How to Make Sourdough Bread at Home: An Easy Beginner Recipe in 8 Steps

Four ingredients, a kitchen scale, and one night in the fridge. The dough tells you when it's ready, and this recipe shows you what to look for.

Learning how to make sourdough bread comes down to one method. Mix flour and water, then work in active starter and salt. Fold the dough every 30 minutes for 2 hours, and let it rise until it's 50 to 75 percent bigger. Shape it, chill it overnight, and bake it in a hot Dutch oven.

For most beginners, the hard part is knowing when the starter and the dough are ready. The clock only gets you close. This recipe gives you the times, the signs to watch for, and fixes for loaves that come out flat or gummy.

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Get a starter you can trust

Before you learn how to make sourdough bread, you need the one ingredient most stores don't sell: an active starter. It's a jar of flour and water that wild yeast and bacteria have taken over, and it's the only thing that makes this bread rise.

You can make one from scratch. Mix flour and water, then feed it every day for 7 to 14 days, until it reliably doubles after each feeding. Plenty of first attempts stall, and a stalled starter is hard to diagnose when you've never seen a healthy one.

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The shortcut we point beginners to is The Mother, a dried starter from Mother's Country Store. The starter itself is free and you cover shipping. It comes with a step-by-step revival guide, and the company says most bakers see bubbles within 12 to 24 hours. If it hasn't activated within 48 hours, they replace it for free. A scoop from a friend who bakes works too.

Once it's going, it doesn't need daily care. Keep it in the fridge and feed it once a week. Take it out and feed it the day before you bake.

Know when your starter is ready

A sluggish starter is the most common reason a first loaf comes out dense. Feed it 4 to 12 hours before you mix, then use it at its peak. It's ready when:

The scale matters more than any other tool here. Scooped flour packs heavier than spooned flour, and a small difference is enough to turn a soft dough stiff.

If you don't have a starter yet, order it before anything else. A dried starter needs a couple of days to wake up before bake day.

How to make sourdough bread, step by step

The first time you work out how to make sourdough bread, a schedule helps: feed the starter at 8 a.m., mix at noon, shape around 5 or 6 p.m., and bake the next morning. Slide it later if you work days. The overnight rest can stretch to fit.

1. Feed the starter. In a clean jar, stir together 50 g active starter, such as a revived packet of The Mother, with 50 g flour and 50 g water. Slide a rubber band around the jar at the starting level. Wait until it has doubled and domed, usually 4 to 12 hours depending on how warm your kitchen is.

2. Mix the flour and water. In a large bowl, stir the flour with 325 g of the water until no dry flour remains. Cover and let it rest 30 to 60 minutes. Holding back 25 g of water makes it easier to work in the starter and salt.

3. Add the starter and salt. Add the 100 g starter, the salt, and the reserved 25 g water. With a wet hand, squeeze and pinch the dough for 2 to 3 minutes, until you can't feel grains of salt and it comes back together. It will feel sticky, which is normal. Note the time, because the rise starts now.

4. Stretch and fold. After 30 minutes, wet your hand, grab one edge of the dough, stretch it up until it resists, and fold it over the top. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat 4 times. That's one set. Do 4 sets, 30 minutes apart, covering the bowl in between. By the last set the dough should be smoother and stretchier.

5. Let it rise until it's ready. After the last set, cover the bowl and leave it alone. The full rise, counted from Step 3, usually takes 4 to 6 hours at 75 to 78°F and can run 8 hours or more in a cool kitchen. It's done when the dough has grown 50 to 75 percent, the top is domed, you can see bubbles on the surface and sides, and the whole mass jiggles when you shake the bowl. A strip of tape on the bowl at the starting level makes the growth easy to judge.

6. Shape the loaf. Tip the dough onto a lightly floured counter. Fold the edges into the center to make a loose round, flip it seam-side down, and let it rest 20 minutes. Then flip it again, fold the bottom third up and the sides in, and roll it from the top toward you. Cup your hands around it and drag it toward you a few times until the surface feels tight. Dust the towel-lined bowl with rice flour and set the dough in it seam-side up.

7. Chill it overnight. Cover the bowl with a plastic bag or a shower cap and refrigerate 8 to 16 hours. The cold slows the rise, builds flavor, and firms the dough so it holds its shape and scores cleanly.

8. Bake, then cool. Put the Dutch oven with its lid on a middle rack and heat the oven to 475°F for 45 minutes. Turn the cold dough onto a sheet of parchment and cut one slash about ½ inch deep across the top. Lower it into the pot by the parchment, cover, and bake 20 minutes. Uncover, lower the heat to 450°F, and bake 20 to 25 minutes more, until the crust is deep brown and the center reads 205 to 210°F. Cool the loaf on a rack for at least 1 hour, because the inside is still setting.

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Why did my sourdough come out flat or dense?

Most problems people hit while learning how to make sourdough bread trace back to fermentation, and the loaf itself tells you which way it went.

Dense, tight crumb with a few big holes near the top. The dough didn't ferment enough. Either the starter wasn't at its peak or the rise ended early. Next time, wait for the 50 percent growth and the jiggle, even if the clock says you're done.

Flat loaf that spreads, with slack, sticky dough at shaping. The dough fermented too long. Shorten the rise by an hour, or move the bowl somewhere cooler.

One big tunnel under the crust. Shaping usually trapped a large air pocket. Press out big bubbles gently before the final shape.

Gummy center on a loaf that rose well. It was underbaked or sliced too soon. Bake until the center reads at least 205°F, then wait the full hour.

Pale crust. The pot didn't preheat long enough, or the uncovered bake was too short. Give it the full 45-minute preheat and bake until the crust is deep brown.

Burnt bottom. Slide a baking sheet onto the rack under the pot for the uncovered part of the bake.

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Keep your loaf fresh

Once you know how to make sourdough bread, the next job is keeping it fresh. Store the cooled loaf cut side down on a board for the first day. After that, keep it in a bread bag or wrapped in a towel for up to 3 days. The fridge dries it out faster. For longer storage, slice the whole loaf, freeze the slices in a freezer bag for up to 3 months, and toast them straight from frozen.

The starter you pour off before a feeding doesn't have to go in the trash. Use it in our sourdough discard snacks or a loaf of sourdough banana bread. If someone at your table avoids gluten, our gluten-free sourdough bread walks through that version. For more on reading your dough, King Arthur's guide to bulk fermentation goes deeper on the signs.

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The real skill is reading the dough

You came here to learn how to make sourdough bread without guessing. The times in this recipe get you close. The signs finish the job: a starter that has doubled and domed, and dough that has grown by half and jiggles in the bowl. Before your first bake, put a rubber band on your starter jar and a strip of tape on your dough bowl so you can see the rise instead of guessing at it.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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