If you are interested in learning my full sourdough recipe and method join me in the kitchen in my sourdough masterclass! There is something for everyone to learn in this space and I welcome everyone to learn all there is to know about bread and baking with sourdough! Join us here: turnerfarm.ca/products/sourdough-master-class
I live in Hawaii where it's so humid! I baked my first SD Boule... but the dough was super sticky, it was a little gummy once baked and a little flat too. BUT the flavor was still there. I watched this last night and this morning I just fed my starter using the 1:5:5 ratio you mentioned here along with a separate jar with the typical 1:1:1. the 1:5:5 rose faster and it looks like yours whenI pull the dough away from the jar! GAH IM SO EXCITED to bake tonight!!!! THANK YOUUUUUUU!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
Beginner bread maker here. OMG, been frustrated with my starter for over a month now thinking it wasn't ready when in actuality it was. Just needed to go to the next step of making the leaven in order to have enough for an actual recipe. Been waiting on my starter to magically grow enough to do it not even understanding....You gave me that Ah ha moment. thank you sooo much.
Oh my gosh I am new to sourdough I've had so much trouble even after watching hundreds of RU-vid videos. I have thrown away so many failures. I need to tell you that you are the first person that has explained the whole process that I could completely understand. My starter always looked ready had bubbles it grew but it just didn't grow enough you turned on a light bulb in my head and I thank you so much. I am excited to keep going.
I’ve been making sourdough bread since 2016! One day I realized that I had tons of starter in my fridge. Couldn’t bring myself to through them all out. So I decided to share my bread baking techniques with friends and offered a sourdough class! I discovered that I love talking and sharing all the things I’ve learned over the years. It was a success and so I taught more.then a friend convinced me to sell my bread at our local amazing farmers market! Anyway, I say all that to tell you that this idea just happened to come up in my feed this morning! Nothing is by chance! After being so successful baking loaf after loaf, I’ve recently started having problems with my results! I’ve been experimenting with different flours, oven temp, etc. but I think your method of determining the viability of the starter is the key to what I’ve not been fastidious enough to pay attention too! And I’ve never weighed or measured my flour/water/starter ratio!! This could be key to my problem of not achieving a good slash and not getting that ‘eyeliner’ and crusty crust like I used too! Thank you so much! I’m going to link this video and your starter recipe video in my class notes if that’s okay with you! You would also get the credit and more followers! Thank you so much for sharing!! ❤❤
I've watched a lot of videos about sourdough starters and this is the first one I've seen that has gone into this much detail about the optimum starter state. Thank you!
This was hands-down, the best video that I’ve seen explaining this! Now, I understand why my bread was flat. My starter was more like the runny one, so I probably wasn’t using enough flour. Thank you so much!
My starter is perfectly active and it is not stiff. It pours out and is slowly runny, it’s perfect. Lots of bubbles all over, very active and you can hear it when you move it around. There’s a lot of opinions out there and I watched countless videos and they all caused a lot of unnecessary frustration and confusion, actually pushed me away from wanting to try. Thankfully I did not give up and am finding with trail and error, experience and time you will find it. Every environment, home and geographical area is different. What works for one person may not work for another. Also everyone has different temps from different ovens. Just think what did people do a long time ago without all that we have now. They figured it out!
Sort of. they lived in large communities of people who shared their secrets and tips and tricks and how to make it better. just like I am doing here. This method shown here has helped hundreds with their sourdough, so I am thankful for the technology to be able to share it, JUST like those people did long before we had all this ;) Thanks for watching!
Exactly what I needed to know!!! Terminology was a bit difficult at first just because I’m new but I fully understood what you explained, very clear & the only person that really took the time to show this distinction in all of the videos I’ve watched so far. Thank you!!!
Your starter tutorial has changed my sourdough bread! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! I have been trying to make sourdough bread for 2 years with very frustrating results. You have truly blessed my baking!!!
