How to make no-knead artisan sourdough bread

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This recipe shows you how to make a beginner friendly no-knead artisan sourdough bread at home. With just a few ingredients and some simple key principles, you can master the skill of baking fresh sourdough in your own kitchen for a fraction of the price.

You can adjust the timing of the recipe to suit your own schedule and bake bread when it suits you. Minimal hands-on time and long fermentation make this recipe adaptable to any situation. Follow my step-by-step instructions for the best results.

Is it worth making your own artisan sourdough bread?

After mastering my no-knead whole-wheat sourdough bread recipe, I thought I would branch out and have a go at a more artisan-style white sourdough bread.

To be honest, I didn’t see much difference in the method or fermentation principles, but I did notice that this recipe creates a much softer, lighter bread, more true to that of an artisan-style loaf you might find at a decent bakery.

Although it might be more convenient to run to the store and grab a loaf of bread, there are a couple of key differences between store bought and home made:

• Cost – I’m always one for being frugal when possible, and making our own bread means it costs us roughly $2 per loaf to make compared to $9-$11 per loaf to buy. This saving is huge and really adds up over time.
• Quality of ingredients – Unless you’re able to source organic sourdough bread, it can usually be assumed that the bread you are buying is not made with organic flour. This is a big deal to us as non-organic flour/grain almost certainly contains chemicals such as glyphosate, which is something we try and avoid where possible.

By learning to make your own artisan-style sourdough bread at home, you get the benefit of saving a bit of money (or a lot of money if you go through a lot of bread) and knowing exactly what your family are eating. It’s also an amazing skill to learn and pass on, you never know when it might come in handy as we have seen over the past few years!

Might I add that it’s also just SO delicious!!

What are the benefits of baking your own sourdough?

There are so many benefits of making your own sourdough from scratch, a couple I have already mentioned such as saving money and knowing all the ingredients. But here are a few more benefits incase your need further convincing;

• Health benefits – sourdough (or any fermented products) have plenty of health benefits. I notice that I’m able to digest sourdough more easily than non-fermented grains, and knowing that all the ingredients used are organic and free from chemicals and pesticides is a necessary bonus.
• Low waste – no plastic wrapped loaves of bread here. I purchase my flour in bulk and it comes in paper bags. These bags are composted at the end of their life meaning no plastic waste.
• Master valuable skills – while we all know it is convenient to pop to the shops and grab a loaf of bread, I truly believe that losing these valuable skills would be so detrimental. Knowing how to make real food from scratch with simple ingredients may just come in handy one day.

How should I look after my sourdough starter?

You can learn all about how I look after my no-discard sourdough starter here.

This may seem a bit mean, but I keep my mature sourdough starter in the fridge 24/7. She lives in a jar with the lid on tight and gets no special treatment. This same jar also acts as my sourdough ‘discard’ jar.

Even though I refer to it as ‘discard’, I rarely ever discard any starter. In fact, I use sourdough discard in many recipes.

When I’m ready to bake my artisan bread, I take a small amount of my mature starter from the fridge and place it in a clean jar. I add a small amount of luke-warm filtered water and some rye flour to create a thick peanut butter-like batter. I place the lid on loosely and pop it on the counter or in a warm-ish place. After 4-8 hours (depending on the temperature of the room), my starter has at least doubled and is ready to use in my no-knead artisan style sourdough bread recipe.

After feeding, your starter is ready to use once it has at least doubled in size.

Reasons your starter may not be this active include immature starter, cold temperature, or the wrong type of flour for feeding.

What kitchen equipment do I need to make sourdough bread?

A common misconception I find people getting caught up on is that they don’t have the ‘right’ equipment. I’m here to tell you that you don’t actually need a fancy dough whisk, stand mixer, banneton, bench scraper, or bread lame. These things are great to have once you get a bit more serious, but don’t let it stop you if you can’t quite justify these things yet.

You do, however, need a couple of things to get the basics right including a cast iron dutch oven with lid, kitchen scale, large bowl and filtered (or at least de-chlorinated) water.

I like to make my sourdough in a glass bowl for a couple of reasons. One is that glass is generally a low-tox cookware option when compared to something like plastic. Another reason is that I can see the activity of the sourdough through the glass. It’s important to use a scale when measuring out sourdough ingredients, as weight is more accurate than volume when dealing with dry ingredients.

