Sourdough Timetables

SourDom

One of the things that puts people off baking at home is the amount of time that it seems to take. Everyone loves the smell of freshly baked bread, and the idea of baking your own loaves, but the time involved can seem overwhelming. That is the attraction of bread machines and ‘quick loaves’ I suspect, but the danger is that the disappointment that frequently ensues from the resulting loaves puts people off altogether.

For sourdough loaves that might need to prove for up to 8 hours it can seem difficult to imagine just how anyone with family or work commitments could possibly fit it in to their lives. In this blog I will work to dispel that fear.

In fact sourdough is substantially easier to fit around a busy life than yeast-based loaves. The timings are considerably more flexible. The main trick is to plan ahead. It is clearly not possible to decide in the morning that you would like a fresh sourdough loaf for lunch unless you already have a dough mixed and proving.

What follows are a couple of different suggested timetables for sourdough baking. They follow the same principles used in the other tutorials. Have a look at the slashing and baking tutorial for a description of baking a 100% sourdough loaf, and have a look at the proving tutorial for a description of proving and using the fridge. I have given timings for Saturday baking, but obviously you can adjust them to suit your own life and when you have time to bake.

1. Basic timing (this produces a loaf in the evening, and requires you to be around during the day)

  • Friday morning - refresh starter - leave for 24 hours (if starter has been in fridge you will need to refresh on Thursday, then repeat on Friday)
  • Saturday morning ~8am - mix dough (three quick kneads over thirty minutes)
    • Fold at hourly intervals until dough has plenty of air bubbles when slashed (eg 9am, 10am, 11am)
    • Shape (~12midday) and place in proving basket
    • Bake (~4pm)
    • Let cool after baking for at least 3/4-1 hour (ready ~5.30-6pm)

The above timetable gives the most reliable and consistent results, but has the disadvantage that it produces a loaf in the evening, and needs you be around the house (even if in and out) for much of the day. I don’t manage it that often.

2. Using the fridge for a lunchtime bake

  • Thursday morning - refresh starter
  • Friday morning - mix dough before work (3 quick kneads) then put in the fridge during day
  • Friday evening. Take dough out of fridge, and fold at hourly intervals until dough ready to shape (usually 2 or 3 folds). Shape. Put dough back in the fridge
  • Saturday morning. Take dough out of fridge. Leave to return to room temperature and rise (depending upon room temperture it will need between 2- 4 hours out of fridge). Eg if out of fridge at 8am, baked at 11am, ready to eat 12.30-1pm

The above is reliable and effective, and has the advantage of a fairly long period of dough development in the fridge giving a more intensely sour flavour (the version below extends this even further). It can be a bit tricky to get the timing of baking right after the dough has come out of the fridge. The overnight prove is perhaps equivalent to 2 hours of proving at room temperature, but the dough has to return to temperature in the morning before it will rise.

3. Extra sour flavour (3 day sourdough)

  • Wednesday morning - refresh starter
  • Thursday morning - mix dough - put in fridge
  • Thursday evening - couple of folds at hourly intervals - back in fridge
  • Friday morning - shape, back in fridge
  • Saturday morning - take dough out of fridge, let rise, bake (eg out of fridge ~8am, bake ~11.30 ready to eat ~1pm)

4. No time sourdough

  • Thursday morning - refresh starter
  • Friday morning - mix dough, put in fridge
  • Friday evening - shape - put in fridge
  • Saturday morning - Turn on oven when you get up, and take loaf out of fridge bake as soon as oven warmed up. Eg 8am oven on, bake 8.45, ready to eat ~10.30

If life is busy it can be hard to even find the time to fold dough after work. You can also reduce the wait in the morning, by baking as soon as the oven has warmed up. This schedule involves a minimum of time, and will produce a great tasting sourdough loaf, albeit the structure of the loaf won’t be as good. The loaf is a bit underproved, but it doesn’t matter too much.

If you have small children (who drag you out of bed early), or are a natural early riser, then it is possible to have bread for a late breakfast using this schedule.

5. Breakfast loaf

Having a fresh loaf ready to eat first thing is tricky. Given that you need at least 3/4 hour to warm up your oven, 3/4 hour to bake, and 3/4 hour to cool before eating, it is hard to have a loaf baked in time. So if you turn the oven on at 6, you can have a loaf ready to eat by 8.15.

