The S.O.U.R. Framework: Mastering Sourdough Bread
It's often said that there are no right or wrong ways to make sourdough bread, and there's an important truth in that statement. Every baker adopts, adapts, and creates in a way that best suits them and their environment. While there are countless ways to make naturally leavened bread, patterns and themes emerge as you delve deeper into the craft of baking. With this in mind, I developed the S.O.U.R. Framework to help you bake objectively great bread.
Sourdough is as much art as it is science, but the science is foundational to the art. There are no shortcuts to sourdough success—you get out of it what you put into it. Sourdough is simple but not easy. Three humble ingredients—flour, water, and salt—are transformed through fermentation. Understanding and managing fermentation is key to any successful sourdough method.
Many people come to sourdough with baking or cooking experience and are fixated on recipes. This can be counterproductive, as recipes give little understanding of how everything interrelates. By thinking of the process as a loose framework, you begin to understand how to adapt formulas for different flours, add inclusions, achieve different textures, and more.
The S.O.U.R. Framework
The S.O.U.R. Framework is based on four principles that can help anyone bake better sourdough bread:
- S: Starter Health
- O: Observe
- U: Understand
- R: Record (and repeat)
Starter Health
A healthy, active starter is the foundation of sourdough bread. Regular maintenance is key to achieving this. Sourdough may be a hobby, but it's also a commitment. To consistently leaven dough, a sourdough culture needs to be strong and balanced, which means regular feeding and discarding.
Feeding your starter can be done in just a few minutes each day, similar to brushing your teeth or feeding pets. Discard can be used in recipes like waffles, pancakes, pastry, and pasta dough, or it can be composted. You can maintain a starter with daily feedings of 20-30g of flour—just pennies.
If you bake once a week or less, store your starter in the fridge and feed it at least once per week. A couple of days before baking, take it out to wake it up, reduce acid load, and strengthen it. I'll cover more on starter maintenance in a dedicated post with example schedules for weekly baking.
Observe
Pay attention to the rhythm and patterns of your starter and dough. A sourdough culture is a living collection of organisms, so get to know it. Observe how long it takes to rise and fall after feeding, and how it behaves on warmer and cooler days. Note how changing the feed ratio affects its peak times and duration. Use all your senses to assess what the starter is telling you—how it smells when freshly fed, ripe, and hungry; how it tastes. This sensory memory will guide you as you progress.
When making bread, observe the similarities between starter and dough. Both are at different stages in the process but are essentially the same. Watch starter growth after inoculation to learn about dough during bulk fermentation. Try feeding your starter the same ratio as your final dough to see how much fermentation the flour can handle before collapsing. This helps you understand the important questions about flour choice, temperature, and hydration.
Understand
Comprehending fermentation can be complex, but even a basic understanding will help you produce more consistent bread. Learn how variables like temperature and inoculation rate affect fermentation timing and the characteristics of the finished loaf.
While starters and sourdoughs are unique to their environment, they are remarkably similar worldwide when the same fermentation parameters are followed. This understanding develops gradually over time and helps you see how minor adjustments can create vastly different products from the same basic ingredients.
Record (and Repeat)
Write down everything—your ingredients, process, observations about the dough. Record the time you mixed, how long, the method used, dough temperatures, and fermentation progress. This helps you map out guideline timings for your dough. If six hours of bulk fermentation at 75°F produced a satisfactory loaf last time, it likely will again. Experiment by pushing fermentation times and documenting the results.
Recording your process helps you understand how it all fits together—how developing gluten early affects dough extensibility, shaping, oven spring, and overall loaf volume. By writing it down, you can make informed adjustments and improve your baking.
Recommendations
If you want to bake objectively good sourdough bread or improve your current baking, apply the S.O.U.R. Framework to your method. You may need to adapt certain aspects, like overnight bulk fermentation, but these changes are straightforward. By applying these principles, I guarantee your bread will improve.
If you’re looking to take your sourdough bread baking to the next level, please join our private community and learn from other like-minded bakers.