If the room temperature is particularly cold in winter, a heating pad can be really helpful to get a nice active starter and dough. You can also use a specific type of dehydrator for keep your dough nice and warm. I use this one, it’s so handy for many things including making yoghurt and dehydrated fruit. Simply combine your ingredients and place the bowl on the heating pad to stay warm during the stretch and fold and bulk fermentation stages.

How to make simple no-knead sourdough bread

Making the dough

Feed sourdough starter 6-8 hours prior to making your dough.

Start by measuring out 380g filtered luke-warm water in to your glass bowl. Add about 125g bubbly, active sourdough starter. A sufficiently active starter will float when placed into the water (just like when you do a ‘float test’). Stir these well to combine.

To this starter and water mixture, add 550g organic white baker’s flour.

Add 10g sea salt and stir well to combine. This will produce a sticky, shaggy dough – this is good!

Note that I don’t ‘autolyse’ the dough before adding the salt. I find I still achieve excellent results with this method.

Resting, stretching and folding

Cover and rest the dough for approximately 1 hour. I like to cover my bowl with a clean shower cap. I just rinse, dry and reuse it. You could also use a damp tea towel, beeswax wrap or cling wrap to stop the dough drying out.

After 1 hour, preform the first set of ‘stretch and folds’. See blow images for a visual idea.

Allow the dough to rest for 30 minutes, then perform another set of stretch and folds. Repeat this roughly every 20-30 minutes for 2-3 hours. By the end of the 2-3 hours, your dough should be very loose and stretchy. If you’re not sure how to stretch and fold, there are many great videos on Youtube which will explain this step.

Bulk ferment the dough.

After 2-3 hours of stretching and folding, which gives you 4-6 sets of stretch and folds, it’s time to bulk ferment the dough. This involves leaving the dough to rest at room temperature for several hours. Bulk fermentation allows the wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria to work their magic, converting sugars to carbon dioxide and causing the dough to rise. You should start to see air bubbles forming through the bowl if using glass, and the dough should almost double in size. I usually bulk ferment my dough for 4-6 hours, covered with plastic wrap, a damp towel or a clean shower cap.

When the dough is nearly doubled in size, its time to shape you dough.

Shape the dough

Remove the dough from the bowl and turn out on the the counter. I don’t flour my work surface as this helps to create surface tension on the dough. Using slightly wet hands, stretch out the dough into a square shape on the counter. Fold the outside edges into the middle (like folding a letter). Roll up into a ball.

Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes.

Dust a muslin-lined banneton basket with rye flour (or rice flour) and place dough seam side up into the banneton basket, cover with a damp kitchen towel and place in the fridge for 12-48 hours.

*If you don’t have a benneton or muslin cloth, you could use any vessel that is roughly the shape you want your loaf to be, and a clean tea towel dusted with flour. Return to the fridge until ready to bake. You should see a little bit of a dough rise during this time, but don’t worry if it doesn’t rise too much.

Baking your sourdough bread

One hour before baking, preheat your oven at the highest temperature with your cast iron dutch oven inside. Carefully flip the dough out onto a sheet of parchment paper (unbleached if possible) and score the dough as you wish with a very sharp knife or razor blade. It could be simple like mine or you could get creative. Just make sure you work quickly at this stage.

Carefully remove the preheated dutch oven and lower the dough in using the parchment paper. Place the lid on and return to the oven, turning the temperature down to 230 degrees Celsius.

Bake for 20 minutes with the lid on at 230 degrees Celsius.

Remove the lid and bake for a further 20 minutes at 210 degrees Celsius. If the bread is starting to brown too much, it helps to put a baking sheet on the top rack above the bread to reduce the amount of direct heat on the top of the loaf.

Cool, slice, and enjoy your simple no-knead sourdough bread

Once your bread has finished baking, carefully removed it from the dutch oven and cool on a wire rack.

As tempting as it may be, make sure you wait until it’s completely cool before slicing. Slicing too soon will create a gummy texture, and we wouldn’t want that after all your hard work!

My frugal tips

• Buy your flour in bulk – I love to buy this organic white baker’s flour from Amazon. It produces amazing consistent results and it’s so hand having it delivered to my door.
• Don’t discard your sourdough starter – this wastes food and money, not something we want at all. Give my no-discard sourdough starter method a go!
• Start with what you have or can borrow from a friend – don’t go out and buy all your equipment at once, use what you have to start with and invest when you know you’re going to stick with it.