by feeding your discard some fresh flour and water. At that point, it's more of an active starter than discard.

If you believe that your dough is slightly over-kneaded, try allowing it to rise a little longer before shaping it into a loaf. While you can't fully undo the damage of over-kneaded dough, letting the dough rise for longer can help relax the gluten in the dough a bit.