Home » Free Sourdough Guides » Free Sourdough Beginner Guide
ByAmyPosted on:Last Updated
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read ourdisclosure policy.
We all have favorite recipes we’ve grown up with and love. Recipes that evoke memories and ones we want to pass down to our families, generations upon generations. So what happens when we want to take those recipes and turn them into a sourdough version? Can you do it? Of course you can! Any dough that is made with commercial yeast can be turned into a sourdough recipe using natural yeast as the leavening agent instead of commercial yeast. Here is how to replace yeast with sourdough starter (natural yeast).
Case and point…my family favorite cinnamon rolls that I converted into a sourdough version!
Here’s How To Replace Yeast with Sourdough Starter
1. First, take a look at the recipe. How much flour and water are called for?
If your recipe uses cups, I recommend converting the recipe to grams. Take special note of the amount of flour in the recipe. Calculations will be made in relation to the flour amount.
Example: Recipe calls for 500 grams flour and 350 grams water
2. Replace commercial yeast with 15-20% sourdough starter.
For the best flavor and fermentation schedule, I like to use 15-20% starter in my recipes. You can play around with these percentages to fit your flavor profile and timeline. My soft sourdough sandwich bread, for example, has a larger amount of starter for a more mild-flavored sourdough.
Example: The recipe calls for 500 grams flour.
500 grams X .2 (20%) = 100 grams of starter
This is the amount of starter I need to put in my recipe to substitute for the commercial yeast.
3. Calculate how much flour and water makes up the starter.
Example: My starter is fed equal parts flour and water, so 100 grams of starter is made up of 50 grams flour and 50 grams water.
4. Adjust the flour and water in the recipe to account for the added sourdough starter.
Example: The original recipe calls for 500 grams flour, 350 grams water and 1 package commercial yeast. I subtract 50 grams flour and 50 grams water from the original recipe to make up for the starter and leave out the commercial yeast. The new recipe with the sourdough starter is now: 450 grams flour, 300 grams water and 100 grams starter.
5. Add extra time for bulk fermentation.
Your original recipe most likely took about an hour for the first rise. The “first rise” or bulk fermentation as we call it in sourdough, will take much longer to ferment. Recipes that have about 15-20% sourdough starter, typically take about 4-5 hours for the bulk fermentation. Do not expect the dough to double in size. It will feel aerated and will have risen maybe 20-30%, assuming the dough is kept at 78-80 degrees F.
Example: I knead my dough and begin bulk fermentation. I keep the dough warm (78-80 degrees F) for 4-5 hours.
6. Add extra time after shaping the dough for proofing.
It usually takes 2-4 hours of my shaped dough to rise again at warm room temperature (80-mid 80 degrees F). You will know the dough has properly proofed when it is light, airy, jiggly and doubled in size. Do not bake the dough unless it is showing these signs. You can also press in on the dough and if the dough springs back just a little bit and the indentation stays, your recipe is ready to bake.
What about recipes that don’t call for water?
It doesn’t matter if it’s water or not, you need to find some liquid in the recipe to replace the liquid in the starter with. That may be milk instead of water. That’s okay! Just make the substitution for any liquid.
And there you have it! You can turn any recipe into a natural yeast recipe by following these easy steps. I think it’s worth converting recipes from commercial yeast to sourdough just for the health benefits alone. But if that’s not a good enough reason, the taste is exceptional! If you haven’t tried my favorite sourdough cinnamon rolls or these amazing sourdough bagels, you’ll understand just how good they taste!
Looking for Amazing Natural Yeast Sourdough Recipes?
How much sourdough starter equals a packet of yeast? As a general rule, 100g of sourdough starter can be used to replace one packet of yeast (a packet usually contains 5-7g of commercial yeast).
It turns out that Sourdough Bread Starter is better for you, far healthier than the dry yeast many manufacturers and home cooks have been using to make bread. Powdered yeast is processed to rise the bread really fast. It is not meant to break down gluten or Phytic Acid the same way that natural sourdough yeast does.
Proper fermentation of bread dough requires robust yeast activity, especially if you want good oven spring and an open crumb. Adding small amounts of instant yeast to a sourdough is an easy and effective way to get there, and a practice any baker might want to add to their bread baking toolkit.
Feed a sourdough starter 4-12 hours before starting the dough, ensuring it is active and bubbly. Add warm water, active starter, salt, and flour to a large mixing bowl. A kitchen scale will give the most accurate results. Mix together with wooden spoon or even just your hands.
Simply put: a sourdough starter is a live fermented culture of fresh flour and water. Once combined, the culture will begin to ferment and cultivate the natural yeasts found in our environment. A small portion is added to your bread dough to make it rise. Commercial yeast IS NOT required.
If you have too much starter compared to the additional flour and water you're adding, your hungry starter consumes all the nutrients and then it's not as bubbly.
As with any sourdough recipe, before you start baking bread, you want to make sure that your sourdough starter is as strong as possible. My basic sourdough recipe uses just 50g of starter for 500g of flour (so just 10% of starter).
Commercial yeast has been harnessed and manipulated to work in a short amount of time. It only needs an hour or two to rise fully. A sourdough starter may take up to 12 hours or longer to rise your bread dough.
Generally, participants who ate the sourdough bread had lower blood sugar and insulin levels than those who ate the breads fermented with baker's yeast ( 3 , 21 , 22 , 23 ). Sourdough fermentation produces changes in the bread that may help control blood sugar better than bread made using traditional baker's yeast.
In a nutshell, if you are making a lot of bread, the sourdough starter will be cheaper than yeast. But if you're baking once a week or less, and don't need to bake large amounts of bread, then the yeast will probably be cheaper, if not quite as delicious.
Sourdough starter is essential for making sourdough breads. The starter contains the wild yeasts and bacteria that will both leaven and flavor the bread.
The rising power of one packet of yeast is about equivalent to one cup of sourdough starter, depending on the health of your starter. Knowing these two factors you can approximate a substitution of one cup of sourdough starter for one packet of commercial yeast.
The best flour blend for creating a new sourdough starter is 50% whole-meal flour (whole wheat or whole rye) and 50% bread flour or all-purpose flour. I recommend a 50/50 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour.
Unlike baking yeast, which provides a quick rise, a sourdough starter requires a longer fermentation process, resulting in a more complex and tangy taste. Additionally, sourdough starters enhance the nutritional value of bread by breaking down gluten and making it easier to digest.
While baker's yeast is unable to break down the phytate complex, sourdough organisms can break down the complex very effectively. This could increase the amount of minerals available for absorption in the human gut (Leenhardt et al., 2005; Nionelli & Rizzello, 2016).
Yes you can change the type of flour you feed your sourdough starter. Keep an eye on how your starter behaves after the first feeding. Keep your starter warm and regularly fed when changing flours. You don't have to feed your starter the same flour as you're using in your sourdough bread recipe.
Address: Apt. 536 6162 Reichel Greens, Port Zackaryside, CT 22682-9804
Phone: +9958384818317
Job: IT Representative
Hobby: Scrapbooking, Hiking, Hunting, Kite flying, Blacksmithing, Video gaming, Foraging
Introduction: My name is Jamar Nader, I am a fine, shiny, colorful, bright, nice, perfect, curious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
