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.

The ideal dough temperature for most breads, post-kneading, is in the 75°F to 78°F range. Water temperature: The higher the temperature of fully kneaded dough, the more likely your resulting bread will be more (rather than less) sour.

Sourdough bread is one of the most difficult to make, especially for beginners. Instead of making it the “long way,” you can make a sour-flavored loaf by simply adding vinegar. And, it turns out, adding a bit of vinegar can make for an overall bouncier loaf.

So don't leave your dough in a warm oven, on a radiator or in sunlight. It will likely be too warm and will dry out your dough too. Instead, find a cosy spot, with no drafts, for your dough to rise. And, if your sourdough starter is struggling to get going, consider finding it a warmer spot too.

It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening. Feed the starter. Add 60 g flour and 60 g lukewarm water, stir well to combine, and let sit out for 24 hours.

Apple Cider Vinegar: Again this has to be from a live culture apple cider vinegar. I make my own, you can learn about how to make your own vinegar here. Or you can use a brand such as Bragg's which uses live starter. Add half a cup of cider and half a cup of white flour and mix together.

In order to strengthen your sourdough starter try and give it flour only for one or two feeds. This will make the mixture stiffer. If your starter is quite runny, it should be easy to stir the extra flour into the mixture. If it seems a little stiff, it will loosen up as it eats and ferments the flour.

For most bakers, the answer is a clear no. Maurizio Leo, author of the award-winning bread cookbook The Perfect Loaf, still uses the first starter he ever made; it's now 12 years old. And while he's sentimental about that starter, he says its age doesn't really impact his bread.

What can I add to my sourdough to make it more sour? ›

Using wholegrain flour in your sourdough starter will make your sourdough bread more sour. You can choose to use all wholegrain flour, or a blend. What is this? Wholegrain flours have more complex carbohydrates that encourage more acetic acid producing bacteria.

A sourdough starter is made up of wild yeast and bacteria working together. The bacteria is where the sour flavor is coming from! Lactic Acid Bacteria are most active in the mid 80-90 degrees F, but that speeds up the wild yeast which prefer a more mild temperature of mid 70s F.

The more starter you use, the faster your dough will ferment - resulting in a less sour loaf. Of course the amount of starter is actually a ratio in relation to the flour - so 50g of starter to 500g of flour will ferment at a much slower rate than 200g of starter to 500g of flour.

If you over-ferment the dough you run the risk of the gluten structure degrading and the loaf turning into a puddle of goo before your eyes, never to be retrieved and destined for the bin. I would say that more often or not I underproof my dough, I live on what I consider to be, the “safe” side.

The most common issue is not kneading enough between rises. The yeast cannot float through the dough, so it has to just eat the flour near it. If it exhausts that supply, it's stuck. Kneading the dough a bit - and it doesn't take much - puts the yeast and bacteria back in touch with fresh food.

You can cold ferment or cold proof your sourdough overnight because the cold temperature of the fridge stops the dough from over fermenting. If you were to leave your shaped dough on the counter overnight, you'd wake up to a soupy mess (unless it was freezing in your home).

Feed Your Starter Less (Stir In The Hooch)

If you want to make your sourdough more sour, then you need to stir the hooch into your starter when you feed it, rather than pouring it off. It's safer to starve a more mature starter. You do need to be careful not to let it go too far - so keep an eye on it.

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.

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.