Looks like granola. Smells like a brownie. Tastes like a brownie. Crunches like granola.

So which is it: granola or brownie?

What time of day you have this granola may dictate which it is for you. In the morning, we can call it granola and it’s breakfast. In the afternoon, we can call it granola and it’s a snack. In the evening, we can call it a brownie and it’s dessert.

Whenever you choose to have it, this sourdough granola is chocolate decadence. It has big clusters of whole grain flaked rye with notes of rich cacao from two sources: cacao powder and cacao nibs. Add tahini, black sesame seeds, and green pistachios and you’ve got the perfect chocolate granola.

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

What is spelt?

Spelt is an ancient variety of wheat. It’s a member of the farro family and is closely related to einkorn and emmer. Spelt has a tough outer husk (hull) that needs to be removed (dehulled) before it’s cooked or milled into flour.

Origins and history of spelt

Spelt has been used by humans for many years—some say it’s been around since 6,000 BC. Its earliest use was in the Caucuses and southeastern Europe but it gradually spread through the Balkans and Europe. Spelt has long been a staple of the peasant class and used mostly to make ancient forms of bread.

Spelt is farther down on the wheat family tree and is a descendent of emmer.

Nutrition and health benefits

Spelt is a nutritional powerhouse. It’s rich in vitamins and minerals, including phosphorus, iron, calcium, zinc, manganese, B-vitamins, and vitamins A, D, E, and K. Plus most spelt flour is a good source of fiber, amino acids, and protein. The proteins found in spelt are actually easier for us to digest and absorb than modern bread wheat.

While its genetics are more similar to modern wheat, spelt’s nutrition facts are more similar to emmer and einkorn. The gluten structures are different too. This allows some people who don’t tolerate wheat very well to do better with spelt.

Sustainability and farming

Spelt’s hull protects the grain from weather damage, pollution, pests, and parasites. This protection makes it more resilient and easier for farmers to grow—it also makes the possibility of growing organic easier too, which is always a more sustainable route.

Another important sustainability factor is water input. Most wheat planting is done in the spring. This means newly sprouted plants need plenty of water, which also feeds the competing weeds.

But spelt can be adapted to plant in the fall. This means these grains can tap into the naturally occurring moisture (snow) that happens during the winter months. The result: they require much less irrigation. By the time the plants have matured earlier in the summer, they don’t need nearly as much water.

When the plants mature faster, they can also out-compete many weeds. This is another big win for growing spelt with organic methods.

Spelt, like many other ancient grains, does well in poor soil conditions and is more efficient at using nutrients, including nitrogen, in the soil. When farmers grow ancient grains, their fields retain more nutrients after the harvest.

Baking with spelt

The flavor of spelt is nutty, slightly sweet, and more complex than bread flour. The flour has a softer feel and a warm, copper hue. Baked goods that use spelt flour feel tender and light.

Spelt can be used as a 1:1 replacement for regular wheat flour, including all-purpose, bread, or even whole wheat flour. It’s a magical way to swap in a whole grain flour! While this is true for the measurement of the ingredients going into the recipe, the approach to baking bread with spelt is quite different.

Though spelt often has high protein percentages (most are in the 12-15% range), the proteins (gluten) behave quite differently than modern wheats. The gluten in spelt is more water soluble and extensible, so the dough is more fragile to work with.

You’ll need to shift your bread expectations slightly too. Don’t expect a big, lofty rise from a mostly spelt bread. It benefits from the support of a loaf pan and makes a fantastic sandwich bread.

I personally like spelt best for more tender baked goods, such as muffins, cookies, cakes, and banana bread. Even though it’s a whole grain flour, you can swap it out 1:1 for all-purpose flour in these types of recipes without noticing that you’ve increased the nutritional quality of your bake significantly.

Different types of flour

Spelt flour comes in different forms and they all behave a little different.

Whole Grain

Just as the name implies, whole grain spelt flour contains the entire grain—the bran, germ, and endosperm. This flour has more fiber, nutrients, and flavor than other options. Though it’s a whole grain flour, it can still be used as a substitute for all-purpose or bread flour, depending on the recipe.

Sprouted

This flour is made from spelt grains that are sprouted (germinated) before milling. The sprouting process helps to reduce phytic acid, which improves digestibility and nutrient availability for us. The sprouting process produces a slightly sweeter flavor as well, which can be nice for some recipes.

White/Refined

When whole grain spelt flour has most of the bran removed, we call it white (refined) spelt flour. It has an even softer texture and lighter color.

Where to buy spelt

Spelt flour is available at most health food stores. It can also be found online, often directly from farmers or millers. These are some of the brands I’ve used that offer spelt flour or berries (whole grains).

Grand Teton Ancient Grains
This southeastern Idaho farm and mill offers a wide variety of regenerative heritage and ancient grains and flours—including spelt.

Bluebird Grain Farms
Situated in Washington, they offer heritage grains and flours. And yes, they have spelt!

Flourish Heritage (Boise)
This mill specializes in small batch, ancient grains that are stone-milled to preserve nutrients in the final flour. They also carry freshly milled spelt flour.

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

Sources For the Fellow Nerds

I don’t make things up and I don’t use AI. Here’s where I got my information:

Wang et al (2024). Genomic insights into the origin and evolution of spelt (Triticum spelta L.) as a valuable gene pool for modern wheat breeding. Plant Communications. 5(5): 100883.

Preiti et al (2022). A Comparative Assessment of Agronomic and Baking Qualities of Modern/Old Varieties and Landraces of Wheat Grown in Calabria (Italy). Foods. 11(15): 2359.

Graybosch (2016). The Grain Crops: An Overview. Encyclopedia of Food Grains: Second Edition. 1: 16-21.

Eli Rogosa (2016). Restoring Heritage Grains: The Culture, Biodiversity, Resilience, and Cuisine of Ancient Wheats. Chelsea Green Publishing.

Chad Robertson (2013). Tartine Book No. 3: Modern, Ancient, Classic, Whole. Chronicle Books.

Oplinger et al (1990). Spelt. Corn Agronomy.

Wheat July Grain of the Month. The Whole Grains Council.

When you bake with sourdough, you quickly learn that there’s a rhythm to the method. The sourdough starter is cared for, the dough is made, the bread is baked, the cycle repeats. It’s not a linear process but one that shifts and adapts with changes in the environment and steps overlap with each other.

It’s a symphony and you’re the conductor.

All sourdough bakers, no matter how much bread they’re making, need to manage their starters. The management objective changes based on the scale.

Commercial bakers making several loaves day after day need to build enough starter for their recipes. The more bread you bake, the more active sourdough starter you need.

Home bakers making 1 loaf each week need to feed their starters enough to make bread without accumulating too much discard. In other words, home bakers always have more starter than they need.

This becomes the challenge for the home baker: finding harmony between maintaining a healthy starter, getting it ready to make bread, and using up the discard.

All bakers, no matter how much or how often they bake, can manage their starters effectively with something called a levain.

Let’s talk all about it.

What is a levain?

A levain (pronounced luh-vahn) is an offshoot of your sourdough starter that’s mixed into dough. It’s used as the single source of yeast in a recipe—it’s what makes your product rise. In most recipes, you build and use a levain just as you would a sourdough starter but it’s completely separate from the starter.

The French word levain translates to the English word leaven, as in “to make rise.”

How is it different from a sourdough starter?

Read more

What is a sourdough starter?

A sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water that houses wild microbes (yeasts and bacteria). They give off carbon dioxide that raises or leavens bread. Using a sourdough starter is how we made bread before commercial yeast became available. It’s also called a sourdough culture. It can be kept indefinitely when fed a mixture of fresh flour and water on a regular basis.

How can you take care of it?

Taking care of a sourdough starter involves feeding it regularly and making sure it has a safe place to be. This includes a clean jar with a loose fitting lid.

What do you feed it?

A sourdough starter is fed just flour and water.

