Baking with sourdough can be tricky for sure. One thing that might help is make sure your starter is as fresh as possible before you use it. Just feed it well once or twice the day before you bake or if you’re starting the recipe at night, feed it in the AM. You could also try reducing the long proof from 18 hours to something like 12. The length of time depends a whole lot on the temperature, so in the summer it’s easy to over proof which would tend to make the bread alcoholly.

You can usually cut back on the water a little and/or add more flour to stiffen up the dough so it doesn’t pancake out on you so much and still get the big no knead holes and good results, but baking in an oblong la cloche or Romertopf does work really well for shoring up the dough and forcing a good rise even with really wet dough. The crust will come out really well too.

I’m sure you’ll be fine, but let us know how it goes.

You see, I had practically given up last year after getting a baking stone and starter, tried and came out with a flattish (no more than 2″ high), non browned crust, alcoholish tasting/smelling “sourdough” bread. Although somewhat edible, it was not a joy to look at and brought tears to my eyes!

To this day, I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I am now willing after seeing your step by step non-intimidating videos, to try again. I just have to purchase the raising basket and cloche to “contain” the dough as I’m assuming this was the reason that mine was spreading too much on the baking stone. (also perhaps too much moisture in dough?)

Any advice that you can offer for getting the starter and thus the white bread to smell more like sourdough and less alcoholly would be greatly appreciated! (I also love the really sour, sourdough!)

Thanks for your site and any help that can be offered to me!

One thing led to another, and I realized I wanted more connection with the grains and the process. Not instant bread. And my family is full of people who are allergic to wheat or who are waiting to get the foreordained familial diabetes.

So I thought I should be looking at spelt and rye and Red Fife wheat and stone ground grains. Luckily, I live in Ontario, where there are wonderful farmers who grow organic grains.

And I am not afraid of yeast: I have made beer and wine.

Last weekend, I started a sourdough culture. Last night, I tradded a bunch of flour and water to see what would happen. It was wonderfully bubbly and ready to use. So I added more flour and water and salt at lunchtime todayto make it look like your videos.

And that rose like crazy all afternoon!

I am now going to bake it before it falls from over proofing. Not even 12 hours.

Some totally hyperactive strain of yeast must have arrived on my stone ground Red Fife!

I need to clean my oven and get a baking stone before I can give up my bread pans and bake it in a 500 degree oven.

But soon!

When measuring ingredients, I used my scale. Should I experiment by adding more four or using less water? My goal is to make good-looking loaves to give to my friends. By the way, the regular NKB are *picture perfect. ( *Photo )

P.S. Your videos are excellent..I will watch them again and again before starting my next few batches of bread dough.

*Click to enlarge

Have you seen the video by Peter Reinhart ” The Art of Baking Bread “? He is speaking in front an audience. I found his lecture to be interesting and fun. The video is long (15min.35 sec.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK8Yk3mEEb8 . He winds up the lecture by saying ” May your crust be crisp and your bread always rise.”
Enjoy! Kristine

Wet doughs just tend to flatten out under their own weight more than a stiff dough.

Crusts will soften some while cooling from the steam escaping from the inside. But “mushy” is quite extreme. Maybe baking it longer would help. Also, baking in an unglazed ceramic (clay) baker helps since the clay wicks some moisture from the dough during baking and makes a crispier crust.

Thanks so much for your help.

I’m so glad you’re having fun with this. I don’t soak my Romertopf before baking bread. I think (personal opinion here) that the results are best when it’s preheated and then the dough dropped in. Plus the dough doesn’t stick that way.

I’m delighted to have found your site (via a recent link on thesimpledollar.com). I have been making Mark Bittman’s version of no-knead bread for a while (white or two-thirds wheat), but thoroughly enjoyed your video (and I had never been so neat about the folding in thirds until I saw you do it).

I’ve used both an ancient Le Creuset-type Dutch oven and a big lidded Pyrex bowl with great success. (The Pyrex bowl doesn’t tend to smell quite so scorched during the preheating, so I’m starting to prefer that.)

Today I launched my first sourdough starter — a new endeavor for me — and I look forward to trying No-Knead Sourdough in a few days.

I’ve also got a Romertopf that I could dig out of the cupboard to try. Sorry I haven’t perused all your links yet, but could you tell me if the Romertopf needs soaking, like I normally would before cooking? And what about preheating the Romertopf?

Thanks so much, and I look forward to trying many more ideas from your site.