Sourdough Bread for Beginners: Your First Loaf From Flour and Water

Bread is one of the oldest foods humans make, and sourdough is the simplest version. You only need three ingredients: flour, water, and salt. The rest is wild yeast and patience.

There are no yeast packets to buy. No special mixer. No oven thermometer you can't live without. Just flour, water, salt, a bowl, and a place to let the dough rest while it does the work that matters.

This guide walks you through building a sourdough starter from scratch, then baking your first loaf. It is written for someone who has never touched sourdough before. You do not need to be a baker. You need flour, water, and a willingness to watch the dough instead of chase a clock.

What Sourdough Actually Is

Sourdough bread gets its name from the sour tang, but the tang is just a side effect. The real point is the fermentation.

Wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria live on flour, in the air, and on the surface of your kitchen. When you mix flour and water and leave it alone, those microorganisms find their way in and start feeding. The yeast produces carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise. The bacteria produce lactic and acetic acids, which give sourdough its flavor and make it easier to digest than bread made with commercial yeast.

When you keep a sourdough starter fed, you are basically keeping a colony of helpful microbes alive in your kitchen. Feed it flour and water regularly, and it will keep producing gas and acid. Use it to make bread, then feed it again. It is a living thing, not a recipe.

Building Your Sourdough Starter

A starter takes about seven to ten days to become reliably active. Do not rush this step. A weak starter makes weak bread. A strong starter makes good bread, even from a beginner.

Day One: Mix the Starter

In a clean bowl or jar, combine:

• 50 grams all-purpose flour or unbleached bread flour
• 50 grams water at room temperature

Mix until no dry flour remains. The mixture should look like a thick paste, not a batter. Cover the bowl loosely with a plate or a cloth. Do not seal it tight. The culture needs air.

Write the date on the bowl or jar so you know when you started.

Day Two: Wait

Nothing changes today. Leave the bowl covered on the counter. You may see a few small bubbles form. This is normal, but the starter is not ready yet.

Day Three: First Feed

Discard half of the starter. To the remaining half, add:

• 50 grams flour
• 50 grams water

Mix well. Cover and leave on the counter. You may notice more bubbles than yesterday. The colony is growing.

Days Four Through Seven: Feed Daily

Every day, do the same routine:

1. Discard half the starter.
2. Add 50 grams flour and 50 grams water.
3. Mix well.
4. Cover and leave on the counter.

By day four or five, you should see consistent bubbling. The starter may rise and fall during the day. It will start to smell pleasant and slightly tangy, like yogurt or overripe fruit. If it smells like nail polish remover or vomit, that is normal too. It means the culture is acidic and active. Feed it and keep going.

Day Seven and Beyond: Testing Readiness

Your starter is ready for bread when it does the float test. Drop a teaspoon of the starter into a glass of water. If it floats, it is full of gas and ready to use. If it sinks, feed it again and wait another day or two.

Once your starter passes the float test consistently for at least two feedings, you can start making bread.

Feeding After the Starter Is Ready

You do not need to feed it every day once the starter is active. If you bake weekly, feed it once a week. If you bake more often, feed it more often.

The ratio stays the same: equal parts starter, flour, and water by weight. If you have 50 grams of starter, add 50 grams flour and 50 grams water.

Keep the starter on the counter if you bake regularly. If you want to slow it down, store it in the refrigerator and feed it once a week. Cold slows the culture dramatically. Take it out, feed it, and wait four to six hours before using it for bread.

Making Your First Loaf

This recipe uses a simple ratio and one bulk fermentation. It is designed to work without a sourdough scoring blade, without a Dutch oven, and without experience.

Ingredients

• 100 grams active, bubbly sourdough starter
• 350 grams warm water (around 80 degrees Fahrenheit)
• 500 grams bread flour or all-purpose flour
• 10 grams fine salt

These amounts make one standard loaf, about two pounds baked. Adjust up or down, but keep the ratios roughly the same.

Step One: Autolyse

In a large bowl, mix the flour and water until no dry flour remains. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. That is fine. Cover the bowl and let it rest for thirty minutes to one hour. This step hydrates the flour and starts gluten development without any mixing effort.

Step Two: Add Starter and Salt

Add the 100 grams of active starter and the 10 grams of salt to the autolysed dough. Pinch and fold the dough until the starter and salt are fully incorporated. The dough will look messy at first. Keep working it for a minute or two until it comes together into a somewhat smooth mass.

Step Three: Bulk Fermentation

Let the dough rest in the bowl, covered, at room temperature. During this phase, the dough will rise and develop strength. The total bulk fermentation time depends on room temperature.