Flour: you can use flour made from wheat, rye, spelt, einkorn, emmer, or khorasan. You can use whole grain flour, bread flour, or all-purpose. Buy flour from the store or mill it yourself.

Water: filtered is best but tap water can work too. If you’re feeding your starter with tap water and having problems with it, your first troubleshooting set can be to try using filtered.

How do you feed it?

You take a small portion of sourdough starter and mix it with a specific ratio of flour and water. See your handout for the feeding recipe. Then you let it rest for 12-24 hours and watch it come alive.

What happens during a feeding?

During a feeding, a symphony of metabolic process, symbiosis, sights, and smells are happening. It’s an amazing process called the sourdough cycle of fermentation and it happens every time you feed your starter after 6-12 hours. We use our senses to understand the cycle and where our starters are in it.

The Start: Fed

Wild yeasts and bacteria begin to gobble up starches in the flour. At this stage you’ll notice bubbles beginning to form. The mix smells floury and vegetal. This stage is called fed and the starter is called a young starter.

The Middle: Peak

The entire mix will begin to rise and it will double in volume. You’ll notice big bubbles and sometimes large air pockets. The mix smells different now—it’s sweet and tangy. This stage is called peak fermentation and the starter is called an active starter.

The End: Hungry

Then the mix will collapse back down in the jar. The big bubbles will subside and only small bubbles will remain. The smell has changed again and now it’s more sour and acidic. This stage is called hungry and the starter is called a discard starter. The starter is ready for another feeding.

And here’s what a starter actually looks like at each stage of the sourdough cycle of fermentation:

When do you feed it?

This seems like such a simple question. This is sourdough, so the answer is nuanced. What you want to bake will dictate when you feed your starter.

Bread, Bagels, Pizza

If you want to bake bread or anything else that calls for an active starter, like bagels or pizza dough, you’ll need to feed your sourdough starter more often. The recommendation here is to feed it every 12 hours for 2 days before you make your dough.

Pancakes, Muffins, Cookies, Tortillas, Etc

For almost everything else, you’ll use discard. You can save up discard after feedings for these. If you don’t have bread baking plans but want to make these other easy sourdough treats, feed your starter every 24 hours until you have the discard you need for your recipe.

When is a sourdough starter ready to make bread?

A starter is ready to make bread after it’s had training.

By training, I mean you’ve been feeding it every 12 hours for 2 days—and it’s been doubling in volume between feedings. This ensures that your sourdough starter is ready for the big job of making bread rise. Without the consistent feeding schedule, your starter may not be ready.

An important distinction is that your starter is doubling in volume during that 12 hour window. If it’s not, look at the ambient temperature of your home.

What is sourdough discard?

When you feed your sourdough, you only use a small portion of starter—20 grams to be exact. The rest is considered discard and can be saved up in that quart jar in the fridge.

Discard starter is leftover starter that doesn’t get fed again. It’s not worthless though! You can save it to use for other recipes that call for discard starter. With it, you can make anything from biscuits to birthday cake. Discard won’t leaven (or rise) a product but still adds tangy sourdough flavor and, if long-fermented, can add to the health benefits that come with sourdough.

You can accumulate discard in the fridge for about a week. You can still use it after that, but the flavor becomes increasingly sour and potent.

Can you take a break?

A sourdough starter is a lively little ferment. It needs regular attention to stay healthy.

But what happens when you want to go on vacation?

There are two options: bring your starter with you or leave it at home. There are some best practices to check off the list before you let your starter hold down the fort. It’s simple:

Feed.

Feed your sourdough starter as usual.

Seal.

Seal the pint jar tight, not loose like we do when feeding at room temperature.

Fridge.

Place the sealed jar of fed starter straight into the fridge.

Feeding your sourdough starter and then placing it right into the fridge gives it a source of food and then slows fermentation down substantially. It’s essentially lulling your starter to sleep for a long, hibernation in the fridge until you return to feed it again. It can hang out there for 1-2 weeks at least.

Vacation brain can forget things, so I highly recommend putting a label on the jar with the date.

What happens in the fridge?

When you leave your starter in the fridge, it’s still fermenting but at a much slower rate than at room temperature. It’s just like a bear going into hibernation. It’s definitely not dead but also not quite alive.

Temperature has a huge effect on fermentation. Sourdough starters are living ecosystems of wild yeast and bacteria, which are sensitive to temperatures just like we are. If you’ve ever baked with commercial yeast, you know that it’s also temperature sensitive. If the liquids are too warm, it kills the yeast. If the liquids are too cool, nothing happens.

At most room temperatures, sourdough goes through the cycle of fermentation in a window of 6-12 hours. It’s lively and active. But in the fridge, temperatures are cold enough to slow fermentation down drastically—but it’s still happening. Incredibly. Slowly.

After being in the fridge for a while, it’s perfectly normal for your starter to take on a grey-ish hue. It may also have a layer of clear or dark liquid on top. This liquid is called hooch and it’s harmless. It’s a sign that your sourdough starter is really hungry. Just pour it off when you’re ready to feed again and scoop off 20 grams for a feeding.

Coming out of hibernation

Your starter is very cold and very hungry. It’s been getting by without you okay but it needs care and sustenance.

To get started with your sourdough again, bring it out of the fridge and feed it as usual. Refer to the recipe in your handout.

It may be a tad sluggish, depending on how long it was in the fridge. It may take 1-3 feedings for your starter to get back to doubling in volume every 6-12 hours. Just keep feeding it regularly.

Sourdough starter best practices

As you can see, a sourdough starter has a life of its own. Here are my best practices and tips for your sourdough starter’s best life:

• Use a digital kitchen scale. This makes feeding your starter and modifying the feeding amount easier and more precise.

• Be consistent. Feed your starter at about the same time each day. For example, if mornings work best, be sure to feed your starter in the morning. Not at 2pm some days and 7pm on others.

• Use a 2-jar feeding system. You only need 2 jars: a pint jar that houses the fed starter and a quart jar that holds the unused hungry starter, otherwise called discard. Refer to your handout for sourdough starter feeding instructions.

• Be prepared for possible overflow. If your jar is too small for your doubling starter, it will bust through the lid like a geyser. Try to fill your jar no more than halfway with freshly fed starter—a pint jar is perfect for your feeding recipe. To be sure to contain any possible overflow, place the jar on a sheet pan. Discard starter will not rise very much in the fridge. You can fill that jar up and use the discard later.

• Expect that your starter will be sluggish after being in the fridge for more than a week. Keep feeding it every 12-24 hours. Stick with it and it’ll come back to life.

Keep practicing with your starter to find your own rhythm. It will take time to get comfortable with the process. You’ve got this, baker!

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

Pancakes are good but waffles feel like an upgrade. Their lacy design of toasted, crispy edges are somehow more satisfying than pancakes, bread, or even toast.

It might be that they’re at once crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. It might be the long-fermentation and unlocking of so many nuanced flavors. Or maybe it’s just that each warm, crispy pocket can hold a chocolate chip and allow it to melt perfectly without escaping.

Whatever it is, waffles are wonderful and they don’t take a lot of extra effort to make. When you make them with sourdough, the method is pretty straightforward. You will need to start making them the day before you want to eat them.

My pancake recipe is almost the opposite. You build up discard starter and mix everything together the morning of—no planning, except that you have enough discard for the recipe.

For this waffle recipe, you build a levain and pre-ferment the dough the night before. In true sourdough fashion, it requires advance planning.

Let me tell you, it’s well worth it.

Let me also tell you, these waffles are incredibly light, tender, fluffy, and crispy. They’re also 100% whole grain—ancient grain, in this case. It can be our little secret. No one has to know because they won’t even notice.

If you have the patience (and a large enough bowl!), I highly recommend making a double batch of these waffles. Leftovers freeze like a dream and can be toasted and enjoyed anytime. It takes something that feels special and allows the enjoyment to last a bit longer.

