How to Fit Sourdough Fit into Your Busy Schedule

When I first started sourdough, I rigidly stuck to baking schedules, but was never satisfied with the results. It wasn’t until I baked many less-than-perfect (but still delicious) loaves that I finally learned how to truly “read” the dough.

Eventually, I got tired of the process being so complicated and started experimenting with ways to simplify it. In this guide, I’ll teach you my straightforward process, what each step actually does, and the shortcuts you can take to learn how to fit sourdough into a busy schedule.

Active Starter vs. Discard: The Busy Baker’s Secret

• Active starter is recently fed starter, typically 4-12 hours post-feed. It’s bubbly, elastic, and looks like honeycomb or thick webbing when you stretch it with a spoon. Most traditional bread recipes will ask for this.
• Discard is unfed starter. It is smooth with very few bubbles. If you feed this starter, it will become active starter. It is called “discard” because it is best to use it up as much as possible before feeding, so you don’t have to feed it as much (remember you have to feed it at least double its volume.)

Here is the secret that takes beginner bakers months to figure out: as long as you keep a “healthy starter” (meaning it was fed within the last 48 hours if on the counter or within the last week if in the fridge), you can use discard to make bread. Discard can make the rise a bit faster or slower, depending on whether it’s just hungry or a bit starved.

You can swap active starter and healthy discard 1:1 in almost any recipe.

Note: If you’ve neglected your starter, it smells like vinegar, and a brown liquid has formed on top, don’t panic! This liquid is called “hooch,” and it just means your sourdough microbes are starving. Pour the brown liquid, which is just over-fermented, into the compost, feed the remaining starter, and wait until it’s bubbly and active again before baking.

The 3 Methods for Mixing Ingredients

Believe it or not, there are actually three different methods to mix the simple ingredients: flour, water, starter, and salt, that make traditional sourdough.

1. The Autolyse Method (Flour + Water): You mix just the flour and water and wait to add the remaining ingredients for 15 minutes to a few hours before adding the starter and salt. This resting time allows the flour to fully absorb the water, which makes your bread moist and more elastic. All-purpose flour is usually done in under an hour (and you can often skip autolysing entirely with it), but whole-grain flours can be incredibly dry and benefit from a 2-hour autolyse.
2. The Fermentolyse Method (Flour + Water + Starter): You mix the flour, water, and starter, letting it rest before adding the salt. This gives your starter a jumpstart on fermenting the dough. This is my personal favorite and the fastest method for bread making.
3. The All-In-One Method (Everything at Once): You mix all the ingredients, including the salt, right from the start. Salt actually slows down water absorption and fermentation. While that sounds negative, it is incredibly helpful if you want to mix your dough at night and let it work slowly overnight. Avoid this method if you are using whole-grain flours.

Kneading vs Stretch & Folds

To develop the gluten network that gives sourdough its signature chewy texture, you have two choices:

• Kneading: You do most of the work, folding, pushing, and pressing the dough with your hands continually until it’s smooth and elastic.
• Stretch and Folds: The starter does most of the work. You simply reach underneath the dough, grab one side, gently stretch it upward as far as it goes without tearing, and fold it back into the center. Rotate the bowl and repeat all the way around a few times. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes, and repeat the process 3 to 4 times, until the dough is elastic.

Pick stretch and folds if you have some time at home, but if you are going to be busy or are doing an overnight rise and just want to go to bed, knead the dough.

Controlling Sourdough Rise Time by Season⁠

Letting the sourdough rise is also known as proofing. In most sourdough recipes online, you will be instructed to do a “bulk proof”, shape your sourdough, and put it in a special bowl also known as a “banneton” for a shorter final proof. This often left me with overproofed dough, and my shaping often didn’t look as pretty after the final rise. I eventually found it was easier to do one rise/proof, chill the dough and then shape right before baking.

Letting the dough rise is usually the longest step in making sourdough and is greatly affected by temperature, because heat makes sourdough rise faster and cold makes it slow to almost a stop.

