High hydration sourdough bread recipe – Making high hydration easy

Leave a Reply to Elizabeth Cancel reply

Recipe Rating




Your Information

  1. Elizabeth Reply

    Hi Sune! I tried making this recipe with 100% bread flour and I ended up with a super dense, flat loaf that’s raw inside. 🙁 I don’t have a banneton, so I put the shaped loaf in a small rectangular storage container. When I pulled it out of my fridge the next morning I was worried because it looked like a puddle of dough that had lost much of its shape. Any idea what went wrong?

    • It sounds very over proofed. How long did it proof and what was the temperature?

      Bulk proof in a square container is good, but once you put it into the to the final proof container it needs the approximate same shape as the bread you want. I sometimes use a pyrex bowl with a dish towel in it 🙂

  2. Cheryl Reply

    Curiosity made me try your tangzhongsourdough recipe.I have been playing with Chef Reinharts soakers and mashes, but yesterday I wanted just great plain sourdough. This was it. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of it -next time. I have one of the loaves to my wonderful neighbor and the other didn’t last long. My neighbor caught me this evening, raving about it as she was taking some to another elder neighbor. I may be in trouble. I wanted to share with you the Joy a simple load of bread can bring in the most of a pandemic. Now I think we can increase the tagging percentage with great success but by how much 25/30

    Thank you so much for helping me make bread!
    Ch**********@gm***.com

    • Thank you for sharing. It’s wonderful what a little love put into an oven can do. <3

  3. Michelle See Reply

    I have been enjoying your videos. You are so thorough and clear! Like many home bakers, I have a growing amoung of sourdough discard in the fridge. I was wondering if it would be possible to turn sourdough discard into tangzhong by heating it. I searched online but did not find anything and was wondering if the thought crossed your (genius) mind and what you think about it…

    • A very interesting idea. Cooking it would kill the yeast.

      Changing it to the tangzong you should add more water. Assuming that you starter is 100%, you should add twice the weight of the amount of starter to get the right hydration.

      So if you have 100 grams of starter you need to add 200 grams of water and then cook that as a tangzhong 🙂

      Let me know how it goes. It’s super interesting.

  4. felix Reply

    just as a little comment. what you call tangzhong has been well known in german bread making as a Kochstück (= cooked piece) and is commonly used in breads with a high content of spelt flour, for example.

    • Thanks for the information. Tangzhong is not only used in asia, but it’s just the most well-known name for it 🙂

  5. Robert Reply

    Michelle, I would be really interested to know how you get on with that as I also have a lot of discard that I don’t want to waste. I’ve read you can also use it in pancakes and in pizzas, anyone done this?

    Sune, I am making the tangzhone recipe for the first time so hoping the results will be as successful as with your beginners’ recipe, which has produced wonderful bread (though I changed the flour a bit by replacing a little of the white bread flour with some rye). Thank you for the excellent site.

  6. Amelie Reply

    Hi Sune! I would like to say that you are amazing! Thank you very much for sharing all of your experience and explaining the reasoning behind so well. I love the 100% whole wheat sourdough bread video you made recently and I know that Tangzhong gives a dough very special effects. Could you please make a video on how to make 100% whole wheat sourdough bread with Tangzhong? I would like to see how Tangzhong promote the performance of the 100% whole wheat dough. Thank you very much!

  7. Sheryl Reply

    Can I use rye flour instead of the whole grain wheat flour ?

  8. Hila Reply

    Hey Sune! I really love your blog and channel. Learned a lot from it even as a foodgeek myself 😀
    Q – Can I use 100% hydration rye starter and add the bread + whole wheat flour to it? It’s the only strong sourdough starter I currently have. Thanks!

  9. Melek Reply

    Hi, how to heat it if you don’t have microwave?

  10. Marissa Concepcion Reply

    Finally brave enough to try this recipe and am wondering how to know when the levain has peaked. Is it a volume or timing thing I need to track? Thank you so much!!!

  11. Barry B Reply

    Thanks for all your great SD techniques/recipes.

    I want to give this recipe a go. It states 17 hour time frame…is there a way to split this between two days? I have been doing the super easy SD and like that you rest in fridge overnite…can this be done with this recipe as well…if so at what point to you do the overnite rest,

  12. Barry B Reply

    I should edit my post/question. I said Rest in the fridge…should have said rest on the countertop for 9 hours. So for the super hydration…can you rest overnite after the autolyse? Or after the Mix the Dough?

  13. Barry B Reply

    Never mind reread the recipe and watched the video..I am excited to give this a go…I only have round banetons…so mine will be round.

  14. Marcie Horowitz Reply

    Hi Sune, I tried this recipe today and it was a success – thank you! I’m still a novice baker and found the dough relatively easy to handle as you predicted. Curious to know whether you’ve ever done an experiment comparing the tangzhong recipe with a comparable hydration recipe not using the tangzhong – how significant/noticeable are the differences?

  15. John moreira Reply

    Hi there,
    I am having a problem with very moist and gummy final product.

    I have tried cooking fir longer covered and uncovered to no avail.

    What do you think I can do to improve in this area?

    Thanks

  16. Natalie Reply

    Hi Sune, I love this recipe. I’ve made it as written and with all bread flour. I saw that you said the tangzhong could be increased to 40% of the dough volume so I’ve tried that. The final loaf comes out great. My question is, there’s not enough water left out of the tangzhong to autolyze the flour. I have just been mixing the tangzhong, flour, water, salt and starter all at once and letting it rest for an hour. I’m wondering if you have a suggestion for a better method?? The crumb is so moist and stays moist for days. My go to recipe! Thanks.

  17. Jeannine R Reply

    Hi Sune! I am ready to bake this tasty looking bread! I did something which I think is an enlightened moment, I used discard starter in making my tangzhong roux. I used double the weight of the flour (to accommodate needing 53 g flour), subtracting 53 g from the water. It thickened up nicely and looked as tangzhong should. The dough looks great and I can’t wait to see the results! Since discard is merely flour and water, it can be used in recipes that call for flour and water, just adjust the water and flour as necessary in the recipe. I used discard starter in making the roux for the Thanksgiving gravy too, it was delicious! Thank you for a well written out recipe!

  18. Othello Orson Reply

    Hi Sune,

    Not really for publishing, just for your personal interest:

    Tangzhong

    This is Mandarin and “zh” in Mandarin is pronounced “ch” i.e. it is more acurately pronounced: Tangchung

    Great site!

  19. JeannineR Reply

    This is a great recipe. I’ve used discard instead of flour in the tangzhong (using 106 g discard plus 213 g water instead of 53 g flour and 266 g water to get the same hydration), and love the addition of the flavor that brings to the bread.

  20. Kim Wiley Reply

    5 stars
    I’ve been making this recipe for years. Thank you so much!!!