I just adore you. I tried this and it is absolutely spot on. My starter has never looked so good. Years and years of watery weak starter, I had no clue. Thank you. After 10 plus years of sourdough videos, yours is the only one that I actually understand. I think it's your east coast confident nature. No BS. Truly so thankful to you. I hope to someday be able to take your courses.
I’ve been trying to work out what am I doing wrong with my starter for two days now. Watching loads of videos on RU-vid with no real answers. This video was like a light bulb I know what I’m doing wrong now. Thank you. Subscribed ❤
Same! I baked a TON of sourdough and non-sourdough bread through lockdown like everyone else. But since moving to Portugal 3 years ago I hadn't done a ton of baking. Jumped back in recently and have been SO frustrated because the flour we get here is only 9% protein so my starter and leaven have all been active, but extremely limp. I've been searching for answers everywhere and this is the first time I've really gotten the actual information I need to fix my problem. I have since been able to find some French flour here with 11% and a whole wheat from spain with 12% and even though they aren't the ideal, with the info here, I think I'll be able to make them work. Like you said, a light bulb has turned on!
To summarize,: 1) feed your starter to 1:5:5 (levain, flower, water) 2) Use your starter at peak (or a little before peak), never after peak. If you use after peak, acidity developes and the starter becomes liquid. Suggestion for a follow up video: How much time does a 1:5:5 feed takes to develop ? (compared to a 1:2:2 or 1:1:1 often used in professional bakery) and the importance of a strong flour in your levain.
Great breakdown of the stages of making a leaven! I’ve been baking with Sourdough for about two months now and this video was very timely, I’m ready to perfect my skills. Oh and the weather has changed and with it the timing of my Starter and Leaven has changed. This info gave me the skills to troubleshoot! Thank you Ash 😊
There are more ways to skin a cat I guess. I keep my sourdough in the fridge. It's a 500ML container which. It has around 300 Gr in it. Every time when I bake a bread, I take out 150Gr of the sourdough to put in my dough. I add fressh 75 grams of water and 75 grams of flour. After an hour or so I put the container back in the fridge.Keeping it cool this way is just to slow it down. Then I use the 1-2-3 method. 150Gr soudough, 300Gr water, 450Gr flour (9-10 gr salt). After about 5-6 hours on room temperature this is ready for the night. In the morning I bake it in theDutch oven. Works for me everytime. And my Sourdough is always superhappy when it comes out of the fridge, ready to work.
Thank you!! New to sourdough and can’t tell you how frustrating it has been. Asked all the ladies at church but no one taught me anything!! Answer to my prayers! ❤
This was by far the best video I have watched for what to do with my runny sourdough starter! I am so excited because abuse today I had the perfect starter! I had almost given up after watching so many other videos. Thank you!
Thanks Ash. I'm just learning all this science regarding the starter from different videos and yours helped a lot to know what to look for 'before' attempting to go for a batch of bread dough to bake. My first one ever failed of course - lol - and I was sad. The next try, using a half batch this time, my dough still didn't double in size and now I'm realizing why (soupy but nicely aged/fermented starter) thanks to your help. I can see the leavening technique would really save everyone a lot of possible grief, waste of ingredients and time due to all the various / changing conditions we have to work with. Something I found useful along the way though was to stir the mixtures with the spoon faced backwards, so things can be blended against the side of the container and also pushed back into it, without getting trapped in the concave part. Have a great day !
I am new to making sourdough bread and your explanation was exactly what I needed to making my first bread. I didn’t know when was the best time to use my starter and what that looked like. Thank you!
This video is everything. I used to add flour without thinking of what amounts and what I was actually doing. You gotta keep the right ratios going at all times. It’s ALL about the leaven you’re starting with. 👍👏
OMG, thank You so much for this video! I've been struggling with sourdough bread for a couple of weeks, results were always the same - sad, flat loafs... I had no idea that good levain is so crucial to the final effect, now I did all like You explained and BANG - perfect oven spring, beautiful loaf of bread! Thank You so very very very much!
