Revolutionize Your Sourdough: The Zero-Waste, Starter-Free Method 

Gluten Tag. Too long, didn't watch: Take a bit of your old bread dough. Feed it with a bit of flour/water. Use less of this mixture if you plan to bake further away in the future. The older the preferment, the lower the inocculation rate is. You can read the full book's content for free at www.the-sourdough-framework.com/. If you like, we are currently working on a hardcover version of the book which is available for pre-order and will ship in early 2024. You can read some details here: breadco.de/hardcover-book

I always appreciate the humor you incorporate in your videos, but the saw sound clip while you cut the loaf utterly destroyed me! 🤣🤣🤣

I absolutely love having lots and lots of discard! I spackle my walls with it! my whole house smells like sourdough!!

I bake bread every 7-10 days and to take care of my starter I use a method that I've discovered on YT. I keep about 50ml of starter in the fridge (I don't measure it its just a gestimate). When I want to bake I take all the starter out into the bowl add 150g of water and 150g of rye flour. I leave it in a covered bowl for 3 hours. Then I take about 50ml of the now bigger starter and place back into the fridge in a new clean glass jar. Then I proceed with making the bread. If the starter gets hungry I give it a table spoon of rye flour and little bit of water to make a thick paste. I leave it then on a counter losely closed for about 3-4 hours and put it back into the fridge. This way I never throw any starter away and it stays strong and doesn't smell (well just a little).

I just wanna say thanks.... My starter has been consistently lazy... it works but was never really that happy with it.... I went to your 1-5-5 and amazing transformation.... it just rocks... makes me a happy baker...

I have left a smidge of your stiff starter in a closed jar in the refrigerator, and it makes preferment just fine .... after months of no feeding. Anything too crusty gets scraped off and goes into compost - no waste there. I still keep some dehydrated starter in a vacuum sealed bag in the freezer, but I now think it is overkill given how resilient the stiff starter is. Thanks for giving me the gift of sourdough without fear.

I've been making bread like this in the beginning, but my starter had become much less active and my bread came out worse, even though my technique was improving. Luckly by chance my aunt got a hold of some fresh starter from a local sourdough bakery and gave me some. I realised then my starter was the problem and learned that i need to strenghten my starter every couple of month by feeding it at room temperature peak to peak 4-5 times, otherwise the balance of the microbes became off. I think you didn't encounter this issue because you bake so much :P but for someone who makes bread every 1-2 weeks, this is a vital piece of information. Inoculating less starter won't solve the problem in my experience, because the balance of the microbes changes too slowly that way, feeding it peak to peak for 2 day, 2-3 times a day makes a big difference and is my preferred method. Otherwise, great video and i agree, we should make less discard starter as a community. The small discard i produce every couple months with the room temperature feedings is not waste, I store it in the fridge, feed it 2:1:1, wait for it to rise and I fry it in a pan with some onions and cheese, it's a great snack.

Hallo! I started making my Sauerteig few days ago... I used bread flour (didn't have whole...), today was the 3rd day of feeding and it doubled in size after 5 hours already... i cant wait to bake my first sourdough bread. I learned a lot from you.... Danke schön 🙏🙂

...thank goodness I found you...I have only wasted a few days going down a number of rabbit holes...I too am an engineer (wastewater funnily enough) and appreciate your logical approach...

The only reason people were ever throwing starter away came down to influencers teaching them to do so. It’s purely and simply a failure to truly understand your subject. I’ve been baking my family’s bread, all sourdough, for over 5 years and have never once thrown away starter.

The impression was amazing! More content, of any kind, as long as it is you! Super funny

Gluten tag to you too! Congrats on the book! Especially during Corona time I non stop binged watched your videos (while trying to bake my own perfect whole wheat daily breads), They are still giving me so much information, thank you and please do keep them coming. Because of all the baking and the hour long pre heating of the oven, our utility bills skyrocketed during that time. And now with the gas prices going through the roof ever since last year, I was wondering, have you ever tried to make a decent bread in an Air fryer? More specifically the ninja 14-1 device, in my defence it even has a steam bread and a proving option. If you haven't could you please give it a try? Because I'd love to see how you would do it! Again Love you videos!

