Make it Sourdough

By Laura Crandall

With a little math and a lot of patience, almost any yeasted recipe becomes yours to reinvent.

One of the questions we hear most often in our test kitchen goes something like this:

“I love this recipe, but it calls for dry yeast. Can I make it with my sourdough starter instead?”

It’s a great question, and the honest answer is a little complicated, so let’s take our time and break it down.

Commercial dried yeast is wonderfully dependable—that’s exactly why we reach for it so often. Sourdough, on the other hand, is a living thing: a little less predictable and a lot more sensitive to its environment.

Here’s the good news: You can absolutely use a live, active sourdough starter to leaven and flavor almost any yeasted recipe, bringing all that lovely sourdough character along with it. The catch? It takes a few adjustments, a little math, and some honest trial and error to turn a recipe you already love into something entirely new. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, there are a few things worth knowing:

Our starter is 100% hydration, meaning it is built from equal parts fl our and water by weight. That balance makes the math ahead a lot more approachable. If your starter runs at a different hydration, everything here still applies—you’ll just need to do a little extra math to account for the particular ratio of flour to water in yours.
Get yourself a scale. Weighing your ingredients isn’t just nice to have in sourdough baking—it’s essential. The whole foundation of bread is built on ratios: with everything in relation to the weight of the flour. A scale is simply the most accurate way to bake. If you’ve gone to the trouble of keeping a starter alive and happy, I want you to have every tool to succeed, and a scale is the biggest one. It also makes the math we’re about to do infinitely easier. Trust me, you do not want to work out what 0.83 of 1 cup looks like. (For the record, it’s 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon— which is not only beside the point but also more dishes to wash.)
Finally, your starter’s strength comes down to two things: how healthy and active it is and the environment you’re working in. Because sourdough is so much more sensitive than commercial yeast, you’ll have to put more effort into controlling its environment than you would with dry yeast. Plan on both rises taking longer, too—the fi rst rise (your bulk rise) and the second (the final proof) will each stretch out compared to a dough leavened with commercial yeast. Be patient with your dough; rushing it can quickly turn disastrous.

NEED A STARTER?

The fastest route is borrowing some from a fellow baker. If you want to make your own, you can start from scratch (view our instructions here) or buy a dehydrated starter online. We recommend Sunrise Flour Mill’s Sourdough Starter, which has been maintained for more than 100 years.

OK LET’S GET INTO IT.

To make the process easier to follow, here’s a simple example recipe we’ll convert together. Note: We will be working in grams/weight, not cups/volume.

400 grams flour

240 grams water

7 grams dry yeast

8 grams kosher salt

1. Cross the yeast off the list. Your starter is about to take over its job, so the dry yeast has to go.

400 grams flour

240 grams water

7 grams dry yeast

8 grams kosher salt

 

2. Take note of the flour amount in the recipe. Multiply that flour weight by 0.2 (20%), and the result is how much sourdough starter you’ll add in place of the yeast. You can nudge this a little if you like round, pretty numbers, but anywhere from 18% to 20% is standard. Let’s go with 20% in our example.

400 grams flour x 0.2 (20%) = 80 grams sourdough starter

 

3. Now that you know how much starter you’re adding, you need to account for the fl our and water already living inside it—and subtract those amounts from the recipe. This is exactly where 100% hydration earns its keep, because the starter splits cleanly down the middle.

THE FINAL MATH

360 grams flour (400 grams flour – 40 grams flour)

200 grams water (240 grams water – 40 grams water)

80 grams sourdough starter (which has just replaced your yeast)

8 grams kosher salt

HYBRID DOUGH

If going fully sourdough feels like a leap, you don’t have to commit all at once. You can keep a little dry yeast in the recipe to guarantee a rise and speed the process up a bit. This “hybrid dough” gives you the best of both worlds: the reliability of commercial dry yeast alongside the flavor and benefits of sourdough. You can use as little as 1/8 teaspoon dry yeast, and up to 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon per cup of flour. How much you reach for is entirely up to you and how fast you want the dough to rise.

TRIAL & ERROR

We’ve covered the adjustments and the math. That leaves one last thing—and it may be the most important: trial and error. When you’re experimenting in the kitchen, you can’t let a failed or imperfect first attempt discourage you. Maybe your dough needs a little more flour, a little less water, or a rise that’s shorter or longer than you guessed. Learn from the experience, come up with a plan B, and get back into the kitchen to try again. That’s the beauty of sourdough.

PRO TIP: If you’re working with an enriched dough, the liquid you adjust may not be water—it could be milk or another liquid.

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