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

Let’s go through the process step-by-step, just like we went over in class. There's a lot to unpack here, so come back to this guide anytime you need a refresher on the steps to making your own sourdough sandwich bread.

First, let’s go over some of the foundations.

What is Sourdough?

Sourdough is both a process and an ingredient. It’s a slow way to make bread that we’ve been doing for thousands of years. Clever bakers would capture wild yeasts and bacteria from the environment to make their bread rise. And we still do this today with a sourdough starter.

The slow fermentation of sourdough results in that iconic flavor, aroma, and the nutritional benefits that come with sourdough.

It’s a simple process that may forever change the way you bake bread.

Ingredients

At its simplest, sourdough bread is only flour, water, and salt. These are the only ingredients you need to make sourdough sandwich bread at home:

• Unbleached bread flour

• Water

• Salt

• Rice flour. It’s not used in the bread recipe. It’s sprinkled into your loaf pan to help keep the dough from sticking.

Equipment

This is one of the simplest ways to make sourdough bread. You may already have all of these things in your kitchen. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Digital kitchen scale

• Large mixing bowl

• Knife or lame

• 1 loaf pan

• 1 9x13-inch baking dish

• Olive oil or cooking spray

• Cooling rack

7 Steps to Making Sourdough Sandwich Bread

(1) Levain

This is an off-shoot of your sourdough starter that will be mixed into the dough. It’s different from the sourdough starter. The starter is the source of yeast that is saved, cared for, and perpetuated. You make the levain to be the source of yeast for your bread.

Levain becomes an important part of starter management. By making a levain, you never run the risk of accidentally using up all of your sourdough starter to make bread.

(2) Mix

All the ingredients are mixed together: water, levain, flour, and salt.

(3) Bulk Fermentation

This is the first rise. It’s a time to slowly build strength in the dough and gently develop the gluten structures. It’s done with a series of stretch and folds by hand—no kneading, punching down, mixers, or machines.

(4) Shape

Shaping is a way to get your dough into the desired shape. Simple enough, right? There are different techniques for different shapes. Here we’ll shape the dough to fit into a loaf pan.

(5) Proof

This is the second rise. We’ll let the dough proof in the fridge overnight.

(6) Score

Scoring is slashing the dough in a strategic way to control the rise and shape of the bread while baking. The dough releases steam while it bakes, so scoring the bread gives this steam a desired place to escape. It can act as a baker’s signature—creative, beautiful, and unique.

(7) Bake

This is where the dough expands, crust begins to form, and caramelization happens. It’s the final step in the bread-making process.

Sourdough Bread Baker’s Timeline

This is a handy way to think about baking bread and the time needed for each step. Use it to own your bread timeline, so you’re not waking up at odd hours because your dough is ready.

Bonus Content: Sourdough Timeline

Scheduling your bake can be one of the trickiest parts of sourdough. There are many steps and times designated for each—things can get complicated quickly.

Commercial bakers use spreadsheets to keep track of everything and keep the baking team on track. It’s a handy way to keep the timeline from swirling in your head.

I’ve created a site that helps you calculate your baking timeline. It’s a custom bake planner for beginner sourdough bread recipes. Just put in how many loaves you want to make and enter your levain start time, then it calculates the rest for you. The access code is on your handout from class.

Access Sourdough Timeline

How to Make Beginner Sourdough Sandwich Bread

This is everything you need to know about the process. Take it all in and get comfortable with the steps and timeline. Revisit it as often as you need.

Day 1
Build the Levain.

Mix together the levain ingredients. Place it in a small bowl. Mark the outside with a piece of tape where the starter sits. Cover it loosely and leave it to ferment at room temperature until it doubles in volume. This might take 6-10 hours, depending on the time of year and temperature of your home.

To double-check that your levain is ready, scoop a teaspoon off the top of the levain and plop it into a small bowl of water. If it floats, it’s ready. This is called the levain float test and it’s a simple way to make sure your levain is ready for the next step.

Mix the Dough.

In a large bowl, mix the water and levain until dissolved. Mix in the flour and salt until there are no lumps. Mixing with a dough whisk can be helpful but nothing beats mixing by hand! Cover the bowl and let it rest for 1 hour.

Bulk Fermentation with Stretch and Folds.

During the bulk fermentation, we develop gluten slowly without kneading. After this step, the dough should look lively and billowy and have increased in volume by about 20%. The dough should also feel stronger and less relaxed. For the bulk fermentation, you’ll do 4 sets of stretch and folds, one every 30 minutes, over 2 hours.

How to do a Stretch and Fold

Dip your hand in water to keep the dough from sticking to you. Lift a section of the dough, pulling it up and over to the center. Rotate the bowl and repeat for all 4 sides. This is 1 stretch and fold set. After a stretch and fold, cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

Repeat 4 times, doing a stretch and fold every 30 minutes followed by a rest.

Shape the Dough.

Sandwich bread is one of the easiest ways to shape sourdough.

Folding like an Envelope

Gently scoop the dough from the bowl onto the countertop. Flip it over, so that the seam-side is up. Take the south side, folding it up and over towards the center. Do the same for the east and west sides. For the north side, fold it over towards the center and flip the whole thing over. The seam-side should now be down.

Getting the Loaf Shape

Gently push the dough towards you to roll and guide it into a burrito-shape. It should look like it’ll perfectly fit your loaf pan.

Proof Overnight in the Fridge.

Prep your loaf pan by coating it lightly with olive oil or cooking spray and a light dusting of bread and rice flour.

Gently set your dough into the pan with the seam-side down. Place the pan in the fridge overnight (8-24 hours).

Day 2
Preheat the Oven and Score the Dough.

The next day, preheat the oven to 450°F. Place a rack in the bottom third of the oven.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Score the top of the dough with a sharp knife or lame. One long slash works best for sandwich bread.

Bake the Bread.

This is it! Fill the baking dish with 2-inches of cold water and set it in the hot oven. Place the dough into the oven next to the baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove the baking dish and continue baking for another 25-35 minutes. The crust on the top should be dark brown and the bottom and side crusts should be golden. Check it by sliding the bread out of the pan with oven mitts.

What Happens in the Oven

Bakeries use huge deck ovens that can inject steam right into the chamber while the dough is baking. They use steam when the dough first goes into the oven to get it to rise before a crust forms. We call it oven spring.

For home baking, we mimic this with the baking dish of cold water trick. The cold water in the hot oven will begin to evaporate and create steam. During the oven spring phase of the bake, the baking pan of water is in the oven too.

After the oven spring, we remove the baking dish and let the crust form and darken. This caramelization is where we get lots of great flavor and that crunchy, crackly crust.

Let it Cool.

Remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

Let the bread to cool until room temperature before slicing. The hardest part, I know! It’s fresh, it’s hot, and your house is filled with the best bakery smells. Trust me, wait at least 3 hours before slicing.

This is an important part of the bake. You’ll notice crackles and pops coming from your sourdough bread while it’s cooling. What’s happening inside is those structures are forming and stabilizing. Cutting into a hot loaf of bread will be gummy, because those structures haven’t set yet.

Storing Your Bread.

Once cool, there are different ways you can store your bread. Every baker seems to have a different idea about it and there are lots of approaches to it. Find what works for you! This is what works for me:

Day 1-2

Keep bread cut-side down on a cutting board at room temperature for easy slice-and-go access.

Day 3+

Freeze loaves whole, cut in half or quarters, or sliced. Thaw a whole, half, or quarter loaf to room temperature before slicing. Slices can go straight from the freezer and into the toaster. Sandwich bread is excellent for toasting!

Enjoy your freshly baked sourdough sandwich bread!

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

As a minimalist at heart, I’ve sorted through a lot of fluff with fermentation gear to include the essentials—and some of my personal favorites.

This post contains affiliate links. As an associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. Underlined text will take you to the recommended item.

