sourdough not sour

Hi there. I am a home baker and you may get different ideas from a pro but here are some things to try:

• Allow the starter to become more mature before using it. Smelling slightly acidic even.
• Use a bigger % of starter in the bread. I.e. mix up a levain with 20 to 50% of the total flour and let it mature before adding.
• Take more time with slower rising levain and then let the dough rise slowly overnight in the fridge before baking.

For a recipe combining all these techniques look up Weekend Bakery San Francisco Sourdough recipe. I haven't tried it but there stuff is always very clear and works well. Good baking

@hopebake

Hello Mr MFA,

Bread made using sourdough as the leavening agent doesn't necessarily have to taste sour itself.  Often when the bread is particularly fresh it can have quite a sweet taste even though there is no sweetening agent added.  Very often some sour tones will develop as the loaf ages.

The sourness comes from the acids produced by the bacteria in the culture and the concentration can be quite high in the mother culture because of the time that has allowed the concentration to built up.  When you make the dough, you dilute those acids with the flour and water and it takes time for the concentration to build up and thus for sourness in the dough  and final loaf to become noticeable.  You will probably find that loaves made with a shorter processing time from mixing to baking will not have as much acidity as those that take a longer time.  This is possibly why some sourness develops with aging of the loaf though theoretically all of the bacteria should be killed off in the baking.  Another possibility is that as the loaf dries, the concentration of the acid is increased and becomes more noticeable.  This concentration will happen to some degree in baking as well as water avaporates in the oven.

The other thing to be aware of is that some commercial 'sourdough' loaves are artificially 'soured' and can give a false impression of what bread made with sourdough should taste like.  Arguably,  artisan produced sourdough based bread is a victim of its own success and should be styled 'bread leavened with sourdough' to reduce the expectation that it should be sour tasting.

Good luck with your projects.

Farinam