Thank you! I have been doing sourthough bread for some months now, and your explanation really helps me understand why I have run into issues in my sourthough bread
Have only been making sourdough bread for a year. But have struggled with consistency. Learned more about sourdough starter from your video than any other. Subscribed. Looking forward to learning more from you. Many thanks!
Thank you so much! This video is very helpful. I just started my sourdough bread journey, and have made 2 loaves so far. I couldn't understand why my dough turned out so sticky and full of air. It raised beautifully during proofing, but was light as down and never firm. Now I know why! 😊
Very nice. I've had great results using miniscule amounts of crummy watery old fridge starter in large flour/water quantities, say 1:20:20 - You are adding adequate microbes and yeasties without a large amount of watery acidic waste. The levain takes longer, usually overnight, but with such a huge food supply, it blows up nicely and will not peak and withdraw too quickly like a levain made with a larger proportion of starter. So, prep in the evening, by morning it'll be close to peak and ready to go... all temperature dependent of course!
dependent dependent dependent, that's the problems with everyone else on youtube promoting weak watery starter is the results are "dependent" and not ever RELIABLE because they're just spouting off stuff and don't know why they're doing it. She gives you the exact details, not some wishy washy maybe it will maybe it won't just depends instructions, the same ones I've watched on yt for the last 10 years, only able to get good bread ONCE.
I had been making Kamut sour dough for about 3 years. I have the sourdough book. I have the subscription. Buying the masterclass and now the masterclass being reinforced by this video has totally changed my success rate of making sourdough with Kamut. 1- the water… I was using tap water😳 2- my starter and levin were not thick enough. Total game changers for me. Looking at the starter and leaven for the gluten strands was so much better/easier for me. My levain always floated but it didn’t always make a great loaf of bread. 3- Ash,s bread mats👏🏼 4- the pulp banneton . 2- my starter and leaven were not thick enough.
This is amazing!! I’ve been trying endlessly to have a successful loaf of bread. This has answered all of my questions and solved everything! Thank you so much!
Super helpful! I caught the sourdough bug a year into COVID but never felt like my starter was ready to bake so I finally gave up. Last summer it hit me... Duh! Using bleached flour. 🤦🏻♀️ Switched to unbleached and it took off. I've been baking bread every week or two and have had some misses and some hits. Over watched many videos... Your video showed me how the timing of my starter makes a huge difference. Now they're all hits. Thank you!
Thank you! Makes so much sense to me now! My loaves were a sticky puddle last night and I thought I over-proofed it. Remembering what my starter was like that I used yesterday helped me understand what happened to my dough. I did over-proof it but my starter was my problem!
I think I got it. I have baked a lot of bread during some months. A lot of them not so bad. I think that I probably have been waiting a little bit too long so that my starter has not been at the most active. Now I know what I am looking for and how the levain should look like. Look forward to se if it helps me. Thank you ❤
Very cool and very well explained. One note for viewers from Germany where rye starters are also very common: 8:33 does not work with rye starters according to the missing gluten 😁
This changed the game for me! I was getting a decent loaf before, but as soon as I changed to a levain, I’m getting great results. Although, I still have a slightly chewy crumb. But maybe that’s normal? Anyway….THANK YOU!
This is so darn helpful. I started off strong with some great loaves, but the last few were...not so great. Now I know why. Thank you so much for making this video!
Very helpful info thank you, I’m off to sort my weak starter out, no wonder I’ve been struggling with my bread. So helpful to actually see consistency, a pancake batter in U.K. is different to US pancake batter I think so seeing it has been so, so helpful
Yes, American pancakes are a completely different thing from British pancakes. Thick and fluffy, leavened. British pancake batter is much runnier than American pancake batter. American pancake batter is more like a sponge cake batter, perhaps even a little thicker.