Sourdough Essentials

I’ve been baking sourdough for over a decade. I’ve worked in commercial bakeries with giant deck ovens and smaller, community-driven bakeries. This has given me the knowledge, skill, and creativity to adapt sourdough baking to the home kitchen.

Need-to-Have

These are the absolute essentials for sourdough.

Read more

What is Sourdough?

Sourdough is both a process and an ingredient. It’s a slow way to make bread that we’ve been doing for thousands of years. Clever bakers would capture wild yeasts and bacteria from the environment to make their bread rise. And we still do this today with a sourdough starter.

The slow fermentation of sourdough results in that iconic flavor, aroma, and the nutritional benefits that come with sourdough.

It’s a simple process that may forever change the way you bake bread.

Ingredients

At its simplest, sourdough bread is only flour, water, and salt. These are the only ingredients you need to make sourdough bread at home:

• Unbleached bread flour

• Water

• Salt

• Rice flour. It’s not used in the bread recipe. It’s sprinkled over your proofing basket and towel to help keep the dough from sticking.

Equipment

You don’t need a lot of special equipment to make sourdough bread at home. You may already have many of these things in your kitchen. You’ll need a:

• Digital kitchen scale

• Large mixing bowl

• Proofing basket

• Knife or lame

• Cast iron Dutch oven or combo cooker (3-5 quart)

• Cooling rack

• Optional: parchment paper, flour sack towel

7 Steps to Making Sourdough Bread

(1) Levain

This is an off-shoot of your sourdough starter that will be mixed into the dough. It’s different from the sourdough starter. The starter is the source of yeast that is saved, cared for, and perpetuated. The levain is used up to make bread. (The levain is like sourdough starter babies that turn into loaves of bread.)

(2) Mix

All the ingredients are mixed together: water, levain, flour, and salt.

(3) Bulk Fermentation

This is the first rise. It’s a time to slowly build strength in the dough and gently develop the gluten structures. It’s done with a series of stretch and folds by hand—no kneading, punching down, mixers, or machines.

(4) Shape

Shaping is a way to get your dough into the desired shape. Simple enough, right? There are different techniques for different shapes. For this country bread, we’ll form the dough into a round loaf or boule.

(5) Proof

This is the second rise. We’ll let the dough proof in the fridge overnight.

(6) Score

Scoring is slashing the dough in a strategic way to control the rise and shape of the bread while baking. The dough releases steam while it bakes, so scoring the bread gives this steam a desired place to escape. It can act as a baker’s signature—creative, beautiful, and unique.

(7) Bake

This is where the dough expands, crust begins to form, and caramelization happens. It’s the final step in the bread-making process.

Sourdough Bread Baker’s Timeline

This is a handy way to think about baking bread and the time needed for each step. Use it to own your bread timeline, so you’re not waking up at odd hours because your dough is ready.

How to Make Beginner Sourdough Bread

This is everything you need to know about the process. Take it all in and get comfortable with the steps and timeline. Revisit it as often as you need.

Day 1
Build the Levain.

Mix together the levain ingredients. Place it in a small bowl. Mark the outside with a piece of tape where the starter sits. Cover it loosely and leave it to ferment at room temperature until it doubles in volume. This might take 6-10 hours, depending on the time of year and temperature of your home.

To double-check that your levain is ready, scoop a teaspoon off the top of the levain and plop it into a small bowl of water. If it floats, it’s ready. This is called the levain float test and it’s a simple way to make sure your levain is ready for the next step.

Mix the Dough.

In a large bowl, mix the water and levain until dissolved. Mix in the flour and salt until there are no lumps. Mixing with a dough whisk can be helpful but nothing beats mixing by hand! Cover the bowl and let it rest for 1 hour.

Bulk Fermentation with Stretch and Folds.

During the bulk fermentation, we develop gluten slowly without kneading. After this step, the dough should look lively and billowy and have increased in volume by about 20%. The dough should also feel stronger and less relaxed. For the bulk fermentation, you’ll do 4 sets of stretch and folds, one every 30 minutes, over 2 hours.

How to do a Stretch and Fold

Dip your hand in water to keep the dough from sticking to you. Lift a section of the dough, pulling it up and over to the center. Rotate the bowl and repeat for all 4 sides. This is 1 stretch and fold set. After a stretch and fold, cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

Repeat 4 times, doing a stretch and fold every 30 minutes followed by a rest.

Shape the Dough.

There are 2 parts to shaping a boule: folding the dough like an envelope and closing the seams.

Folding like an Envelope

Gently scoop the dough from the bowl onto the countertop. Flip it over, so that the seam-side is up. Take the south side, folding it up and over towards the center. Do the same for the east and west sides. For the north side, fold it over towards the center and flip the whole thing over. The seam-side should now be down.

Closing the Seams

Spin the dough using your hands. This helps close the seams and create tension on the skin of the dough.

Proof Overnight in the Fridge.

Take your proofing basket (line it with a flour sack towel if it doesn’t already have a cloth cover) and sprinkle it with bread flour and rice flour. Dust the top of the dough with bread flour. Scoop and flip the dough into the proofing basket so that it’s seam-side up. Place the basket in the fridge overnight (8-24 hours).

Day 2
Preheat the Oven and Score the Dough.

The next day, place a rack in the bottom third of the oven and add a cast iron Dutch oven. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Once the oven comes to temperature, let it heat up for 30 minutes to make sure the pan is really hot.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Gently flip the dough onto the countertop or onto a sheet of parchment paper. Score the top of the dough with a sharp knife or lame.

Bake the Bread.

This is it! Take the Dutch oven out of the oven and take the lid off. Place the dough into the hot pan and quickly put the lid back on. (If your dough is on parchment, use it to lift the dough up and place it into the Dutch oven. No need to remove the parchment first.) Place the pan back in the oven and bake for 20 minutes with the lid on. Then remove the lid and bake for another 30-35 minutes. The crust on the top and bottom should be dark brown. Remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

What Happens in the Oven

Bakeries use huge deck ovens that can inject steam right into the chamber while the dough is baking. They use steam when the dough first goes into the oven to get it to rise before a crust forms. We call it oven spring.

For home baking, we use a trick to trap steam that dough naturally gives off when baking: the Dutch oven. When the cold dough hits the hot oven, steam is released. The smaller area of the Dutch oven traps that steam and gets oven spring without having to add extra steam to the oven. During the oven spring phase of the bake, the Dutch oven lid is on.

After the oven spring, we take the lid off and let the crust form and darken. This caramelization is where we get lots of great flavor and that crunchy, crackly crust.

Let it Cool.

Allow the bread to cool until room temperature before slicing. The hardest part, I know! It’s fresh, it’s hot, and your house is filled with the best bakery smells. Trust me, wait at least 3 hours before slicing.

This is an important part of the bake. You’ll notice crackles and pops coming from your sourdough bread while it’s cooling. What’s happening inside is those structures are forming and stabilizing. Cutting into a hot loaf of bread will be gummy, because those structures haven’t set yet.

Storing Your Bread.

Once cool, there are different ways you can store your bread. Every baker seems to have a different idea about it and there are lots of approaches to it. Find what works for you! This is what works for me:

Day 1-2

Keep bread cut-side down on a cutting board at room temperature for easy slice-and-go access.

Day 3+

Freeze loaves whole, cut in half or quarters, or sliced. Thaw a whole, half, or quarter loaf to room temperature before slicing. Slices can go straight from the freezer and into the toaster.

Enjoy your freshly baked sourdough country bread!

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

It seems like every few years, we all decide that some food is “the bad guy.” Back in the day, it was fat and cholesterol. Today, carbohydrates are having their moment, and many people try to avoid them altogether.

Unsurprisingly, bread has become Culprit #1.

But the bread of today is not the bread of our ancestors. Traditional bread was a whole food. It had an intact, natural ratio of carbohydrates, protein, fiber, and fat because it was made from whole grains simply milled into flour.