I can't wait for your Sourdough book to arrive!!!

Wow. Thank you!

My grandma baked her bread using this method. Never wasted a bit in 50 years of baking. Sadly, we are not horrified anymore at the idea of wasting precious stuff. Sorry about my english

Well, now we’ve arrived. WOW!!! It answers many questions. I still have that worry though, in the back of my mind, about not contaminating my original starters with anything but white flour. It’s something I was taught decades ago and never forgot. I hope it’s really true you can just mix all the flours including rye (which is so different) into the starter and it will be fine in the fridge without catching mold. If you want to duplicate the bread ratios (as stated in the video) with water, salt etc… it must be ok with the flours too. I’m just chicken or afraid of ruining my 150+ year old starter… Thanks for this video and the book!

Henrik, your discard load is one of the most delicious loaves ever, so I'll make discard just to make that list! 😅

Howdy! Missed ya but I knew you were up to something super-good!

Gluten tag Heinrich: I have a couple of questions for you. 1. I recently bought a dough sling. It works pretty well so far but I am wondering if using it allows steam to escape thereby impacting oven spring? I think this happens when the flaps of the sling are sort of left hanging over the outside of the DO. Should I pop the flaps into the DO and let the lid settle in as it would without the sling ? 2. When one speaks of over or under proofing what exactly are we talking about? Is it the time the dough is in bulk-ferment or when it is proofing in the refrigerator or both combined?

Now this is genius

kinda related to "zero waste", another thing I recommend doing is drying old, leftover bread and using it to bake new bread. you get crust flavor in your crumb that way!

New to channel. Enjoying it very much. Can you make a video using grains? I'd like to mill "strong flour" which grain do we use? Do we sift? How much protein is in each berry etc.

Where you gone for 2 months . We missed you!❤

Hello, thank you for yet another bit of sourdough wisdom! What’s got my curiosity peaking though, is the part in the end. Hot sauce with sourdough starter vinegar water!! We surely need a video on that! Also, would love to know more about your beekeeping endeavour. How does it help to cultivate new starters? This sounds like an opening into a whole new wormhole!

Hi love your videos and tips, One question, do you include the water and flour in the starter in the overall hydration of the bread, Cheers Keith 🍞

Can you please make video about Borodinski bread ? From start to finish.Thanj you for your videos,I enjoy watching and learning

Hi Hendrik, i'm just new to sourdough baking and to your channel (and website/blog). I'm binge watching and reading to catch up LOL - loving it. If you're up for it, I have a potential challenge for you. I recently had hemp flour sourdough and it was incredible (was baked in a large loaf pan). Have you made a hemp flour loaf before? As a newbie, I am trying to source a recipe to try and replicate this hemp flour sourdough loaf (no luck yet). What ratios of flour(s), what hydration level, etc? - it's all a bit beyond me at this stage 🙂. Interested? Any tips for me to follow? Thanks Hendrik for your all your hard work. Hope you can help.

Hi @the_bread_code, thanks for the great video! I don‘t fully understand yet why you‘re creating a mini starter instead of directly using the pâte fermentée. IIUC, the way you scale to longer times between bakes is by reducing the amount of starter in the dough, but I guess you could do that in both cases; and when baking the same recipe again, a piece of old dough is exactly the ratio you’d want in your starter anyways. Is there a difference between pâte fermentée and mini starter that I‘m missing?

Thanks!

I just keep using from my starter until it's almost gone, then I feed it. Great results every time. Not sure why people bother with all the other nonsense.

5/7 -- Microbe Impersonation ("Ohhh! I don't like this! I've never seen salt! I don't know what it is!"). Excellent impersonation. You got me feeling frightened! Great facial expression. Are you a professional??!! Leaving 1 available point for working on slightly tapered vocalization at the end - to keep up the anguish. Leaving 1 point for someone else to possibly beat this.

