Basic White Sourdough using 100% Hydration Starter – Northwest Sourdough (2024)

FAQs

Should sourdough starter be 100% hydration? ›

Different recipes may suggest different hydration levels because it will ultimately impact your final sourdough baked good. A lower hydration (under 100%), meaning more flour and less water, is often used to create a thicker dough and stiffer baked good.

A 100% hydration sourdough starter is a culture which is kept and fed with water and flour at equal weights. Like for instance 5 oz water to 5 oz flour. A 166% hydration starter is fed with equal volume of flour and water, which most typically is one cup of water (8.3 oz) and one cup of flour (5 oz).

Technically something between 70 and 90% hydration works best. Some recipes are lower than 70% (generally for beginner bakers) but these low hydration recipes will often result in heavy, tight crumbed loaves (but not always depending on the type of flour you're working with).

This is not always a bad thing, and sometimes extra flour is necessary to rectify a runny starter or make the starter peak at a later time. Feeding a sourdough starter too much water is worse as the starter won't have enough flour to feed on and it will be runny and less bubbly than it should be.

To calculate the hydration, simply divide the total water amount by the amount of flour and multiply by 100. The higher the water content of your bread dough, the higher the hydration. Anything above 80% is considered high hydration dough. If it is below 70%, it is a low hydration loaf.

Note: Most sourdough discard recipes will call for 100% hydration discard. This means that the discard comes from sourdough starter that has been fed equal weights of flour and water.

Bulk Ferment

Remember this is a high hydration dough, so it will not take as long as you might normally be familiar with. Higher hydration doughs bulk ferment a lot faster than lower hydration doughs.

High hydration dough results in bread with a thin and crackly crust and a tender, evenly open crumb. When done right, the baked result is sublime: bread that's light and airy with a creamy texture and an impeccable mouthfeel. As a bonus the loaf stays moist and tastes fresh for days after it's baked!

Some starters can reactivate Page 4 in as few as 3 days and may take as long as one week. Typically, you will not see times shorter or longer than this range.

Most recipes recommend 4 or 6 sets of stretch and folds with 30 minutes intervals. Also, you do not want to be handling the dough late in the bulk fermentation process. It is best to leave it untouched for the last 2 hours (minimum) of bulk fermentation. What is the difference between stretch and folds and coil folds?

How do I know if my sourdough is hydrated? ›

Hydration is calculated by taking the weight of water or liquid in a recipe and dividing it by the weight of flour to get a percentage. Remember that hydration = water / flour. So in the recipe above, if water is 750g and flour is 1,000g, the total hydration of the dough is 750 / 1,000, or 75%.

It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening. Feed the starter. Add 60 g flour and 60 g lukewarm water, stir well to combine, and let sit out for 24 hours.

The dough should visibly start puffing up. With the “poke test” you put some flour on your finger and poke the dough. If it springs back immediately, it needs more time. If it slowly springs back about halfway it is ready to bake.

Premature discarding and overfeeding will weaken your starter and elongate the process. Don't discard and re-feed a weak starter before it shows increasing bubble activity or height from the previous feeding. If you don't see more bubbles or a faster rise each day, skip a feeding, and give it more time.

There is no single best ratio, but I've found a ratio of 1:5:5 fed twice daily at 12-hour intervals to produce a sourdough starter that's strong and healthy. This ratio corresponds to 20% ripe starter carryover, 100% water, and 100% flour (a mix of whole grain rye and white flour) at each feeding.

Another reason you might see dry patches are that your starter is overly hungry (either you forgot a feed or it's ready for more food per feeding) and this is the beginning of hooch forming. If you see dry patches along with some liquid on top, you're seeing the separation of water and flour in the formation of hooch.

Hooch is formed after your sourdough starter has already had some bubbles, rises and falls. Hooch will smell like alcohol. This is a big indicator that your starter is really hungry. You can choose to pour off your hooch or stir it in, then feed it both water and flour using your typical ratios.