Today, industrial milling sifts flour to remove the germ and the bran—stripping away the protein, healthy fats, and fiber. What is left behind is almost pure starch.

In addition to changing our flour, we also changed our recipe. We traded the ancient, slow ritual of fermentation for plastic bags of shelf-stable bread. It’s easy, convenient, and available exactly when we decide we want it.

Our guts are paying the price for it. True sourdough isn’t another food fad—it’s baked into our biology. The science behind it rings loud and clear, and it all starts with the grain itself.

Phytates: The Nutrient Padlock

Grains are the seeds of plants, such as wheat, spelt, rye, and oats. Seeds want to become plants, so they have protective strategies. One of them is a compound called phytic acid (or phytates).

Phytates act like a chemical padlock on crucial minerals, including iron, zinc, and magnesium. Those minerals are important for plant growth and development, intended for the plant-to-be. The phytates block these minerals, so that animals (us) can’t easily absorb them. It’s a brilliant survival strategy for the plant.

The result: We can’t use these valuable minerals in standard bread unless that phytate padlock is removed.

So… who holds the key?

The Sourdough Solution

The wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria that live in a sourdough culture thrive in an acidic environment. This acidity activates an enzyme called phytase.

Phytase is the key that unlocks the phytate padlock. Once broken down by fermentation, those bound minerals are released and available for our bodies to absorb and use. It’s our own brilliant survival strategy.

Recap: Mineral Bioavailability

Minerals, such as iron, zinc, and magnesium, are naturally locked down in grains. Sourdough fermentation acts as the key, unlocking these nutrients so our bodies can actually use them.

Fermentation: Pre-Digestion

Even if you’re sensitive to gluten, you may very well tolerate true, long-fermented sourdough bread. Let’s unpack why.

Commercial yeast rushes bread into existence in about 45 minutes. This leaves the heavy lifting of breaking down complex starches and proteins entirely to our stomach acid. The result: That heavy, uncomfortable feeling—like you swallowed a small brick.

The Sourdough Solution

When sourdough is allowed to “work” on the grains over a 24-to-48-hour long-fermentation process, magic happens. We call this long-fermentation.

The lactic acid bacteria secrete enzymes called proteases. These enzymes literally “chew” the large, tightly bound gluten structures down into smaller, easily digestible peptides and amino acids before the bread ever touches your lips.

By letting time and microbes do the heavy lifting on the kitchen counter, we change the molecular structure of the bread, making it much more gentle on our stomachs.

Recap: Gluten Breakdown

Sourdough microbes pre-digest gluten proteins before we eat it. This helps many of us digest bread better but can be especially helpful for folks with gluten sensitivities.

Organic Acids: Balancing Blood Sugar

When we eat something, our bodies have a cascade of digestive jobs that must be done in order. Once food leaves the stomach, it enters the small intestine, where carbohydrates are broken down into glucose and absorbed into the bloodstream.

The faster a carbohydrate is broken down and emptied from the stomach, the faster blood sugar spikes, forcing a massive insulin response—a sharp increase in blood sugar.

The Sourdough Solution

During a slow fermentation process, sourdough microbes produce organic acids—specifically lactic acid and acetic acid.

These acids lower the pH of the bread, which naturally slows down food leaving the stomach (gastric emptying). These organic acids inhibit the enzymes our body makes to break down starches into sugars.

Because starch is converted into glucose at a slower pace, we get a steady, sustained serving of energy rather than a sharp blood sugar spike followed by a crash.

Recap: Slower Blood Sugar Response

Natural acids produced during sourdough fermentation slow down digestion and starch breakdown, preventing dramatic blood sugar spikes and supporting steady energy.

Understanding the science on a screen is one thing. Feeling the texture of a living dough that has undergone this biological transformation is another. And knowing how to read, manage, and gauge that fermentation in your own kitchen is something else entirely.

In my beginner classes, we don’t just go over a recipe. We look at the physical evidence of these chemical reactions right under our own hands. You will step away not just with a recipe, but with a living, resilient sourdough starter and a complete framework for baking bread that truly loves your gut back.

COME BAKE WITH ME

From the lab,

—Kala

Birthday. Anniversary. Dinner with friends. Saturday night. This cake is exceptional and show-stopping enough to fit any of these occasions. It’s even better because no one would even know how easy it is to make. Or that it’s made with sourdough starter and heritage grains—functional nutrition at its finest.

Everyone will only notice how moist and light it is. And that it’s brimming with flecks of carrot, juicy raisins, and big chunks of walnut. They’ll think it’s just a really good carrot cake. And it is. This is my take on the same recipe from The Clever Carrot.

My favorite, and very untraditional, frosting* for this cake is a tub of Good Culture sour cream (16 ounces) mixed with vanilla extract (2 teaspoons). Trust me. It’s a beautiful way to cut the sweetness of the cake while adding a rich, tangy, creamy layer on top.

*This is a loose interpretation of frosting. But you can use it to slather over a cake, therefore, “frosting” it. It’s not cloyingly sweet. In fact, it’s not sweet at all. The tangy, richness perfectly balances the sweetness of the cake.

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

This classic chocolate cake packs a nutritional punch with sourdough discard and heritage grain spelt. It’s made modern with a generous topping of sweetened tahini (halva) buttercream (recipe from Seed & Mill). The combination is heavenly.

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

Granola. It’s crunchy, sweet, and one of my favorite things to make with sourdough discard. When it’s warm from the oven, it smells almost like a cookie. Once cooled, it’s blissful with berries and yogurt for breakfast or even drizzled with dark chocolate for dessert.

When you add sourdough, something magical happens to granola: you get massive clumps. The kind of clumpy granola that bakes up in a sheet and needs to be broken to fit into the jar for storage. It’s granola that can also be used like a cracker. It’s amazing and great for breakfast, snacks, or on-the-go adventures.

What makes this granola different

• Rolled oats, rolled barley, and buckwheat groats. Most granola is mostly oats. This granola includes a mix of whole grains, including rolled oats, rolled barley, and whole buckwheat groats. The texture is fantastic and your gut will love the shift to include other types of grains you might not be having on the regular.

• Naturally sweetened with maple syrup. There’s just enough sweetener here to bring out all the flavors of the granola.

• Baking low and slow. This granola bakes at 300°F for 40 minutes. The result is fully toasted granola, that’s not even slightly burnt.
  

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

Focaccia is a bread chameleon. It can be savory or sweet: burger bun, pizza, breakfast, or dessert. Whatever you want or need. In this recipe, we’re switching gears into the sweet world of sourdough focaccia.

This recipe includes bright lemon zest, juicy blueberries, and a streusel topping with cinnamon and coconut sugar. There’s also a coconut butter glaze if you’re feeling it.

Read more

Focaccia is a rustic flatbread from northern Italy. It’s light and fluffy, perfect for sandwiches, burgers, and sopping up all kinds of sauces. With a high-hydration dough and longer proofing times, the structure of focaccia is open, soft, and spongy. If there ever was a bread that was secretly a cloud, this is it.

Think of focaccia like a blank canvas. There’s a lot of science to making focaccia but also a fair bit of creativity with the flavors. Toppings simply go on before dimpling and are pressed into the dough before baking—along with a good glug of olive oil. The classic is fresh rosemary and flaky sea salt but other perfectly acceptable toppings include olives, cherry tomatoes, and fresh thyme. Or you could change gears entirely and go the sweet route, which makes this bread feel more like coffee cake. (Think lemon blueberry or dark chocolate raspberry.)

As for the classic rosemary focaccia, here’s how to make it.

Ingredients

The dough is only flour, water, starter, and salt. Olive oil is an important ingredient that goes in the pan to keep the dough from sticking and on top to create that lacy, crispy yet soft texture of focaccia. The toppings are the cherry on top. Choose your own adventure.