• Summer: Sourdough proofs so fast that I can decide to make bread at breakfast and bake it for lunch!
• Winter: It takes so long to proof that I make sourdough the day (or overnight) before we need it. I also can start it early morning and bake it for dinner.
• Spring: Temperatures are up and down and so unpredictable. I find I tend to under-proof in spring.
• Autumn: I don’t usually have too much trouble with sourdough because it slows down some from the summer. Is it just me, or does baking in general come easier in the fall?

This doesn’t completely leave us at the mercy of the weather, though. We can use heat and cold to our advantage too.

• To pause the rising process, put it in the fridge. This can be done at any point after all the ingredients, including salt, are added to the dough.
• To speed up the rising, put it somewhere in your house that is warm. Also, you can use warm water when making the bread dough to give it a head-start.

Understanding temperature can also help you with scheduling when you’re feeding your starter. If you won’t need your sourdough for a while, you can feed it with cooler water. If you need your sourdough in a few hours, I suggest feeding it with warm water. A lot of people get obsessed with temperature, but I just use baby bath temps. If it feels good on my wrist, then it’s fine for the sourdough.

How to Tell if Sourdough Has Risen Enough (Without the Poke Test)⁠

Most sources online will recommend the “poke test” for knowing if your sourdough is proofed. Many people find it helpful, but I don’t think it’s beginner-friendly. Personally I don’t like the poke test at all.

Let me explain: you poke your dough and depending on how it springs back you decide if it’s done or not. If you poke it and it springs back quickly it’s not ready, if you poke it and it springs back slowly halfway, it’s perfectly proofed, if you poke it and it doesn’t spring back it’s overproofed.

I have known that my bread is ready or not proofed enough yet and then thought maybe I should try the “poke test” maybe it will work for me this time, but it never works for me and always makes me question my judgement. What does “springs back quickly” even mean? When you are watching dough rise it is very slow no matter what. I cannot tell you how many times I have underproofed a loaf because of this “test”. Did I poke it too deep or not deep enough? Did the dough even move? Let’s move on from this unreliable test and use the more obvious signs.

The most telltale sign that bread has risen is that it is 50-75% larger. (Some people will tell you it needs to double but then you will overproof your bread and wonder why. The reason it shouldn’t double is you need some rise left in the dough for the oven, this is called “oven spring”.)

If you are not sure, there are secondary signs.

Secondary signs

• Elastic
• Visible bubbles
• Feels “airy” or light
• Holds its shape

Keep in mind that if the dough is quite warm, it will continue to rise in the fridge until the fridge cools the dough down. Because of this, if the dough or the environment is particularly warm, it is best to put the dough in the fridge closer to 50% larger.

If your bread is bubbly and wants to spread out rather than hold its shape, it’s over-proofed. I recommend making focaccia with over-proofed dough.

Diagnosing under-proofed or over-proofed bread after it’s baked

• Over-proofing usually results in a flatter bread, not as pretty but still delicious.
• A dense gummy middle means it was under-proofed. Many new bakers mistake this for being underbaked, but underbaked bread is usually just gummy in the middle, not dense.

How To Use Refrigeration to Fit Sourdough Into Your Busy Schedule⁠

After your dough is finished rising/proofing, place it in the fridge closer to chill before baking. If you are ready to bake and want your bread now you can shape and bake without chilling. However I recommend preheating your oven and chilling during the preheat if nothing else. Chilling the dough makes it easier to shape, it holds its shape better and the difference in temperature helps the bread rise better and makes a crispier crust encouraging all the beautiful little micro blisters that add texture to great artisan loaves.

Meal prepping sourdough

I’m not very good at meal planning and often cook by mood, but my secret weapon for a great week is to have a day where I batch prepare my classic sourdough recipe and keep the finished dough in the fridge until I am ready to bake it.

This method of keeping prepared sourdough in the fridge also gives me lots of options. I use the dough like crazy dough, making it into:

• Flatbreads such as naan or fry-bread
• A regular loaf with whatever fillings or flavors I feel like adding during shaping
• Braid bread
• Focaccia
• Pizza dough

The possibilities are endless! I consider this the best sourdough time management hack I’ve discovered.

Give this simple stress-free sourdough method a try this week and see how much more fun intuitive sourdough can be!