At 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, expect four to six hours.

Every thirty minutes for the first two hours, do a set of stretch and folds. Wet your hand slightly, reach into the dough, grab a section, stretch it up, and fold it over the center. Rotate the bowl and repeat around all four sides. You are doing eight to ten folds total. After two sets, you are done. The dough will feel smoother and more elastic on its own.

The dough is ready for the next step when it has risen noticeably, looks puffy, and has some bubbles visible on the surface. It should jiggle a little when you shake the bowl. If it looks flat and dense, it needs more time.

Step Four: Shape

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Shape it into a round (a boule) or an oval (a batard). Pull the surface taut by folding the edges toward the center and flipping it seam-side down. The surface should feel tight, not loose and slack.

Place the shaped dough seam-side up into a flour-dusted bowl, a banneton, or a basket lined with a floured kitchen towel. Cover loosely and refrigerate. Cold retardation does two things: it firms up the dough for easier handling, and it develops flavor while the refrigerator is doing nothing.

Let it rest in the fridge for eight to twelve hours, or up to forty-eight hours. A longer cold rest means more tangy flavor.

Step Five: Bake

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a Dutch oven or heavy lidded baking pot, put it in the oven while it preheats. A heavy baking sheet works too, just with less crust development.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Turn it out onto a piece of parchment paper. If you are using a Dutch oven, lift it out of the oven carefully. Score the top of the loaf with a sharp knife or a blade. One deep slash down the center is all you need.

Transfer the dough (on the parchment) into the hot Dutch oven, or place it directly on the baking sheet if you are not using one. Cover the Dutch oven and bake for twenty minutes. Then remove the lid and bake for twenty more minutes. The loaf is done when the crust is deep golden brown and the internal temperature reaches around 205 to 210 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you are not using a Dutch oven, bake for thirty minutes covered (you can tent foil), then fifteen to twenty minutes uncovered until the crust is brown.

Let the bread cool completely before slicing. This is the hardest step. Cutting into hot sourdough traps steam inside and makes the crumb gummy. Wait at least an hour.

Troubleshooting Your First Loaf

The dough did not rise. Your starter may not have been active enough. The float test is the check. If the starter sinks, feed it again and try the test an hour later. Next time, use the starter at its peak activity, right after it has doubled in size.

The bread is flat and dense. This is usually an underproofing problem. The dough did not ferment long enough. Next time, let the bulk fermentation run until the dough is visibly puffy and jiggly. Also check that your starter was active and bubbly when you used it.

The crust is too dark too quickly. Your oven runs hot or the loaf was too close to the heating element. Lower the temperature by 25 degrees and check the crust color at the halfway point. Cover with foil if it is browning too fast.

The flavor is too sour. This means the fermentation went too long or the cold retarding period was too extended. Shorten the bulk fermentation by an hour or reduce the cold rest to six hours instead of twelve.

The dough is too sticky to handle. Wet your hands instead of adding more flour. Adding flour changes the hydration and makes the calculations off. Wet hands glide over sticky dough without changing the recipe.

A Few Things Worth Knowing

Bread flour vs. all-purpose flour. Bread flour has more protein and develops stronger gluten, which means better oven spring and a chewier crumb. All-purpose flour works fine too. It just makes a softer loaf.

Weight measurements matter more than volume. If you measure flour by cup, the amount varies wildly depending on how you scoop. A kitchen scale costs about fifteen dollars and makes sourdough much more predictable. If you do not have a scale, a loosely packed cup of flour weighs about 120 to 130 grams. Use that as a rough guide, but a scale is worth the investment.

Sourdough bread goes stale faster than commercial bread. It has no preservatives, so wrap it in a clean kitchen towel or store it in a bread box. It stays fresh for two to three days. After that, slice it and toast it, or freeze slices for later. Frozen sourdough toasts just as well as fresh.

Use sourdough discard. The portion you discard during feeding goes great in pancakes, crackers, or quick breads. Do not let it go to waste. Use it in discard recipes before tossing it.

Getting Started

You do not need fancy tools, a professional kitchen, or years of experience. You need flour, water, salt, a bowl, and a willingness to learn by doing.

Start the starter today. Check it daily. When it floats, bake bread. Your first loaf will not be perfect. The second one will be better. The tenth one might be as good as anything you buy at a bakery.

Sourdough is not a trick. It is a practice. Every loaf teaches you something about dough, about your kitchen, about the temperature and the humidity and the rhythm of your own pace. That is the point.

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— C. Steward 🍞