• Unbleached bread flour

• Water

• Active sourdough starter

• Salt

• Olive oil

• Toppings of choice: rosemary, thyme, thinly sliced onions, cherry tomatoes, olives, etc

Equipment

Gather your supplies before you bake. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Digital kitchen scale

• Digital thermometer

• Large mixing bowl with lid

• 9x13-inch metal baking sheet (quarter sheet tray)

• Parchment paper

• Cooling rack

  

Steps to Making Sourdough Focaccia

(1) Levain

The levain (pronounced leh-VANN) an off-shoot of your sourdough starter that will be mixed into the dough. It’s different from the sourdough starter. The starter is the source of yeast that is saved, cared for, and perpetuated. The levain is the active, yeast-containing ingredient that’s used up to make bread. (The levain is like sourdough starter babies that turn into loaves of bread.) Instead of adding a spoonful of commercial yeast to the dough, we add levain to make it rise.

(2) Mix

All the ingredients are mixed together: water, levain, flour, and salt. Simple.

(3) Bulk Fermentation

This is the first rise. It’s a time to slowly build strength in the dough and gently develop the gluten structures. It’s done with a series of coil folds by hand—no kneading, punching down, mixers, or machines.

(4) Proof

This is the second rise. After we’ve built strength, we give the dough time to rise even more at room temperature.

(5) Overnight Proof

An overnight proof in the fridge allows the dough to ferment slowly, giving better flavor and digestive benefits. It controls the timeline and breaks our bake into 2 days.

(6) Pre-Shape

Shaping is way to get your dough into the desired shape. Simple enough, right? There are different techniques for different shapes. For focaccia, we gently stretch the dough to fit our long, flat sheet pan. It may spring back at this step, which is fine. We’ll do a final shape before baking.

(7) Proof

This is the third rise. We want the dough to rise and become even more billowy once in the pan.

(8) Shape & Dimple

Now that the dough is relaxed after proofing, we gently stretch the dough again to fit our long, flat sheet pan. Then, with lots of olive oil, we use all our fingers to press throughout the dough to create the classic dimpled-top that is focaccia.

(9) Bake

In a hot oven, the crust begins to form and caramelization happens. It’s the final step in the bread-making process.

Sourdough Focaccia Baker’s Timeline

This is a handy way to think about baking focaccia and the time you’ll need for each step.

Here’s an even easier way to calculate your baking timeline. It’s my custom bake planner for beginner bread and focaccia. You put in how many loaves you want to make and your levain start time, then it calculates it all for you.

Go to Sourdough Timeline

How to Make Beginner Sourdough Focaccia

This is everything you need to know about the process: step by step. It’s meant to be a compliment to the handout you got in class. Take it all in and get comfortable with the steps and timeline. Revisit it as often as you need.

Day 1
Build the Levain.

Mix together the levain ingredients. Place it in a small bowl. Mark the side with a piece of tape where the starter sits. Cover it loosely and leave it to ferment at room temperature until it doubles in volume. This might take 6-10 hours, depending on the time of year and temperature of your home.

To double-check that your levain is ready, scoop a teaspoon off the top of the levain and plop it into a small bowl of water. If it floats, it’s ready. This is called the levain float test and it’s a simple way to make sure your levain is ready for the next step.

Mix the Dough.

In a large bowl, mix the water and levain until dissolved. Mix in the flour and salt until there are no lumps. Mixing with a dough whisk can be helpful but nothing beats mixing by hand! Cover the bowl and let it rest for 1 hour.

Bulk Fermentation with Coil Folds.

During the bulk fermentation, we develop gluten slowly without kneading. After this step, the dough should look lively and billowy and have increased in volume by about 20%. The dough should also feel stronger and less relaxed. For the bulk fermentation, you’ll do 4 sets of coil folds, one every 30 minutes, over 2 hours.

How to do a Coil Fold

Dip your hands in water to keep the dough from sticking to you. Place both hands under the center of the dough from opposite sides. Pull the dough straight up, so it releases from the bowl without tearing. Set the dough back down in the bowl and let it fall back under itself. Rotate the bowl and repeat 4-6 times. This is 1 coil fold set. After a stretch and fold, cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

Repeat 4 times, doing a stretch and fold every 30 minutes followed by a rest. The dough will be very sticky and relaxed to start. It'll get stronger and easier to pick up after each coil fold set.

Proof.

After the last coil fold, keep the dough covered and let it rest for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Check every 30 minutes or so to make sure the dough temperature is at about 78°F. The dough should rise about 30% in the bowl.

Proof Overnight in the Fridge.

Place the bowl in the fridge to finish rising overnight. It can stay here for 8-24 hours until you’re ready for the next step.

Day 2
Pre-Shape the Dough.

Line a quarter sheet tray with parchment paper. Pour 40 grams of olive oil into the pan and spread it around the entire bottom of the parchment.

Add the dough and spread it out gently to fill the pan. Do this by pulling from underneath the dough and gently moving it out from the center towards the edges. It's okay if the dough springs back to the center. You'll shape it again before baking.

Proof Again.

Let the dough rise for 2-3 hours or until puffed up and jiggly. Make sure the dough temperature stays at about 78°F.

Shape and Dimple the Top.

Gently spread the dough out to fill the pan evenly to the edges. Pull the dough gently up and out from its belly, moving from the center out. Drizzle the remaining 30 grams of olive oil on top of the dough and sprinkle with the flaky sea salt and rosemary.

Bake the Focaccia.

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Bake focaccia for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and crispy. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Enjoy your freshly baked sourdough focaccia!

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

.I’ve tinkered with this recipe for years. As a nutritionist, I’m always looking for ways to boost the nutrition content of my baked goods. I know, that seems like an oxymoron but it can be done!

I want a lot from my banana bread. It needs to be healthy, easy to make, moist, very banana-y, not too sweet, and with lots of dark chocolate surprises in each slice. It needs to be good: to my taste buds and to my body.

With a few tweaks, I’ve added more health benefits to this banana bread recipe. You’ll love it because it:

• Has sourdough. There are so many benefits to sourdough. Here, it adds moisture and flavor.

• Uses natural sweeteners. I prefer just a touch of maple syrup. A lot of sweetness already comes from the ripe bananas.

• Includes whole wheat flour. I use half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat. With this combination, you get lightness and nutrition—the best of both worlds.

• Has dark chocolate. My family loves banana bread with chocolate. I do too. Dark chocolate (at least 70%) is a good source of polyphenols, which is great for your gut.

• Comes together fast. This is a mix and bake recipe. You need 2 bowls and a spoon. No stand mixer or creaming butter and sugar.

My recipe is loosely based on the banana bread recipe in this intermediate/advanced sourdough book.

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

A sourdough starter does some pretty amazing things. When you think about it, creating lofty, light, chewy bread is pretty remarkable.

There are many benefits and reasons to use a sourdough starter. Many of them are because of the fermentation process of sourdough, which increases with long-fermentation. Some of these benefits include:

• Easier digestion. The wild bacteria breakdown difficult to digest starches. It’s a sort of “pre-digestion” that makes our digestion easier for us.

• Gut health. Sourdough includes prebiotics and probiotics. Once baked, those probiotics don’t do much for our gut. But it still provides a great source of prebiotics and fiber, which feed the microbes already in our gut.

• More available nutrients. Microbes from sourdough help unlock minerals in grains. The minerals inside grains are there for plant growth. Because grains are seeds, those seeds want to become plants. Phytates blocks those important plant minerals, so we can’t absorb and use them. Sourdough breaks down phytates, so we can absorb those minerals.

• Lower glycemic index. Sourdough bread doesn’t raise blood sugar levels as quickly as other breads. Another benefit of the fermentation process.

• Fewer ingredients. To make sourdough, all you need is flour, water, and salt. Anything else is considered extra. Other breads are made with a long list of ingredients. The simplicity of sourdough can’t be beat.