That's what my wife's late aunt used to do. She just kept a portion of the previous bread dough in the fridge. The difference is that she kept a handful of it and just kept it on an open plate, uncovered...

I followed you a while back and I became a bit of a fan and I have past your knowledge onward. These days I make only pizza dough but is high hydration with a long fermentation My guest (I host for a number of sites) find my pizzas amazingly good. When asked I give my detailed recipes away. I thank you for your brilliant advice and I can yours some of that information you have given here.

Just wondering if this method works with 100% whole wheat, as well! If not, we will have to send you “back to the drawing board” to perfect it for 100% whole wheat as well!! Thanks for all your work!!!!

Can you do some videos on Einkorn sourdough? I love it, but still a scared novice. I waste so much flour feeding my starter every week & discarding excess (because i was told to do that). I also waste alit of four naking the bread because it is so wet & different to work with. Only made liaves a few times. There's got to be a better way. You seem to kniw yoyr stuff so thought I'd ask you. Thanks for your time & consider!

Thanks very much for this. It's very revealing!! 😂 One question: I bake every 2 weeks so I would go for halfway from the 30days. However once I've mixed my pâté fermentée should I immediately put it in the fridge or leave it out for it to start fermenting overnight? The video shows that what you are putting in the fridge already has bubbles so that's why I'm thinking it may need room temperature fermentation first. Look forward to hearing from you.

Great video as always, can't wait for my book to arrive! Cheers. I have been using a no-waste method for a while now; I make both sourdough and bakers' yeasted breads so my starter can be in the fridge for up to a month between making sourdoughs (especially if i go on holiday etc). In the past, if it was looking a bit dry and smelly in the fridge (but i wasn't going to be used for baking right away) I would take it out, feed it a bit (maybe up to 50 g) then the next day put 10 g back in the fridge for storage. Are you saying (in your video) that rather than feeding it like this I could just cover it with water to prevent it drying out? If so how long could I keep it in the fridge like this? Would it survive a few weeks whilst I was on holiday? Cheers! 🍻

Question: by manipulating the bacteria and yeast present in your starter, like making lactic acid more dominant in a liquid starter, does it also affect the amount of gluten broken down? Like it won’t be as better for people with gluten intolerance as “regular” sourdough?

Can you use vital wheat gluten to strengthen weaker protein flours I know you can do it with plain flour would this make a difference in making the sourdough?

How does this compare in flavor compared to your stiff starter?

Wow thermomix congratulation , salut Alex 🤣🤣🤣you are too funny -I got lost when you talk with a lot of numbers 😢( failed math in school )can you theorize sourdough panettone please - panettone is the king of sourdough bread -❤I love German accent and jokes

What if I like adding olive oil to my dough? Can I still save a small piece to make subsequent batches?

Can this please be a blog post!? I want to use this but its slightly confusing and Id need to see it in writing to fully understand and think it through. Seems like an ideal solution along with keeping a starter in the fridge just in case. But i don't feel like I fully understand even though I've watched a few times. And Im only kind of dumb.

It totally happened to me, that I used and baked ALL of my starter 🙈 Never do the pate fermente method without a backup.

You are the most German person I've ever seen haha, in the kindest way. Groeten van je buurman!😂

what is the starter for the initial loaf?

My Tante used to bake about 1x/week. On the day she baked she would make her dough and before shaping loaves, she would cut off a small piece. She would shape it into a ball and put it on a plate and leave it on her counter. There it would rise, then start to dry out and would wait till the next bake. The night before she would break it up and soak it in water overnight, then add it to her dough that morning. And the cycle would begin again. Are you, by chance, familiar with this method? Basically she was dehydrating a bit of her sourdough each time… wish I could find someone who does it this way…

Yay! There's so much misinformation about yeast out there. It's such a robust organism. Check out the Kveik yeast from Norway. Gets used to brew beer a few times a year and the rest of the time it's dried on sticks hung in barn rafters!

