Why is my sourdough bread flat?
This question is googled more than 27,000 thousand times a month. How do I know? Because that’s just the amount who land on my blog site month, looking to solve their sourdough woes. So if you were feeling like it was just you… think again. You are not alone. Really.
The answer ‘Why is my sourdough bread flat’ is simple, however, there isn’t just one answer. Sourdough bread is a symbiotic relationship between flour, water, time, temperature and you. The reason your sourdough bread is flat may not be the same reason your neighbour’s sourdough is flat. And that’s precisely where I can help.
Before Covid 19 gave sourdough bread its super hero status with home bakers, I’d been baking incredible sourdough loaves for more than a decade. My quiet passion (sorry, obsession!) leaked out to friends and family and eventually, led me to writing about it.
These days, sourdough baking is trending like crazy. And for those new to the band wagon, baking sourdough bread that’s flat causes many to tap out. While making a successful loaf is a heart-warming happy dance all in one, it’s incredibly disheartening when it doesn’t work. After the time, and care and anticipation that goes into making a loaf of sourdough bread, to be met with a flat and lackluster loaf can result in tears. It did for me. And now, I write about it and help others get past this hurdle.
You can likely solve your issue by browsing my blog.
See these top-rated articles:
- 4 Key Reasons Why Your Sourdough Bread Is Flat
- Waging War On Flat Sourdough Bread
- A Rescue For Deflated Sourdough
If you’ve read those articles and want a more comprehensive approach, or you’d prefer a step-by step guide to out what applies to your sourdough, I’ve put all the same information and SO much more into my book, The Sourdough Solution. You can print it, search it and above all, have it on hand to answer your questions.
When I first started baking sourdough, back in 2008, it took me 18 months to bake a loaf worth eating. Facebook Groups are filled with more photos and questions about flat loaves, than they are of successful ones.
Flat sourdough bread seems to be a global epidemic, just like it’s resurgence inspiration, Covid 19! And the issue is not limited to newbies. Most sourdough bakers will bake a flat loaf at some point in their sourdough journey. Even I do when I get lazy, neglect the cues, or like earlier this year when the characteristics of the flour I had been using for over 15 years, changed without notice.
During those initial 18 months of troubleshooting, the puzzle pieces started coming together. I had all but returned home from a weekend in France with a humble, yet unforgettable, baguette experience emblazoned in my heart and the determination to repeat it. It’s the only reason I persisted after months and months of failing terribly.
Back then, sourdough bread baking was not the wide-spread passion that it is today. Suitable flour was not easily available here in Australia and information was difficult to come by. Now, sourdough bread making advice continues to accumulate online, giving access to a tonne of amazing information, but at the same time, can also be totally confusing. Advice can often be contrary, suitable for one climate and not another, or related to local flour labeling which is different in other regions of the world. What I’ve discovered is that not all advice is going to work for you, even though it worked for the person providing it. Not in the way it’s often presented – as easy as ABC.
Sourdough is not one size fits all recipe, like making pancakes. It’s a relationship between you, your kitchen, your flour, your weather and your sourdough. Enter the rabbit hole that can be sourdough troubleshooting.
What caused my sourdough bread to be flat?
This question has been asked 100,000 times and will continue to be asked. Every sourdough baker will bake a flat loaf at least once in their lifetime.
Most online advice doesn’t show the ‘why’ behind the ‘how to’ for sourdough. And yet, 40°C summers vs -27°C winters, or USA bread flour vs Australian will change something about ‘how’ you do sourdough.
Spend 5 minutes inside any sourdough Facebook group. You’ll see the ongoing frustration as well as the level of detail kind people provide as solutions. I am super grateful that those answers work, for the person who wrote it, but even I get confused and overwhelmed. The number of steps, folds, grams and degrees people swear by is endless. There is soooo much information, much of it conflicting. I can’t imagine how someone starting out would find it helpful.
Some of the wisdom, I see so freely offered, are things I could never get to work for me (yep, using All Purpose flour is one of them!). It was in ditching a lot of the advice that told me what I needed to do, to instead, understand what sourdough needs to do, that the puzzle started coming together for me.
Here are the 4 main reasons sourdough bread is flat:
- Sourdough starter
- Bread flour
- Proofing (sourdough’s growth cycle)
- Technique (such as measuring and shaping)
In all the time that I’ve been helping people get their sourdough off the ground, I’ve not had one person say my recipe or process didn’t work for them. I did have someone tell me it was too easy and they wanted a more challenging regime! LOL. I understand that. Us ‘Enfoodiests’ do like to climb a mountain and conquer things in the foodie world sometimes! But starting the sourdough journey with a ‘win’ instead of a challenge, is the best way to conquer it. From there you’ll learn enough to deviate if that’s your thing.