• It stays fresher longer. Acetic acid is produced during fermentation. It naturally inhibits mold from growing. As a result, sourdough bread will dry out at room temperature but, when made properly, shouldn’t mold.

• Better flavor. The tangy flavor of sourdough holds a special place for most. Imagine a crusty loaf of sourdough bread with a schmear of room temperature salted butter. Bliss. This same sourdough flavor can be made strong and sour or mellow and subdued. The flavor lends itself well to other baked goods too.

• More moisture. Adding sourdough to baked goods increases the moisture content without adding more sweetness. It’s a simple way to ensure that your cake and banana bread are moist and tender.

• Slowing you down—in the best way. Working with sourdough infuses you with intention. It requires planning and is in no way fast. In fact, I can’t think of slower food. That’s part of the beauty of it. The process, though slow, isn’t very hands on. It allows you to bake in the background and live your life while you also make sourdough stuff.

• Connecting with your starter. Some people fondly name their starters and even travel with them. Once you find your groove, your starter may become a sort of beloved pet.

• Increased happiness. I’ve noticed it in myself and others who learn to bake with sourdough. It’s also there for those around you who get to enjoy what you make! Most people love sourdough and are satisfied in an unexplainable way with the process and final product. Maybe it’s that sourdough products are super delicious. Maybe it’s that sourdough is a puzzle and it feels so good to figure it out or complete the puzzle. I think it’s some magical place in-between.

From the lab,

—Kala

Commercially, sourdough is most often available as bread. Sometimes, many types of bread in different shapes and flavors. It can include roasted garlic or toasted walnuts. It can be pan bread or focaccia.

What can you make with a sourdough starter?

Just about anything you bake with flour can be made with sourdough. It just takes a slightly different recipe. Some of your favorite recipes can even be adapted to use sourdough.

Here are some other sourdough things you can make with your starter:

• Focaccia

• Pizza

• Pita

• English muffins

• Bagels

• Pretzels

• Rolls

• Burger/hot dog buns

• Pancakes

• Waffles

• Banana bread

• Muffins

• Cinnamon rolls

• Doughnuts

• Biscuits

• Scones

• Tortillas

• Naan

• Cornbread

• Crackers

• Cobbler

• Pie crust

• Cookies

• Brownies

• Cakes

• Granola

• Granola bars

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

This granola bar recipe blueprint includes sourdough discard, a touch of sweetener, any nut/seed butter, and basically whatever mix of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit—or chocolate chips!—you want.

They’re soft and full of nuts and fruit. The texture is more like a cookie bar than a chewy, sticky thing out of a wrapper. These granola bars easily replace store bought versions. For me, they check all the boxes. They’re:

• Simple to make. With one bowl, you just mix and bake. They come together in about 30 minutes.

• Shelf-stable. They keep at room temperature for a couple days and even longer in the fridge or freezer. They’re great for school or office lunches, hikes, long bike rides, and traveling.

• Easy to customize. Use any rolled grains*, nut butter, sweetener, nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and spices you have on hand to make your own custom blend. A few of my favorite combinations have been:

  • Cherry + ginger + almond

  • Fig + walnut + fennel

  • Date + coconut + tahini + molasses + cardamom

  • Mango + cashew + chocolate chip

• Naturally sweetened. Just maple syrup and dried fruit gives these bars just the right amount of sweetness.

• A different way to use up discard. As you know, sourdough bakers are always looking for new ways to use up discard. This recipe uses up a whole cup of discard and tastes great, even if your discard starter is smelling pretty sour.

*Note: I often use a blend of grains when I make these bars. My golden formula is:
75 grams rolled oats, 40 grams rolled barley, 40 grams rolled rye, 40 grams buckwheat groats, 15 grams amaranth

To your gut resilience,

—Kala

Here we go!

What is sourdough?

Sourdough is a slow way to make bread that doesn’t use commercial yeast. Before commercial yeast, clever bakers would capture wild microbes from their environment. They did this with a sourdough starter.

A sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water where these wild microbes (yeasts and bacteria) live. It’s a living thing that can be kept indefinitely with the right care. Without proper care, a sourdough starter can also die.

How does it work?

Wild yeasts are found all around us: in the air, on our skin, and on the surface of wheat, which is ground into flour. Wild yeasts produce carbon dioxide, which is trapped in the matrix of flour and water in the starter. The result: the mix will rise!

Lactic acid bacteria are also found naturally in our environment. They’re the same gut-friendly bacteria found in sauerkraut and they’re also found in a sourdough starter. They work alongside the yeasts and give off lactic acid, which provides many of the health benefits of sourdough.

The beautiful thing is that no two sourdough starters are alike. Like a snowflake or a fingerprint, they are a unique reflection of their environment and what microbes live there.

The basic way to care for your starter is by feeding it. To feed your sourdough starter, you mix a small portion of starter with a ratio of flour and water. Then you let it rest for 12-24 hours before feeding it again. There’s a bit of magic that happens between feedings. We get all into the science of it here.

What are the benefits of sourdough?

Many people bake sourdough bread and other sourdough products for the added health benefits. These benefits are bestowed by fermentation (thank you, lactic acid bacteria). Without the microbes that live in the sourdough starter, there would be no fermentation—and no benefits. Some of the benefits of sourdough include:

• Easier digestion. Sourdough microbes pre-digest gluten proteins before we eat it. This helps many of us digest bread better but can be especially helpful for folks with gluten sensitivities.

• Better gut health. Sourdough includes prebiotics and probiotics. Once baked, those probiotics don’t do much for our gut. But it still provides a great source of prebiotics and fiber, which feed the microbes already in our gut.

• More available nutrients. Minerals, such as iron, zinc, and magnesium, are naturally locked down in grains. Sourdough fermentation acts as the key, unlocking these nutrients so our bodies can actually use them.

• Lower glycemic index. Natural acids produced during sourdough fermentation slow down digestion and starch breakdown. This helps prevent big blood sugar spikes and supports steady energy.

• Fewer ingredients. To make sourdough, all you need is flour, water, and salt. Anything else is considered extra. Other breads are made with a long list of ingredients. The simplicity of sourdough can’t be beat.

• Staying fresher longer. Acetic acid is produced during fermentation. It naturally inhibits mold from growing. As a result, sourdough bread will dry out at room temperature but, when made properly, it shouldn’t mold.

• Bread with better flavor. The tangy flavor of sourdough holds a special place for most. Imagine a crusty loaf of sourdough bread with a schmear of room temperature salted butter. Bliss. This same sourdough flavor can be made strong and sour or mellow and subdued—scientific, yet very artistic, nuanced, and individual.

What’s so bad about commercial yeast?

There’s nothing “bad” about commercial yeast. It’s just a different way of baking. Commercial yeast actually does a lot of good things for commercial bread production and home baking. The process is fast, predictable, and convenient.

Because of this, using commercial yeast requires less skill from the baker. This point can be seen as a positive or a negative, depending on how you look at it. From a commercial perspective, it’s absolutely a benefit: any one can jump in and learn how to bake. For a home baker who sees baking as a craft and wants to savor the slowness of baking…the mindful approach is lost.

Bread made with commercial yeast lacks many of the benefits of sourdough, because it’s not fermented. There’s no microbes to grant us the digestive, nutritional, flavor, and preservation benefits.

What ingredients are used for sourdough?

It doesn’t get much more simple than sourdough. To make bread, all you need is: flour, water, salt, and a sourdough starter. To keep a sourdough starter, you just need flour and water. When using so few ingredients, it’s important to use the best quality.

Here’s a quick reference for what types of flour, water, and salt to use.

• Flour. You can use just about any gluten-containing grain. These include wheat (bread flour, AP flour, whole wheat flour), but also heritage grains, such as Red Fife, or ancient grains, including Einkorn, Emmer, Spelt, and Khorasan.

• Water. Filtered water is the gold standard. Tap water can work too. If your tap water is high in chlorine, it can inhibit the microbes that make your sourdough work properly.

