{"id":136554,"date":"2025-03-16T04:04:29","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T04:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/recipes\/category-a-b\/bread\/baking-sour-san-francisco-sourdough-northwest-sourdough\/"},"modified":"2025-03-16T04:04:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T04:04:29","slug":"baking-sour-san-francisco-sourdough-northwest-sourdough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=136554","title":{"rendered":"Baking Sour San Francisco Sourdough \u2013 Northwest Sourdough"},"content":{"rendered":"


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My favorite loaf is the very sour San Francisco Sourdough style bread. It\u2019s why I started baking sourdough almost 14 years ago. It\u2019s why I started a blog, wrote books and also built a company around sourdough. I was able in many ways to get a nice crust, chewy crumb and tangy loaf over the years but could not find a method that was actually controllable and gave that real elusive tangy flavor on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n

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It was a hit and miss kind of thing. Sure adding whole grains to the dough would easily make it sour, but that\u2019s not what I wanted because it didn\u2019t taste right, it wasn\u2019t the elusive flavor profile I was looking for. It could also be unpleasantly sour if you weren\u2019t careful about timing, temperature and hydration with the added whole grain flour. Something was still missing.<\/p>\n

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It wasn\u2019t until after I attended a workshop in Belgium at the Quest for Sourdough<\/a>, that I put the last puzzle piece into place. It was actually an \u201cah ha!\u201d moment as it came together in my brain. I had been frustrated by the common advice to use a lower hydration dough which is kept cool to build up acidity (acetic acids). I found that bread made that way was usually sweetish and mild. Adding whole grains, again, could make it more sour but the acetic acid flavor wasn\u2019t always pleasant or what I was searching for. Something was still missing.<\/p>\n

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Once I had the revelation of what I needed to do I started experimenting and was very excited. I hoped this time I was on the right track because in the past I felt that doing something other than the standard suggestions should work.<\/p>\n

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I experimented for weeks to dial it in, but the very first loaves I baked were very close to what I wanted. Imagine how I felt after starting this journey almost 14 years ago, when I bit into a tangy sour, chewy, crusty loaf of real San Francisco style sourdough!<\/p>\n

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Many bakers do not care for the deeply sour San Francisco Style breads and that\u2019s okay. It might have something to do with growing up on the western coast of the USA. I grew up here in the west and all along the coast we have tangy sourdough being sold in the markets. However, it\u2019s very hard now to find a REAL sour loaf that isn\u2019t spiked with artificial souring agents, citric acid, vinegar, other types of acids. Yuk.<\/p>\n

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To those of us that bake the real thing (real fermented sourdough), the artificial acidity tastes terrible, very fake. It\u2019s like drinking dried reconstituted coffee instead of freshly ground coffee or eating a boxed cheesecake instead of a home baked real cheesecake, or using margarine instead of real cultured butter\u2026 you get the picture.<\/p>\n

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The method is simple for those that already know how to bake using a sourdough starter, but not as straightforward for those who have no idea how to use a starter. So for both categories of bakers, here are some discounts to either learn the basics and then go on to bake real San Francisco Style sourdough bread or to dive in and bake real San Francisco style sourdough bread right away.<\/p>\n

Use these discount links to join:<\/p>\n

Sourdough Bread Baking 101<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 <\/strong>(for beginners who don\u2019t know how to bake with sourdough)<\/p>\n

To learn to bake real San Francisco style \u201csour\u201d bread:<\/p>\n

Bake San Francisco Style Sourdough Bread<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(You\u2019ll find that the discount price is lower than what you can find on the homepage).<\/p>\n

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