My little sourdough bread baking story

Like most of my baking, this is connected to my life here in Copenhagen. Actually, even more, sourdough bread baking is somehow also related to my Danish language learning process. It was sometime at the end of 2017, about one year after I had moved to Denmark. At that time I was mesmerized by the beautiful sourdough bread one of the cool people I knew from my advertising-marketing life was baking. She used bread as a canvas for her creative spirit, scoring some awesome patterns and that got me hooked (thank you for that, Andra!).

How it all started

So I remember one day I was in a bookstore, in the cooking section, and I got my eyes on a Danish book about bread and baking (Meyers Bageri) – so I thought: that’s perfect! I’ll be both practicing my Danish and learn stuff about bread. So I read there about different types of grains and flours, about how gluten works, and how to get going with a starter. Which I did. That was a method a bit different than what I did this last time just a few months ago. But it worked out for me at that moment. And the recipes in that book would always add a tiny bit of fresh commercial yeast, so I did that too in the beginning. I didn’t really deeply understand the process, but damn! the bread was tasting good!

I also got some equipment to help me. The first thing must’ve been a bench knife to make handling easier. Then I even got a stand mixer that would do the kneading for me. I found it very difficult to knead wet dough by hand. And eventually got myself a baking stone for my oven that significantly improved the baking.

Shaping was the biggest challenge, so I was doing nearly no shaping, my loaves were kind of free spirited. More like ciabatta style – nice structure inside (I thought), but not too pretty on the outside whatsoever. After a while I just ended up baking only sourdough bread rolls, as they basically didn’t require too much ‘manual intervention’ so to say. And I was only baking maybe once a week, so my starter would mostly spend its time in the fridge.

My bread baking break

All until I started working in the Front of House at one of the best bakeries in Copenhagen (and probably in the world) – Juno the Bakery. Being surrounded by all that amazing super high quality bread made it less and less likely for me to bake my own bread at home.

The combination of that and having less time to care for my starter as I had some friends staying over, contributed to me forgetting about my starter somewhere in the back of my fridge. I know… such a bad sourdough starter mamma. By the time I remembered about it, it had already died. The second you find mould in your starter, you know you unfortunately have to trash it and start over. So I had to throw mine out 🙁

But hey! I had my back covered, remember? Delicious fresh sourdough bread from Juno the Bakery. And I would even get a tiny bit of starter from the bakery when I wanted to bake sourdough pizza. It must’ve been about one year and a half that I haven’t baked any sourdough bread. Just until I stepped out of my job at the bakery to follow some personal plans, and found myself caught into self-isolation, with loads of time on my hands and the desire of throwing myself again into the amazing sourdough bread baking world. Especially that I felt I knew and understood more about it than before. How could that even happen?

A paradox: baking less, learning more

Being surrounded by a bunch of amazingly talented and knowledgeable people at the bakery worked as a charm for me. I loved listening to all the in-depth stories about grains, flours, gluten and even chemical processes that happen inside the dough during fermentation and baking (cc. Noah). And I would stare at my incredibly skilled colleagues as they would work the dough and shape it, making things look so easy. But I was about to understand later that it really takes practice to get some decent results.

So I owe the fact that my bread love did not die, but on the contrary expanded, to all the passionate bakers at Juno the Bakery that I met during my time there. And special thanks to Noah, Clemmen, Meagan, Carlos, Arnaud for talking bread to me. For sharing knowledge and passion. Maybe sometimes more than I could understand, but that kept the fire alive. So much that I was kind of looking forward to the 14 days self isolation at our return from New Zealand, just because I knew I was going to embark again on the beautiful sourdough journey. Knowing more this time… at least in theory 🙂

First things first

So, first day into quarantine and I’m starting a starter. The only flour I had at that time at home was some plain all-purpose white flour, so I started with that. Tried to order some rye flour online, but it was out of stock. I did however manage to order some whole grain wheat, which arrived about 2 days after I had started. After an impressive boom the first day or two, my starter was showing less and less activity. There were some bubbles there, but wasn’t raising much.

