A Simpler Way to Bake Real Sourdough

Let’s make some dough.

Most people are introduced to sourdough through the idea of a starter jar—a container of flour and water that must be fed, maintained, and discarded. For many bakers, that maintenance becomes the barrier. The bread may be wonderful, but the routine can feel like another responsibility in an already busy life.

There is another way.

It’s older, simpler, and closer to how many traditional bakeries actually worked for centuries. Instead of maintaining a separate starter, the baker simply reserves a piece of dough from the previous bake and uses it to seed the next one.

This is the Mother Dough Method.

It turns sourdough from a maintenance task into a repeatable baking process.

The Mother Dough Method removes much of the friction that discourages people from baking sourdough regularly.

Instead of maintaining a separate culture, the culture lives inside the dough itself.

Each bake becomes part of a continuous chain:

Yesterday’s dough ferments today’s bread.
Today’s dough becomes tomorrow’s culture.

There are several practical advantages:

1. No Daily Feeding

Because the culture remains inside salted dough, activity slows naturally. The reserved dough can often sit in the refrigerator for a week or even two without attention.

2. No Discard

Nothing is thrown away. The culture is perpetuated through the dough itself.

3. Consistency

The yeast and bacteria adapt to the exact conditions of your dough—your flour, your hydration, and your fermentation schedule. Over time the system becomes predictable and stable.

4. Simplicity

There is no separate starter to manage. If you can mix dough, you can maintain the culture.

For many bakers, this approach turns sourdough into something that fits comfortably into real life.

Before refrigeration and modern baking instruction, bakers commonly maintained fermentation through old dough.

In France it was known as pâte fermentée. In Spain and Italy, bakers used terms like madre or masa madre. Across Europe the same method appeared under different names, but the practice was essentially the same: reserving a piece of dough from one batch to seed the next.

The principle was simple: a piece of fermented dough was carried forward into the next batch.

Professional bakeries often ran continuous fermentation systems, where dough from the previous production cycle seeded the next one. The microbial culture therefore evolved naturally within the bakery environment.

The Mother Dough Method follows the same principle, but scaled for the home baker.

The mechanics are straightforward.

When making bread, a small portion of the dough is reserved before shaping. That piece becomes the mother dough for the next bake.

A typical example might look like this.

Ingredients

Metric

400 g bread flour
300 g water
8 g salt
40 g mother dough (approximately 10%)

Imperial (By Weight)

14 oz flour
10.5 oz water
8 g salt
1.5 oz mother dough

Instructions

Combine flour, water, salt, and the reserved mother dough in a mixing bowl.
Mix until fully incorporated.
Rest for 20 minutes to allow the dough to hydrate.
Perform 2 rounds of stretches and folds.
Allow the dough to ferment overnight at room temperature.
The next day, reserve about 10% of the dough to serve as the mother for your next bake.
Shape the remaining dough into a boule or batard and bake.

The reserved piece is stored in the refrigerator until the next baking session.

When you mix the next batch of dough, the cycle continues.

The mother dough contains a living community of wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria living symbiotically.
The yeast produce carbon dioxide that raises the dough, while the bacteria create acids that produces that sour flavor and stabilize the environment where both organisms thrive.

When that dough is mixed with fresh flour and water, fermentation resumes.

The microorganisms begin consuming sugars produced by flour enzymes. Yeast produce carbon dioxide, which expands the dough. Bacteria contribute acidity and flavor development.

Because the culture is carried forward in dough rather than a liquid starter, the organisms are already adapted to:

the salt level
the hydration of the dough
the flour you use
your fermentation timing

Over time, the system stabilizes into a predictable rhythm.

One of the most common comments I hear after a Breaducation class is something like this:

“I thought sourdough was going to be a hassle.”

Many bakers expect daily feeding routines, jars filling the refrigerator, and complicated schedules.

Then they see how the Mother Dough Method works.

The entire process—from mixing dough to reserving the next culture—can take less than five minutes of hands-on work.

That simplicity changes everything.

Suddenly baking sourdough isn’t a project. It becomes something you can do regularly—weekly, or even daily. I’ve had bakers bake every day for months after class—some for more than nine months straight.

The bread improves, the baker gains confidence, and the process becomes second nature.

If you try the Mother Dough Method, pay attention to the behavior of the dough itself.

Notice how the fermentation responds when:

the kitchen is warmer or cooler
the dough is slightly wetter or firmer
the reserved mother has been stored longer

This observation is where real learning happens.

Sourdough mastery does not come from memorizing recipes. It develops when you begin to read the dough and understand its signals.

The Mother Dough Method makes those signals easier to see because the process stays consistent from bake to bake.

The Mother Dough Method is not a new invention. In many ways, it is a return to the original way bread was made—where a piece of dough was simply carried forward from one bake to the next. This old practice turns sourdough into a simple, repeatable process rather than a culture that requires constant maintenance.

Your sourdough mastery continues here. Master this fermentation process, perfect your dough handling, and enjoy the confidence that comes from baking excellent bread again and again.

Until next time, let’s give thanks for our daily bread…

John

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