High Hydration Sourdough- Top Tips for Working with it! | Baker Bettie 

Thank you Bettie! You are a great instructor!

I love how you continually iterate its progress, not perfection. Makes everything seem so approachable

VERY helpful video. I learned a lot.

Clear, informative and concice. Well done!

Tip #6 is what I needed to hear. I’ve been flouring the top too. Thank you for the tip!!!

Your tips sounds very helpful, thanks for sharing and I will try it!

Thank you for the tips, you answered some questions I have had for a long time.

This is really well made. Thank you for the focused explanations it's really helpful.

Love your tips. Thank you!!

This was very helpful! Thank you :))

Hi Bettie, a fan from Brazil here! You’re a fantastic teacher and sourdough just became easier with your instructions! One thing I still struggle with is how to be sure any bread is ready to go into the oven… watched your poke test but am not confident yet and do sometimes end up with a flat bread… really grateful!!

Thank you, very informative and helpful video! 🌺

Thank you! I’m going to try these steps!!

Excellent tutorial chef 👍👌👏. Thank you for your effort 🌞🌹😎

Wow, thank you! You are really brilliant at this. 🙂🙂😊😊😊

Thanks bettie. Your the best

Thank you for this. I love your clear, detailed instructions. A rarity on RU-vid, but so very valuable.

Great tips thank you! And I just love your bowls in the background 😉

Thanks again Bettie love the way you teach us 👍😀🌹

Thank you Baker Bettie; I’ve learned so much from your sourdough videos. You’re a good teacher 👩🏻‍🍳

My favorite are 82% hydration. Been working with sd for 6 years now. Bake one loaf weekly. My girl loves sd loaf for her breakfast n toast. Really love your videos 👍

thanks for sharing with such great knowledge of this. really refreshing and exciting

Thank you!

Always helpful!

Excellent! Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for this video ❤️

Amazing tips!!!

This is super helpful. Thankyou from a very nervous novice in Australia

Thank you

Hi Baker Bettie, I am having so much fun learning from you! While I await the arrival of your book…I’ve been making your beginner sourdough loaf and get completely consistently perfect results! I’d like to try taking the next step and try to increase the hydration. Do you have another video/recipe like the beginner loaf? Got lots of great tips from this video, but Im just wondering if you have an actual separate recipe since apparently it should be stretched and folded more times? Thank you!!

Thank u for this info! My biggest problem is squatty loafs

Hi Bettie, I've learned a lot from watching you. Love all your vintage pyrex bowls! One question-how deep should I score my Sourdough?

Thankyou for the tips on high hydration. I am making wholegrain spelt sourdough 85 percent hydration. I'm really having trouble with first shape...it won't hold its shape. The bread is delicious but without much rise. Any hints for me. I loved your section on working with high hydration.. Thx

Just finding your playlist on sourdough and It has been more helpful than any other articles I have used! I have one question....you mention 2 times of shaping......I thought you only shaped after your turns once then let the second proof do the rest of the work? When would be a second shaping? TY!

I love this channel, and specially the sour dough series. But, I have another tip that will make or brake your high hydration dough: Protein content of the Flour. Specially for people that have no access to king Arthur all purpose. The higher the protein, the higher the hydration limit.

Thank you for all these tips! I got confused about one thing…I’ve been using your no-knead recipe for awhile but I’m realizing with higher hydration I need to do stretch-and-folds. Does doing those affect the initial bulk fermentation time? Should it be shorter since the stretch-and-folds are doing the work of building the gluten? Thank you!

❤️❤️❤️

Thank you so much for your sourdough videos. They have been most helpful. After you score the refrigerated dough, do you have to let it come to room temperature before putting in the dutch oven, or does it go in cold?