I started taking the ambient temperature, thought maybe it was too cold. Spent a lot of time reading about starting sourdough starters and what could go wrong. I started using water at a certain temperature. I read that I maybe introduced the whole grain wheat flour at a point where it was too early. But everyone kept saying to be patient and consistent. And I tried to be, for a little more than two weeks. When I decided that my starter… is not starting to act, smell or work as it should.

So, yeah, starting a sourdough can go wrong, although most of the times it shouldn’t if you’re patient and consistent enough. But there are so many variables that can influence its evolution, that there is a chance it won’t go the way it should. The idea is to not give up, and try again.

Reverse and rewind

Ok, so I started over again. This time I managed to get some wholegrain rye flour as well. So I started with a mix of white wheat flour (same as before) and rye flour (had read that it gives a boost). And again, first day or two, it goes crazy, than it slows down a bit, just as last time. Only that this time, I’ve been keeping a journal 🙂 Yes, a starter journal! So I could look and read through the notes and troubleshoot – but nothing seemed wrong, I was very careful with the temperatures and everything. So, in the spur of the moment, I just decided to change the white wheat flour. I had just gotten a new bag.

That was the best decision I could take. Since then, my starter seemed to be having a great time every single day. And I could step by step change into 100% wheat starter. I was so happy to discover that maybe it wasn’t me doing something wrong, but maybe the flour was a bit… off. Or at least that’s what I like to say to myself. But more about the process of putting together a starter, in my little guide on how to build a starter, here.

Three months later I have a happy strong starter, called Maya (as a tribute to the Romanian term for sourdough). And it gives me amazing bread every time I nail the fermentation and handle it right.

Lessons learned

I believe that sourdough baking is a continuous learning process. So many possibilities out there, so much to experiment with, hat one cannot get bored. If I were to list some of the most important lessons I learned so far related to sourdough bread baking, those would probably be:

• being patient and not giving up. In sourdough bread baking, practice really makes perfect. Or maybe not perfect, as what’s perfect for me it’s maybe not perfect for you, and vice versa. But visibly better with every time
• there are so many variables that can influence a starter or how the loaf is going to turn out, that for me a great idea was to write down and take notes for every bake. At least in the beginning. And adjusting only one variable at a time will show what gives you improvements. Choose one formula and stick to it until you get consistent results. I made the mistake of being over excited in the beginning. Always trying something new, always getting different results. Until I read this tip in the ‘Open Crumb Mastery’ e-book by Trevor J. Wilson. And it worked
• getting to know your starter, your flours and your environment. They all say that for a reason – it’s true! That will help you nail the fermentation right eventually. And it only comes with time and practice
• don’t cast yourself into working with high hydration dough from the beginning. Even though you maybe heard that the higher hydration, the better. It can be pretty frustrating to not be able to handle a wet dough. Start lower and increase step-by-step, just as you get comfortable with handling your dough. This strategy worked for me
• handling the dough and shaping will have a huge impact on the final loaf’s structure. This was the most frustrating part for me in the beginning. Because it looks so easy in all those videos on insta and Youtube. And I literally sucked at pre-shaping and shaping. Yet another thing that comes with time and practice. If you manage not to be too harsh on yourself and expect to move your hands just like all those professional or home-bakers with years of experience do on Social Media
• give it time. It really is a process that can require a lot of your time. The starter needs constant care to be happy and strong. And a loaf can take about two days, if you are doing it all by hand. It is much more waiting than actually active intervention on the dough. But the good part is that once you get to know your starter and environment, you can just plan and fit the process into a normal working day

These are just the first few things that popped into my mind now. But this would probably be a never ending list, as one goes deeper into the sourdough bread baking process.

I love talking bread, so if you want to start a conversation around it, drop me a comment below, or hop over to my Instagram page and send me a DM (I’m more active there 🙂 )

Happy bread baking, everyone!