Nice idea! Will try this, do you usually take part of the dough after it has finished the bulk fermentation?

Hello, I live in the Netherlands. I followed the sourdough starter recipe from your book and it failed unfortunately. I waited the whole 10 days. The water here is not chlorinated so I used tap water. I used the bio whole-wheat flour from Lidl. The temperature in my house is around 18 during the day and 16-17 during the night. Can you please diagnose what I did wrong? I saw almost no action in my starter, but also no mold. I changed the jar every day of course. Lastly, I used the 1-5-5 ratio as per your instructions. Thanks 🙏

I need help, I'm in a bread making funk. One of my issues is that when making rolls my dough breaks apart when i try to create tension on the top of the roll. Now, I have been making some really good bread that is beautiful, I'm not using anything different, I'm on a fixed income and live out in the sticks, so all purpose flour is all I use. If you have any Idea of what is plaguing me, please let me know.

Can you make a video of baking bread or pizza with expensive organic flour vs cheap white flour and see what the differences are?

With the help of this channel I have been successfully baking sourdough bread for a while now. However one problem I do sometimes encounter is wild fermentation and big holes in my loaf. I don’t understand why or how to solve it. Any ideas anyone?

I've come to similar conclusions about using only peak starter. If you've got time and know what you're doing, you can definitely make good bread witout a starter at peak fermentation, in my experience it just takes more time. I never discard starter. I feed my starters t(I keep two and race them against each other), winner gets to be bread, loser gets to be pizza dough or pancake) then chuck 'em in the fridge once they get going, and if I've left them too long, I'll pour most of it out into a bowl, add an egg, some blueberries, vanilla and baking soda and make myself a delicious sourdough pancake. I've successfully made bread with starter that'd been in the fridge long enough to start forming liquor and it worked just fine. Did that this week, in fact. I just find it more predictable if I feed the starters the night before I start the bread, but if I'm going to start it in the morning, do some stretch-folds, then leave it in my cold kitchen all day, a sluggish starter is perfect!

I am very interested in your book. Could you please send me the link?

Hendrik, is the Discord community still active? I tried to log in tonight using my saved info and cannot find it. I hope it still exists, because I need to pick the wisdom of collective minds in the sourdough bread baking community...

Guten Tag Henrik Ich hab eine Verständnisfrage. Du mischst das Mehl, das Wasser und dieses kleine Stück fertigen Teig zusammen und stellst diesen Mix direkt in den Kühlschrank oder lässt du ihn zuerst anspringen.? Vielen herzlichen Dank für deine Inspirationen

As a bread baker I always try to seek for new information and methods for creating a good loaf. But I have a question, I know the method of pâte fermentée, some great bakeries I know work that way. But is the relationship between the yeast and the salt in the starter that you mention is somehow proven? I couldn't find any articles stating for a fact that the yeast "get used" to an environment with salt. All I know about this method is that it's just more comfortable for some bakers. Also, is the amount of salt in the pâte fermentée even make a difference? I mean, the whole dough has 2% of salt, and by making a 100g starter from 1 gram dough that contains only tiny bit of 2% even does anything?

Bake With Jack uses a similar no-waste method. Yours is even simpler.

Do you ever ADD GLUTEN directly to your flour? Costco flour is only 11.5% protein, so I wondered if buying gluten on amazon and adding a tablespoon or so each loaf might help? Gluten tag. Meine mutter was from Westfalia / Hagen area (kleine staedt, "Wetter Ruhr").

Can I use leftover dough from a dough that was fermented with instant yeast?

Your opinion on using kvass instead of water in dough. Kvass is made of fermented rye malt, mineral water, honey, yeast

Hi! I'm a bit confused. Should I put the starter in the fridge immediately after mixing the tiny dough + flour + water + salt? Also, does this require a strong flour where the enzymes don't break down the dough in a short amount of time?