• Salt. Unrefined sea salt doesn’t include added chemicals, which is better for your starter. The salt gives flavor to bread but also adds important changes to dough structure and helps control the bread-making process.

From the lab,

—Kala

What is a sourdough starter?

A sourdough starter is a mixture of flour and water that houses wild microbes (yeasts and bacteria). They give off carbon dioxide that raises or leavens bread. Using a sourdough starter is how we made bread before commercial yeast became available. It’s also called a sourdough culture. It can be kept indefinitely when fed a mixture of fresh flour and water on a regular basis.

How can you take care of it?

Taking care of a sourdough starter involves feeding it regularly and making sure it has a safe place to be. This includes a clean jar with a loose fitting lid.

What do you feed it?

A sourdough starter is fed just flour and water.

Flour: you can use flour made from wheat, rye, spelt, einkorn, or khorasan. You can use whole grain flour, bread flour, or all-purpose. You can buy flour from the store or mill it yourself.

Water: filtered is best but tap water can work too. If you’re feeding your starter with tap water and having problems with it, your first troubleshooting set can be to try using filtered.

How do you feed it?

You take a small portion of sourdough starter and mix it with a specific ratio of flour and water. See your handout for the feeding recipe. Then you let it rest for 12-24 hours and watch it come alive.

What happens during a feeding?

During a feeding, a symphony of metabolic process, symbiosis, sights, and smells are happening. It’s an amazing process called the sourdough cycle of fermentation and it happens every time you feed your starter after 6-12 hours. We use our senses to understand the cycle and where our starters are in it.

The Start: Fed

Wild yeasts and bacteria begin to gobble up starches in the flour. At this stage you’ll notice bubbles beginning to form. The mix smells floury and vegetal. This stage is called fed and the starter is called a young starter.

Sight: bubbles forming
Smell: floury, vegetal
Cycle Stage: Fed
Baker’s Term: Young Starter

The Middle: Peak

The entire mix will begin to rise and it will double in volume. You’ll notice big bubbles and sometimes large air pockets. The mix smells different now—it’s sweet and tangy. This stage is called peak fermentation and the starter is called an active starter.

Sight: big bubbles
Smell: sweet, tangy
Cycle Stage: Peak Fermentation
Baker’s Term: Active Starter

The End: Hungry

Then the mix will collapse back down in the jar. The big bubbles will subside and only small bubbles will remain. The smell has changed again and now it’s more sour and acidic. This stage is called hungry and the starter is called a discard starter. The starter is ready for another feeding.

Sight: small bubbles
Smell: sour, acidic
Cycle Stage: Hungry
Baker’s Term: Discard Starter

And here’s what a starter actually looks like at each stage of the sourdough cycle of fermentation:

When do you feed it?

This seems like such a simple question. This is sourdough, so the answer is nuanced. What you want to bake will dictate when you feed your starter.

Bread, Bagels, Pizza

If you want to bake bread or anything else that calls for an active starter, like bagels or pizza dough, you’ll need to feed your sourdough starter more often. The recommendation here is to feed it every 12 hours for 2 days before you make your dough.

Pancakes, Muffins, Cookies, Tortillas, Etc

For almost everything else, you’ll use discard. You can save up discard after feedings for these. If you don’t have bread baking plans but want to make these other easy sourdough treats, feed your starter every 24 hours until you have the discard you need for your recipe.

When is a sourdough starter ready to make bread?

A starter is ready to make bread after it’s had training.

By training, I mean you’ve been feeding it every 12 hours for 2 days—and it’s been doubling in volume between feedings. This ensures that your sourdough starter is ready for the big job of making bread rise. Without the consistent feeding schedule, your starter may not be ready.

An important distinction is that your starter is doubling in volume during that 12 hour window. If it’s not, look at the ambient temperature of your home.

What is sourdough discard?

When you feed your sourdough, you only use a small portion of starter—20 grams to be exact. The rest is considered discard and can be saved up in that quart jar in the fridge.

Discard starter is leftover starter that doesn’t get fed again. It’s not worthless though! You can save it to use for other recipes that call for discard starter. With it, you can make anything from biscuits to birthday cake. Discard won’t leaven (or rise) a product but still adds tangy sourdough flavor and, if long-fermented, can add to the health benefits that come with sourdough.

You can accumulate discard in the fridge for about a week. You can still use it after that, but the flavor becomes increasingly sour and potent.

Can you take a break?

A sourdough starter is a lively little ferment. It needs regular attention to stay healthy.

But what happens when you want to go on vacation?

There are two options: bring your starter with you or leave it at home. There are some best practices to check off the list before you let your starter hold down the fort. It’s simple:

Feed.

Feed your sourdough starter as usual.

Seal.

Seal the pint jar tight, not loose like we do when feeding at room temperature.

Fridge.

Place the sealed jar of fed starter straight into the fridge.

Feeding your sourdough starter and then placing it right into the fridge gives it a source of food and then slows fermentation down substantially. It’s essentially lulling your starter to sleep for a long, hibernation in the fridge until you return to feed it again. It can hang out there for 1-2 weeks at least.

Vacation brain can forget things, so I highly recommend putting a label on the jar with the date.

What happens in the fridge?

When you leave your starter in the fridge, it’s still fermenting but at a much slower rate than at room temperature. It’s just like a bear going into hibernation. It’s definitely not dead but also not quite alive.

Temperature has a huge effect on fermentation. Sourdough starters are living ecosystems of wild yeast and bacteria, which are sensitive to temperatures just like we are. If you’ve ever baked with commercial yeast, you know that it’s also temperature sensitive. If the liquids are too warm, it kills the yeast. If the liquids are too cool, nothing happens.

At most room temperatures, sourdough goes through the cycle of fermentation in a window of 6-12 hours. It’s lively and active. But in the fridge, temperatures are cold enough to slow fermentation down drastically—but it’s still happening. Incredibly. Slowly.

After being in the fridge for a while, it’s perfectly normal for your starter to take on a grey-ish hue. It may also have a layer of clear or dark liquid on top. This liquid is called hooch and it’s harmless. It’s a sign that your sourdough starter is really hungry. Just pour it off when you’re ready to feed again and scoop off 20 grams for a feeding.

Coming out of hibernation

Your starter is very cold and very hungry. It’s been getting by without you okay but it needs care and sustenance.

To get started with your sourdough again, bring it out of the fridge and feed it as usual. Refer to the recipe in your handout.

It may be a tad sluggish, depending on how long it was in the fridge. It may take 1-3 feedings for your starter to get back to doubling in volume every 6-12 hours. Just keep feeding it regularly.

Sourdough starter best practices

As you can see, a sourdough starter has a life of its own. Here are my best practices and tips for your sourdough starter’s best life:

• Use a digital kitchen scale. This makes feeding your starter and modifying the feeding amount easier and more precise.

• Be consistent. Feed your starter at about the same time each day. For example, if mornings work best, be sure to feed your starter in the morning. Not at 2pm some days and 7pm on others.

• Use a 2-jar feeding system. You only need 2 jars: a pint jar that houses the fed starter and a quart jar that holds the unused hungry starter, otherwise called discard. Refer to your handout for sourdough starter feeding instructions.

• Be prepared for possible overflow. If your jar is too small for your doubling starter, it will bust through the lid like a geyser. Try to fill your jar no more than halfway with freshly fed starter—a pint jar is perfect for your feeding recipe. To be sure to contain any possible overflow, place the jar on a sheet pan. Discard starter will not rise very much in the fridge. You can fill that jar up and use the discard later.

• Expect that your starter will be sluggish after being in the fridge for more than a week. Keep feeding it every 12-24 hours. Stick with it and it’ll come back to life.

This information is here for you to read through whenever you need. Keep practicing with your starter to find your own rhythm. It will take time to get comfortable with the process. You’ve got this, baker!

To your gut resilience,

—Kala