Hi Betti!!! After we take the bread from the fridge, do we have to wait for the dough to get to room temperature? Do we score the bread when is cold? I’m confuse about all these. Thank you so much for your work ❤

New to sourdough, and for some reason decided that a 85% hydration range would be where I would start. Heckin’ hard. I’ve made some really delicious bread, but my shaping is waaaay below par. Thankfully, (I’m making boules in a Dutch oven) the bread is rising and is lovely. Just, damn, it’s HARD to shape.

@Baker Bettie : Just out of curiosity, instead of discarding a portion of your starter, couldn't you just take a portion of that day's starter, feed it and use that in your recipe when it reaches its peek?

Hi Bettie, a fan from Southern Illinois! Have you come to the conclusion that it is BETTER to pre-heat your Dutch Oven, even though not pre-heating does work? I'm on Day 5 of your starter recipe, still waiting for some "action" from my new pet "Lucy!" Thanks for all your help!

I’m sorry for missing a little math here… what hydration level is the 1:3:3 you mention in your maintenance feeding for starters? (In another video’s info). I don’t know how to figure hydration level. Maybe I missed a video on that …

Does catching the bulk-fermentation right help in shaping/handling the dough? or irrespective it is going to be difficult handling high-hydration doughs?

Learning how to make sourdough bread has been on my bucket list for a long time but I have never been able to give it the time until now. I am 70 (officially 69 until next Wednesday), retired and ready to now meet the challenge. I have thrown away at least five starters that were complete FLOPS! I went from channel to channel watching the myriad of ways that people make the starter, and even tried a few (the flops) before I found your series and knew I was “home”. I appropriately named my starter “Betty” and I listened intently through the whole series before I began. I started yesterday (Friday) so that I could hopefully bake the bread next weekend. Let me start by saying this is not my first time in the kitchen! I am an accomplished cook and have never had a recipe so difficult that I could not successfully make it! That is why I am SO FRUSTRATED that I am having such a hard time with this - it’s flour and water for goodness sake! Yesterday was no different. I weighed and I measured, I did everything right!! I had previously surmised that perhaps my house was too cold. I keep it at 73 degrees and have been unable to find a place in my kitchen that is warmer. My refrigerator is built in so no room above it. Aaaha! My lower oven had to be the answer to my quandary. I rarely use it so there would be no danger of accidentally turning it on. So I carefully placed Betty in the oven, closed the door, turned on the oven light and left it without a glance until this morning when I opened the oven door to a waft of heat hitting me in the face and the glass sides of my container were so hot that I needed a potholder to get it out! My starter looked like a cake mix looks in the pan when it is just set and the top was completely glazed over. It was 173 degrees in the oven and that temp was taken after I had turned off the lights and had the door open for a short time. Betty, still in her infancy, thrown in the garbage like all of her previous predecessors! The only thing I can come up with is (1) the lower oven is a smaller oven, and (2) and most importantly for others to know, the new ovens today have not one but two larger WARMING lights that I am assuming are made to keep foods hot when cooking in stages like frying chicken, etc. So here I sit, now second guessing my initial decision to toss Betty in the garbage. Did I make the right decision, Betty? How warm is too warm for a starter in its infancy to survive. I have decided that I am next going to leave the kitchen and put Betty2 in my walk-in closet. Very little air conditioning enters there unless I open the door. So watch out bakers before you put your starter in the oven. Make sure the lights are not generating more heat than your starter can stand.

Do you stretch & fold until you pass the window payne test?

Crust is so tough in my sourdough. How can I remedy this?

Hey Betty

Hasn’t high hydration become a way of showing off? Is 85% hydrated bread always better than 70% hydrated? Surely this is also a question of what type and quality of flour you use. I recently wrecked a bread made with a low-protein ‘heritage wheat’ flour by over hydrating it.

Truth be known… I would start with 100% hydration dough. It’s easier to go down in hydration than it is to go up. There is a completely different technique for low hydration dough than is required for high hydration dough.

..non of this will help you if the protein content in your flour is poor...10% useless...high quality high protein flour is a must.