Am confused !! How do i get your book..maybe reading the instructions will help.

I have to try out the salt in the starter piece first.. I bake once every other week, so not keeping the starter isn't tempting for me.

Hi is there such a thing as Sourdough Bakers percentage..?

The Bread Code errata 12.3.1 word missing: My bread stays flat ... They prevent the dough from developing a gluten network THAN it can with wheat.

So i feel like i need a new preferment calculator. How much for how long etc. hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Ty!

Hi woher beziehst du denn dein Mehl in Deutschland? LG

Been doing this for years

I think the Discord server invite link it's expired

FYI I'm trying to make sandwich loafs and soft rolls.

If you’ll need to calculate how much dough to keep and use, won’t keeping just a scraping or starter and make a preferment out of it about half a day prior easier? I learned it from Bake with Jack channel. He called it scraping method. I keep a scrape at the bottom of a small jar and keep it in a cold corner of the fridge for months on end without feeding and it survived for a few years now (not entirely no feed for years, I bake bread only once every quarter or so, and that’s when it get refreshed) I have to admit that my sourdough result is not consistent but my skill are still far away from good so there’re so many factors I cannot exactly point my finger at the starter activity to be the source of problem.

Hi Hendrik, is there a Discount Code for the Hardcopy Version of the Book? 12€ shipping is a bit much :D

What?! Same hydration I can comprehend. But adding salt to the starter?! 😵 We’re getting a updated starter recipe then?

I make yogurt this way

Wait! Since my dough is typically 70% hydration, my starter should be 70% hydration???? 😮 How did I not know this??? 🤔

I am making gluten free sordought and I dont discard any of it. I never threw away my dough or starter. I am keeping it in the fridge. I am taking it out and adding some flour and water in the morning of the previous day I want to bake the bread. Then I use part of that starter in the evening and put the rest in the fridge. Just add a little bit of flour and water every time and take half of it for your baking. Simple. Pardon, but no revolution needed for me :)

I don't understand accent, please write it out

Guten Tag! I don't get it; not even the TL;DR. I spent the last hour trying to find a method. All I get is people talking into a camera, without clear concept, not getting to the point. Du baust da noch Tabellen ein, aber kommst auch nicht auf den Punkt. Danke für die Zeitverschwenudung.

Hello nice channel but I do find it really difficult to read and listen at the same time. Perhaps you could just read aloud what you’re writing if it’s a key point?

Good impersonation of the microbes. Please practice being a fern and then a night flying wasp. Also a barberry flower would be worthy of your acting gift. We will all wait carefully to see this.

Hy I follow your channel for a long time. And in the last 3 months i started have a new type of problem. I always make poolish ( 30% of the whole amount of flour.) When it is doubled up i add the rest of the flour and water. I take it out from the machine when it is separated from the bowl. (window test is positive) But after this the dough is rising very very slowly. (sometime it takes 6 hours to double up, room temperature is 22Celsius, used to it was less than 2 hours) After doubling up, the dough is still very sticky and runny. When i put it in the oven there is no ovenspring at all. And i dont know what can cause it. -In the winter my room temperature was 19Celsius and everything was fine. I dont think that 3Celsisus difference should cause such a big difference. -Overkneading can not be a problem regarding your video(i have tried double fermentation , extra shaping, extra kneading, laminating, extra bulk fermentation in short everything, but it did not change anything, dough was still runny, sticky and very slow). -Yeast can not be bad, since poolish has double up. Plus i have tried an other brand of yeast too. -Salt can not be too much since i use 1.5gramm / 100 gramm flour. -I though about that enzyms and lactic acid bacteria works on this +3Celsius much faster, but i can not be sure. (you had some good videos about enzyms and lactic acid bacteria, but it did not went in such a depth. ) Could you please give me a hint what can be the problem? Why does it ferment so slow. Why does not the dough grow in height? Why i do not have oversping. Thanks for the help in advance. Regards,