What are the most important parameters

There are some main parameters we try to look at when baking a sourdough bread. We can look at

Breads⁠

and see what percentage that is tracked. These all parameters are percentages of the amount of flour you use in your dough. It is called the

bakers percentage⁠

⁠

Temperature

Two things in particular that are super important to keep an eye on with temperature:

temperature of the water used to mix the dough (a little less important with long autolysis, since the temperature then in any case draws closer to room temp / levain temp)

temperature in the room you raise, ev. the temperature in the lifting cabinet if you have it

the water temperature for feeding is not very important. It works well with ice cold water as well, just takes a little longer for the process to kick start. With a 12 hour cycle I would almost predict normal room temp (or cooler) to hit peak faster, at least based on experience. It tends to peak after about 10 hours, so by giving a little colder water you can push the peak closer to 12.

The biggest problems people have with succeeding with sourdough bread (given that they have a working starter, and do not have such high hydration that they can not process the dough) are about the timing around

bulk proofing⁠

. If a recipe says 3x stretching and shaping 3 hours after the starter is mixed in, it assumes that the temperature in the dough is equal to that used by the recipe author. There is a huge difference if an recipe author has a room temperature of 24 degrees, and a reader has a room temperature of 22 degrees. Even bigger difference if one dough uses 30 degrees water (so dough temp ends at around 25) and another uses 25 degrees water (dough temp closer to 20).

All temperatures can give excellent results, but it is pointless to follow a specific time schedule if you do not match the temperatures along the way. In addition, when beginners do not have an eye to judge whether a dough has risen sufficiently, the problems become even clearer.

If you want to nerd out more on the importance of temperature:

The Importance of Dough Temperature in Baking | The Perfect Loaf⁠

⁠

Hydration

The hydration percentage is amount of water based on flour. F.ex we use 1000 gram flour, and 770 gram water, that is a total of 77% hydration. The more hydration we have the more difficult it is to handle the dough. But a lot of bakers usually work around 70-80%

Sourdough percentage

This is also know as the inoculation, a term from biology where it denotes how much sourdough culture is added.

This sourdough percentage is the exact amount of the “fermented flour,” as it’s

often called⁠

. But the amount depends on the type of bread you are making — you can find your preferred amount through trial and error. Here we are just showcasing the basic, pleasantly sour sourdough bread. For that kind of bread, using a ready starter it is good to go with 16%-25% of sourdough starter. In a 1000 gram bread, that means 160-250 gram sourdough starter.

Salt percentage

This is again just based on the total amount of flour, and recommended is 2%, f.ex 20 grams of 1000grams. See

Why do we add salt⁠

for more reasoning on the salt.

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