When my daughters’ friends swing by our house after school, they look for one smell. Their excitement levels rise and fall based on the presence—or lack—of the aroma of freshly baked sourdough bread.
My wife and some lovely friends of our three daughters have been on a sourdough journey that began during the height of the bread’s boom in 2020. We have sourdough starter overflowing on the counter, resting in the fridge, and proofing on the floor in the laundry room during winter because that vent delivers the best heat. We’ve used the bubbling concoction to make crackers, homemade pizza with sourdough crust, and, of course, loaves that we keep or send home with friends.
Although the tangy, naturally leavened dough was popular during the pandemic, it wasn’t just a fad: Sourdough is still proving its appeal. Social conversations around sourdough have increased nearly 50% in the last year; the market for sourdough is expected to grow from $2.5 billion in 2024 to $3.8 billion by 2029; and Whole Foods sold 60% more sourdough last year than projected, the health-food chain tells Delish.
Why The Renewed Interest In Ancient Bread-Baking?
Sourdough is "the healthiest form of bread we can eat," and its signature "chew and flavor is impossible to resist," says Elaine Boddy, founder of the sourdough blog Foodbod Sourdough, cookbook author, and sourdough advisor for Matthews Cotswold Flour.
Its taste, which ranges in sourness based on fermentation time and oven temperature, among other factors, offers a more interesting flavor profile than many other types of bread, and the rustic, round loaf is simply an appealing look, explains Frederic Monti, team leader of Whole Foods’ Florida Bake House. Plus, the simple ingredients and natural fermentation make it easier to digest than traditional store-bought bread.
"From the baking angle," Boddy says, "there is huge satisfaction in making your own sourdough, from nurturing your own starter from nothing but flour and water to baking your first loaf."
"The bacteria and wild yeast in sourdough—combined with a long fermentation process—break down certain carbs that are commonly thought to be associated with digestive issues," explains Delish Senior Food Director Robert Seixas. "Sourdough also tends to be lower in gluten."
Fernando Padilla, a Boudin master baker with 45 years of experience, agrees that sourdough is one of the more nutritious breads you can eat. He believes that as people learned about the benefits of fermentation while struggling to find packaged yeast during the pandemic, it helped create awareness about sourdough. "People got excited about it," he says. "I think the benefits of sourdough keep [the popularity] going."
Curious about (finally) baking your first loaf? I tapped the experts for their best advice.
Essential Tips For Sourdough Starters Beginners
Start With A Healthy Starter
Seixas says the miracle of a sourdough starter is that it takes no special training and is just about always composed of two ingredients: flour and water. The flour can be either whole grain, such as whole wheat flour, or all-purpose. However, note that whole grain flours contain more yeast and bacteria, which help jump-start the process. As for water, room temperature is ideal. Just stir them together, cover the mixture loosely (at room temperature), then follow the specific guidelines of your sourdough recipe.
Use Top-Shelf Ingredients
Once you have your starter, (more) flour and water are the main ingredients. Their quality matters. While Padilla prefers bread flour, Boddy notes, "Not all flours are created equal. If budget is an issue, keep your best flour for your starter, as that is the crux of all of your sourdough."
Then there’s the water. "Regular old tap water is totally fine," says Seixas.
But as you get more advanced, you can start to experiment with different types of water. Mineral-rich water (hard water) helps activate the sourdough starter, and water low in minerals (soft water) does little to help the starter. Some bakers say you can use distilled or purified water, even though it is low in minerals. No matter which type of water you use, knowing what you’re working with can help you understand how your starter will react.
Monitor Your Room & Water Temperature
Understanding how room temperature impacts sourdough making can be "the turning point" for home bakers, Boddy says. A room thermometer helps you manage this. "If you are working with any sourdough information that does not refer to your room temperature or give you any understanding about it," she says, "you are missing crucial information for your success."
Water temp is also important. Padilla says his San Francisco bakery keeps the dough at 78 to 80 degrees and the water at 60 degrees, but a home baker needs warmer water since the batches of dough are so small. Warmer water—ideally between 78 and 82 degrees—helps the bread rise.
Opt For Weight Measurements
Buy a scale. "It is about being exact,” Padilla says, noting that weighing ingredients in grams and ounces makes recipe building easier. Having a simple $5 scale does the trick. For example, he says that his typical dough recipe of 100 grams of flour, 60 grams of water, 30 grams of starter, and 2.25 grams of salt can be easily scaled up or down using weight. And if you want to interchange different types of flours, just make sure they still add up to your target weight.
Timing Matters
The water and flour mixture needs to rest, a process called "autolyse" in bread terminology. "This process helps make the dough more stretchy and shortens kneading time," Seixas says. After resting, the stretch-and-fold process needs to be properly spaced. "Fold the dough three times, once an hour," Monti says. "After the final fold, let the dough rest at room temperature for six hours."
Steam Is The Dream
To get a nice crust, Monti says to "use steam when you bake the dough." There are two strategies for this: Heat your oven to 475°F with an empty sheet pan inside. Once heated, pour a cup of water into the pan. Place your bread dough in a different pan and put it in the oven to bake. The pan with water will create steam as the bread bakes.
Padilla suggests another method using a Dutch oven. Heat the oven and the Dutch oven together and then drop ice cubes in the Dutch oven to create immediate steam before adding the dough. "The crust will get nice and moist so the bread can expand nice and easy," he says.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Boddy suggests focusing your efforts on your dough, not your education. She believes in finding a suitable, single source to learn from and not overburdening yourself with conflicting advice. And once you’ve learned enough to understand the basics of sourdough, get started. "By all means, read, experiment, play with it, but right now, stop reading everything you can find," she says. "If you are new to making sourdough, you will only become overwhelmed and confused by too much available information and too much conflicting advice. Sourdough is fun, fulfilling, and endlessly forgiving. And so worth it."
Padilla says that once you’re locked in on your basics, you can really start to "get fancy and get creative," mixing in different types of flour for any creation you want.
While the simplistic making of sourdough is fun, it’s the eating of the sourdough that brings the greatest amount of joy. Freshly baked, homemade bread is not only special to the baker but also to those around you—whether your daughters’ friends are streaming by after school or not.
Tim Newcomb is a journalist based in the Pacific Northwest. He covers stadiums, sneakers, gear, infrastructure, and more for a variety of publications, including Popular Mechanics. His favorite interviews have included sit-downs with Roger Federer in Switzerland, Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, and Tinker Hatfield in Portland.