You also need to have dough that is proved and ready to bake. There are a couple of ways to achieve this

  1. Set your alarm clock for 2.30 or 3, drag yourself out of bed and get your dough out of the fridge. (This is really only suitable for extreme enthusiasts, or for those whose bladder or small children wake them anyway)
  2. Let the dough prove slowly at a cool temperature ~8-10C (warmer than the fridge, but cooler than normal ‘room temperature’). This way you can leave the dough out overnight, and it will probably be about right by morning. (In Melbourne I can do this in winter on my balcony, but it isn’t possible in the warmer months)
  3. Bake the loaf from the fridge (as in the no-time schedule). This means accepting a less than perfect crumb structure, but being compensated by fresh bread for breakfast, without needing to get up in the night!

Of course the above schedules are only a couple of possible permutations. There are all sorts of variations that you might need depending upon the activity of your starter, the temperature where you are baking, and the recipe that you are using (not to mention the pressures of life, family and work). They are really just designed to illustrate how flexible sourdough baking can be, and how it can be adapted to ordinary life.

Next time - understanding and adapting sourdough recipes…

Replies

shiao-ping's picture
shiao-ping 2009 November 28

Gorgeous Christmas cake you've got there on your album.  And stollen and figgypud!   I see that we have the same tastes.  And pork floss bun!   Haven't seen that for a while.

I find SourDom's timetables extremely useful and practical for sourdough baking and wonder why there is not more discussion about them here; or perhaps there is, but elsewhere in the site.  (I love the spell check function on this site, too; my spelling is shocking.)

LeadDog's picture
LeadDog 2009 November 28

I have read about your breads on "The Fresh Loaf".  They always look so wonderful,  I don't know if I have ever commented.

 

I don't ever remembering us discussing Dom's timetables.  The only place that I remember anything like them is in "Local Breads".  In "Local Breads" Daniel Leader says if you run out of time stick the dough in the fridge.  He is a bit more detailed than that but I have been using the fridge for a while now.  It certainly makes baking easy to fit into my schedule. 

shiao-ping's picture
shiao-ping 2009 November 29

I have been a member of Sourdough Companion for over six months but did not know there was a forum for discussion for users until the other day when I was buying a book by John Downes on the site.   A crumb shot of Johnny's Ciabatta Integrale caught my attention and it all started from there.  I am very happy to learn that members can blog their breads and post recipes, etc., for discussion on the site.  Doesn't Australia have one of the most conducive environment for home sourdough making, not the least because Australia is such a great DIY country?!  My husband is great handy man.  Making bread, especially by hand, is such a satisfying handy man (and woman)'s job, isn't it.   

hitz333 2010 September 8

I just wanted to say thanks to Dom for posting this,  Shiao-Ping for recommending this, and why not, some more thanks to TP and LD! I've been learning a lot from the many posts you've all made on this site (and I'm dying to try your chocolate sourdough, Shiao-Ping)! My mom passed down her old Breadman to me last year and that was the first time I'd ever made bread (other than banana bread and the like). A sourdough biscuit (scone? I'm American so not sure which word means the same thing) recipe in an old cookbook had me making my first starter (with commercial yeast) and from there on I said, "Why not try a sourdough bread?" So my first hand-made bread was a sourdough from the Fields of Greens cookbook. And although I was questioning myself at every turn and I still don't know why the dough was a wet blob after the final proof, requiring me to basically re-shape it mid-air before throwing it on the baking stone, it came out beautiful (once cut, anyway... the overall shape was a little....rustic) and the slightly chewy texture had me so happy...

 

So I guess I've caught the bug. Recently borrowed Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice from my local library and just yesterday made the pain a l'ancienne. My first baguettes and actually did a good job slashing on one of them! My 19 month old son said, "Goot! Pees?" (Good! Please?), asking for more.

 

Thanks to all the wonderful information and discussion on this site, my son will have more! I had always thought of baking as such an exact science, but seeing how everyone here experiments and has fun, I have much more confidence that even if something isn't perfect, it will probably still be way better than store-bought! But as far as sourdoughs go, I'm still only 2 loaves in (along with several batches of biscuits and even a successful batch of pancakes that had my starter sitting out all night with milk, among other ingredients). I'm learning about the starters and would like to have one not from commerical yeast, but my first go at Dom's didn't satisfy me (probably because I have no idea how rye is supposed to smell and wasn't sure if it was bad or just different). So I will keep on learning, maybe even buy a starter, and try again in the future once I know more. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm and knowledge and sharing, and I think I will use timetable 2 or 3 for my next loaf! =)

24 hours? 2020 December 21

 I've always used my starter 8 - 12 hours after refreshing. If I leave it 24 hours after refreshing, won't it have deflated after its rise? Can I still bake with it?

Kathy Mazel 2021 October 7

Thank you so much for this post.  I appreciate it greatly!  It answers so many of the questions I had...

I thank you and my family thanks you also. 

Kathy :)

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