I tried my hand at making a starter years ago and it went poorly. I was gifted some starter earlier this week and have been bulking it up in order to bake some bread this weekend. The starter is MUCH better than any of the ones I’ve ever made, so Ive had high hopes all week that my sourdough will actually come out decent this time.
I’ve been following this recipe, and it’s been going…not well. Everything was weighed to the gram, including the starter, and “lukewarm” water was about 80ish degrees. The dough is so unbelievably sticky that I can barely scrape it off the sides of the bowl.
Is this normal? It’s been years since I’ve done this so I’m back to questioning everything. I’m planning to just drop the whole thing into a Dutch oven and cook it, but I understand that I’m deviating from the recipe. My Dutch oven cooks were just so much better.
Cna anyone provide a better recipe for just a basic sourdough boule that you’ve had decent success with? I’d really like to continue baking bread, but I know for a fact that I’ll wind up giving up again if I have too many failures (I think I baked 8 different times a few years ago, and I gave up because they were always so dense, and flat.). Really want something with a good, fluffy, stretchy crumb.
Any advice or questions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Yeah, it’s gonna be sticky. The ratios in that recipe are similar to my own recipe. It’s easier to work with if you wet your hands thoroughly. It should tighten up each time you give it a fresh fold, and by the time it’s fully risen, a dusting of flour should make it easy to work with floured hands.
I find that the dough tightens up nicely all at once if you combine the starter and water first, then mix in the flour, and let that sit covered for twenty minutes or be before adding salt and kneading that in; the salt causes the gluten to tighten up. Bread flour might also help there.