Your sourdough starter is active and ready, so let’s not waste any time and make your first loaf of bread.
The sourdough bread making process can get a bit confusing for many people, especially in the beginning. There are a lot of terms that you might not be familiar with, and a lot of steps.
The key is to start with something easy, stick with the same formula (“recipe”) and make it as often as you can. You can even take notes from each dough to the next, and change one thing at a time (room temperature, water temperature, proofing time) and see the difference with every change you made.
In order to understand the process you need to understand your dough and how it behaves.
Before anything else let me walk you through some Sourdough terminology:
- Formula – it is basically the recipe
- Dough hydration/ Hydration level- how much water you use in your formula determines the hydration of the dough
- Autolyse – Mixing water and flour from your formula, and leave it between 30-up to a few hours, before adding anything else
- Bulk fermentation/ Proofing time – It is the proofing time starting from the moment you add your sourdough starter into the dough (this is done at room temperature)
- Stretch and Fold / Coil fold – a dough-strenghtening technique in which you basically pull the dough from the sides of the bowl into the middle (I recommend you do this with your hands wet)
- Cold Proofing / Retard Proofing – it is the Proofing period of your dough done in the fridge (usually after you shape the loaf and place it in the proofing basket)
- Pre-shaping – it is done before final shaping your dough. You basically make a round ball from your dough
- Final Shaping – it is the shaping of dough before placing it into the banneton
- Banneton – Proofing basket
- Bread Scoring – done with a blade or a very sharp knife, it guides the way your bread opens and rises in the oven
As I recommended before, start with a simple formula (you can either use just one type of flour, or a mix) and stick with it.
I also recommend you start with a low hydration dough, as it will make your life easier in the beginning (Max. 70%)
Since I mentioned the percentages, you also need to know that a sourdough formula is calculated using the bakers percentages.
Bakers percentages is a math formula using flour at the center of every other ingredient. So, I hope there is no need to say you need to weight everything.

Let me use an example to show you how to calculate a dough formula:
If you want to make a 70% hydration loaf (as I suggested before), with 20% sourdough starter (Bakers usually work with 10-25% – but there is no limit to it) and 2% salt (bakers usually work with 2-3%), then depending on the quantity of flour you choose, you can calculate the weight of every other ingredient.
- 500g flour
- 350g water
- 100g sourdough starter
- 10g salt
You can also calculate it the other way around.
My sourdough Bread Formula for Beginner
- 315g water
- 100g sourdough starter
- 250g white flour
- 25g whole rye flour
- 175g whole wheat flour
- 9g salt
Step 1: Add the water, sourdough starter and flour into a bowl, mix it very well so there are no dry lumps, then cover and leave it to rest at room temperature for around 1 hour
Step 2: Add the salt and incorporate it into the dough as well as you can, then cover and leave the dough at room temperature for 30 minutes
Step 3: Wet your hands and perform the first stretch and fold, then cover the dough and let it proof at room temperature for around 2 hours and 30 minutes
Step 4: Wet your hands and perform the second stretch and fold, then cover the dough and let it proof at room temperature for another 2 hour/ 2 hours and 30 minutes
Step 5: Wet your hands and you can perform an additions stretch and fold and remove the dough from the bowl
Step 6: Pre-shape the dough into a round ball (you can do this using just your hands or using a bench knife like this one https://amzn.to/3FWykH7), then leave the dough uncovered on the table for about 40 minutes
Step 7: Final Shape the dough. Lightly dust the pre-shaped dough and table with flour, then using the bench knife remove the dough from the table by pulling it up and flipping it over the dusted area.
Once you’ve done that you can start shaping your dough. There are a lot of ways in which you can do it, but I will tell you an easy one.
Now that the sticky side of the dough is up, you can pull (from underneath) the top right side half way in, then do the same with the top left side (you are basically creating a triangle), pull the top of the triangle outwards then roll the dough towards you.
So there you go, you have a shaped loaf of sourdough. You can either leave it like this, or you can also tuck in the edges.
Step 8: Dust your proofing basket and shaped loaf with flour (I recommend you use rice flour), then using your bench knife pull the loaf up from the table and place it into the banneton with the stitch side up
Step 9: Cover the dough with some plastic shower caps and let it proof at room temperature for 2 more hours
Step 10: Place the proofing baskets into the fridge. I recommend you leave them overnight, as the flavour develop during this cold proofing period
Step 11: The next day, you need to really warm up your oven (I usually leave it at max. temperature for at least 30 minutes). Now, whether you are using a Dutch oven or a stone, you need to place them into the stove right from the beginning (for the stone I also recommend you to place either a bowl with hot water or a tray with lava rock – they will create the much needed steam in the first part of the baking)
Once your stove is hot, take the proofing baskets out of the fridge, flips the loafs on the baking sheet and score them.
If you are using a Dutch oven, take it out of the oven (be careful – it’s very hot) and place the loaf inside, then put the lid on. By doing this, the water that is starting to evaporate from the loaf will create enough steam for your bread to rise. If you want to give it an additional boost, you can spray the loaf with a bit of water, or through in a ice cube.
If you are using a stone, you can also spray the loaf with some water before placing it into the oven, and add some hot water onto the hot lava rocks.
I usually bake this loaf for 20 minutes at maximum temperature (my oven goes up to 250 degrees Celsius) using just the bottom heat (if you don’t have this option, I wouldn’t go that higher, as the crust of the loaf will develop sooner than it should and it won’t allow your bread to fully open)
Once the 20 minutes have past, remove the lid (if you are using a Dutch oven) or the lava rock or water and continue baking the loaf at 230 degrees Celsius (bottom and upper heat) for another 25 minutes.
Congrats you baked your first loaf of sourdough bread!!!
One more important step follows after baking, and I strongly recommend you take it into consideration.
Wait for the loaf to fully cool down (using a cooling rack). I know it is hard, but it will make a huge difference in the texture of your crumb and flavour.