I’ve only had marginal success making sourdough bread from a starter. My first attempts were with a homegrown starter that never worked (loaves 15 and 18). We made great bread at my SFBI sourdough class, but I only had moderate success with sourdough I made at home with their starter...

More sourdough using the SFBI starter which I’ve been feeding every 12 to 14 days but haven’t used in awhile. The starter needed to be fed twice to get a nice liquid levain going. I did this on a Saturday so I could bake on Sunday for dinner and for gifts at Sarah’s work on...

It was time to feed my SFBI sourdough starter, so I used that as an excuse to try a new batch and see if I can improve the crumb that I’ve been getting. The recipe and process was the same as Loaf 29 until the final shaping step. I did the first sourdough feeding on Wednesday evening,...

I used the same recipe as Loaf 27 – the “two feed liquid levain sourdough,” made from the SFBI starter now in it’s third generation. The first step was to take the starter I made after Loaf 27 and do two feedings over a 24 hour period to get it to a 100% hydration, and...

After my class at San Francisco Baking Institute it was time to practice what I learned. They gave us about 50g of starter to take home which has been living in my fridge for the week. I used the directions that Frank had given us in class for a two feed liquid levain from the starter –...

In Sunday’s San Francisco Baking Institute class we made olive sourdough, rye and semolina loaves. Like Saturday, I made fifteen loaves of bread but am only counting it as three. We had measured all our dry ingredients out on Saturday afternoon, so we were able to jump right into...

San Francisco Baking Institute – Day 1 The San Francisco Baking Institute (www.sfbi.com) is a professional baking school. In addition to their full our professional courses, they offer week long and weekend long classes for those of us not quite ready to get a degree in baking. I signed up...

My sourdough class is another two weeks away, but I thought I’d try another loaf with my starter (which I’ve been feeding and keeping alive in the fridge). I used the same recipe from Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day that I used for Loaf 15, and the resulting failure was...