Adjusting the Sour Flavor in Sourdough Bread - Amy Bakes Bread (2024)

FAQs

How do you adjust sourdough sourness? ›

Ferment Your Sourdough For A Shorter Time

One of the easiest ways to manipulate the sourness of your sourdough bread is simply to decrease the time that it ferments for. There a few ways that you can do this and often you will need to experiment to find what works best for you.

There are two main acids produced in a sourdough culture: lactic acid and acetic acid. Acetic acid, or vinegar, is the acid that gives sourdough much of its tang. Giving acetic acid-producing organisms optimal conditions to thrive and multiply will produce a more tangy finished product.

To counteract sour whole wheat bread, there are a few solutions: Autolyse or soak the flour to hydrate it. Use a preferment. Add sugar to feed the yeast.

The sourdough starter is the real secret to getting a good fermentation going. Essentially your sourdough starter is old dough, which has already pre-fermented and contains Lactobacillus culture. Lactobacillus culture has a sour taste and is an active culture that lives off natural yeast spores from the air.

If a dish is too sour, add a little bit of sugar! Sweetness balances out sour flavors, so if something makes your mouth pucker, a dash of sugar may help soften the blow of the sour food.

My starter is very acidic. How can I de-acidify it? Try feeding your starter a high feeding ratio (e.g., 1:5:5) and discard and refeed right after the starter rises and peaks. This is known as the “peak-to-peak” method.

The secret to sourdough is simple: water. The more water you add to your dough will affect how open the crumb (bigger holes and softer texture) will be once it's baked.

It is important that you stir the sourdough starter every day in the morning and in the evening. Feed the starter. Add 60 g flour and 60 g lukewarm water, stir well to combine, and let sit out for 24 hours.

Rinsing your mouth with a half-teaspoon of salt plus a teaspoon of baking soda added to a glass of water may help reduce the sour taste. Avoid spicy or fatty foods, which promote acid reflux.

Does sourdough bread get more sour over time? ›

The longer you ferment, the more starches and sugars the bacteria eats, and the more sour your bread will be.

A sour taste after eating bread can be due to fermentation in certain types of bread, ingredients like sourdough starter, or interactions with acidic foods. Dental or oral health issues may also be a factor.

Small Amounts of Sourdough Starter - using less sourdough starter in your dough produces a more sour flavor because it takes much longer for the dough to rise, giving the bacteria more time to produce the natural acids that give sourdough its distinct flavor.

Some say the foggy climate gives San Francisco's sourdough bread a special bounce, and others say it's a specific local strain of yeast that gives the characteristic flavor. That bounce and flavor are notes that pair perfectly with a California Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc.

Sourdough bread may be easier to digest than white bread for some people. According to some studies, sourdough bread acts as a prebiotic, which means that the fiber in the bread helps feed the “good” bacteria in your intestines. These bacteria are important for maintaining a stable, healthy digestive system.

Acidic or sour smells happen when too much acid is being carried over from one feeding to the next. The way to fix this is to feed a bigger ratio of flour and water to your starter. Acidic starters tend to be less active as well. If you notice this, try feeding a bigger ratio to your starter for a while.

The longer the sourdough starter discard sits at room temperature, the more acidic it becomes until the mixture becomes inhospitable for microbes to function. At warm room temperature, this happens quickly compared to the cooler temperatures inside the refrigerator.

Hack: Citric acid, ascorbic acid, and others. Like ACV, adding powdered acids can simply add sour flavor to bread. I'm not a proponent of these methods but if you want to try them look up the specific ratio you will need as some of these acids are very concentrated and you only need a very small amount.

If your bread has a sour, yeasty flavour and smells of alcohol then you have either used too much yeast.or you may have use stale yeast or creamed fresh yeast with sugar.