For me, it is a combination of the activity level and the aroma. With practice, you will get a feel for when your levain is ready for a bake. For the final feeding before a bake, I up the amounts to 150 g of flour and 150 g of water. I always keep my levain at 100% hydration. My regular daily feed is to take 50 g from the previous day and add 100 g of 50/50 flour and 100 g of water.

You then really do need to plan ahead.įor me, it takes several days of regular feeding to get the levain where it needs to be.

If I know it will be more than a week before I bake, I will keep my levain in the fridge. I don’t bake every week, so doing a daily feed is wasteful. Ideally, you will be feeding your levain every day, so it’s always in great shape. This is one of the most crucial elements in the entire process, since the levain is the heart and soul of this bread.

Lame, or razor blade, or other sharp knife for scoring.

Small digital scale for weighing precise amounts of small ingredients, e.g., salt.

Digital food scale, large format for weighing flour, dough, etc.

We use a Cambro 12 qt round polypropylene food storage container.

200 g levain (sourdough starter) 50/50 whole wheat/unbleached all-purpose at 100% hydration.

This recipe is for my current favorite, which is a blend of rye, whole wheat, and white flour.

Eventually, I was practiced enough to feel comfortable riffing on the method. This was the country bread from Chad Robertson’s Tartine Bread. Once I got into sourdough I spent the next couple of years essentially making the same loaf over and over again. Before venturing into sourdough, I baked many of the loaves in Ken Forkish’s great bread book, Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. I got into bread baking about four years ago.

Ken forkish sourdough