Honestly I love this video and the examples you gave. This is exactly what I have been doing storing only a small amount of my starter in a small jar then transfer it to a bigger jar that gives me more room to feed it when I need it in a recipe sometimes I have to feed the starter I transfer twice over 2 days to get the amount of levin that I need for a recipe but keeping a smaller amount in a smaller jar has helped me gain a stronger place to start and have less waste with feedings now that it stays put in the fridge on non baking days. For probably the first 6 weeks I wasted so much flour keeping my jar at room temperature and having to feed the starter twice a day. I know your video was about getting a better rise in your bread but after 2 months for myself it makes sense with maintenance. I'm cheering yeah I did it right after watching this and experiencing a better finished baked loaf, perfect pizza crust, native fry bread and more
Thank you for explaining it so well I was always confused and trying to figure it out from other videos how to start, you made it simple and in order now I think I’m ready to use my starter and should have a great lavein 🙌
I want to quickly say THANK YOU so much for your videos! I have been interested in sourdough for some time and your videos are what finally helped me get started. I really appreciate these and hope you continue to make content like this!
Learned some of the best info from this video... others never talk about this. Thank you. On the other hand I'm in a very cold house does anyone have ideas on what to do to get a starter going and keep it going
To me starter and levain are basically the same thing. If the recipe calls for 300g of levain/starter, I would do 135g of flour, 135g water and 30g of my original starter. In your example, would you not be using 30g more levain/starter than the recipe calls for…using the 30g starter, 150g,water,150g flour? You did an absolutely great explanation and example of what the levin/starter should look like when it’s ready to use.
This is a really helpful demonstration, thanks for sharing. I simply have to disregard any hydration percentages in American recipes and tweak it to fit my Norwegian flour, it doesn't translate right. My starters and doughs come out liquid every time, unless I reduce the water by 5-10%. I wasn't sure about the levain, but now I have a better idea.
This makes sense. My first batch I fed and used the starter 12 hours later! Yesterday I did 6 hours after feeding and it didn't have as much stretch, but was "ready" visually and with testing. My dough got a dry layer, and also isn't holding shape and tacky. Hoping to still have an edible loaf 😂 always learning lol
Thank you for this video!No one has ever explained this to me like you did in this video.Ta-daaa!Im going to add more flour to my levain and experiment a bit to see if I will get a better rise with less gumminess..eager to give this a go
It is really wonderful how informative your delivery is. Levain to starter, and back again...Ohh if eberybody would have your command of the subject at hand. Thank you..subscribed.
Omg thank you so much this is the video that Im looking for !!! Understandable and have a example so I could clearly see the visual. U are my sourdough hero
Thank you so so so much h for this video. I tried baking a coupe of time with a runny starter just like you described here and it was a sticky mess. I will do as you have suggested and report back. Thank you 🙏
OMG !!! I can't believe how infornative your video has been for me, thank you for just being you or in my case like a sister explaining something to her brother without any nonsense or goofyness etc. I can't believe how many people comment that the language (new terms and meanings) is seemingly your fault i.e., that you're making this too difficult because they don't understand this sourdough business yet. If it was easy it would be boring, not challenging and far from a rewarding experience!. A pilot of a 747 does not master his craft without a lot of trial and error so ... to all you whiners out there...stop blaming the airplane, crash and burn a few times then start applying your own self to the ART of sourdough making that it is. Put your own energy into this endeavor and be thankful that we have such knowledable and experienced coaches available to us all for FREE. Start your google engine and research the terms on your own and let this presenter focus on intelligent topics at an intelligent level so that everyone can grow and move forward in this sourdough learning curve. This is not sourdough 101 (if you even get that !) so maybe you're in the wrong class. Your whining only displays your ignorance and laziness. Grow your own mind!!!
Great tips, mine has been flat but still works (but not great rise). I was looking forward to seeing the end results but you left me hanging 😆. Thank you
The best video ever. I’ve been baking for a year and couldn’t figure out why some loaves were great and some were average. Can you tell us the timelines from feeding to readiness for starter and levain at say 72 degrees? That would be helpful.