I don’t use a dough thermometer, I don’t count, or time, my stretch and folds (if I do them) and I don’t knead the bread dough. Since that love-at-first-bite in France, since the puzzle came together, I’ve gone on to make it simple, so that I would continue with it. Especially since bread is something my husband eats far more regularly than I do. Fortunately, I just l.o.v.e making it!
Sourdough is magical. You make something with your hands, that transforms into a treasure you share with others. I want this to be your story. I want sourdough baking to stir your heart, fill your home and give you the same satisfaction that so many, who have conquered, it enjoy.
My approach cuts through the complexity, while maintaining the integrity of the context. That way you understand the what and the why, so that sourdough bread works in your kitchen, with your climate, using your bread flour and your own two hands.
I love making beautiful things, like sourdough, easy.
Diagnose your flat sourdough bread issue in 3 minutes
You seen there are 4 key reasons sourdough bread is flat. So how do you know which one, or two or three, applies to you?
In my eBook, I’ve created a questionnaire, so you can diagnose which issue is causing your sourdough bread to be flat. In less than 3-minutes, you will know exactly what’s causing you to bake flat, instead of beautiful, artisan bread. Tick the boxes, follow the chart to those pages in the book, implement the ‘aha’ and voila! Your sourdough bread will have you dancing in the kitchen! No more searching the internet for answers only to throw another loaf of flat sourdough bread in the bin.
My plan is that you have everything you need, at your finger tips, to solve every flat sourdough issue, both now and forever. Because what’s happening now, may happen again, for a different reason! Such is the enigma of sourdough.
Also learn how to:
- Know if your sourdough starter is strong enough for baking
- Improve inferior flour
- Fix sourdough proofing issues
- Look to your sourdough for when it’s ready (instead of the clock)
- Optimize the baking process for a perfect rise every time
Discover:
- How to refresh without discarding for a zero waste process
- Bake from a cold-start oven (better rise, less hot-pot-handling and save an hour’s worth of electricity or gas)
- What sized banneton to use for your recipe (if you want to use one, my recipe doesn’t need it)
- How to adjust any recipe for specialty flours like stone-ground, wholegrain, rye and spelt
You can can make homemade sourdough bread so good that people will talk about it.
No more flat, dense or gummy loaves of sourdough bread.
Find out why your loaves aren’t working, fix it and move on to rising heart-warming loaves every time!
My sourdough eBook is not a recipe book; it’s a tool specifically designed to help you work out why your sourdough bread is flat and how to fix it. Now, and forever. It’s the silver bullet you’ve been looking for.
No more guessing or trawling the internet. Have answers on hand whenever something’s ‘not right’. Plus! Try my 5-Star recipe (included). I was once where you are. Now, 16 years later, I help over 300,000 people a year fix flat sourdough via my blog, and newly released book, The Sourdough Solution.
A printable eBook you can download instantly
In The Sourdough Solution I’ve taken all the information available on my website, added a whole lot more, and put it all into one comprehensive guide. The 140 beautifully designed pages unravel the mysteries, remove the complexities and equip you with the knowledge to achieve the perfect rise every time. I’m a writer and an artist. Everything from the information, to the design and illustrations, are a labor of love from me to you.
You can imagine how much passion, fun and clarity has been put into creating this book to help you troubleshoot flat sourdough bread, and conquer it once and for all.
Available now through my Etsy store: Enfoodiest
Your next loaf of homemade sourdough bread could be your best!
Don’t let the challenge of flat sourdough dampen your baking spirits. Armed with a deep understanding of what influences rise, along with practical solutions, you’ll be ready to embark on a journey toward consistently pulling a beautifully risen loaf of sourdough bread out of the oven. Sourdough baking is as much about understanding a few basics, so you can go with the flow, as it is about detail and precision. I’ll help you refine your techniques, adapt to your kitchen’s quirks, and revel in the joy of watching your sourdough rise to new heights. Next step? Do an exuberant happy dance as you pull an easy, and wonderful, loaf out of the oven, and go on to share that joy with your family and friends.
Bon appetit!
x mj
The Sourdough Solution is available through my
new Etsy store: Enfoodiest
