The biggest challenge and source of frustration for a sourdough baker is to find a rockhard bread in the oven after all the hours you spent feeding the starter, measuring and autolysing, stretching and folding, bulk fermenting, proofing, and scoring.

Although I have been baking my own bread for years, by hand or by bread machine, but when I was introduced to a commercial-yeast-free bread, that’s when the learning curve began. I had hit-and-miss days.

Through the months, here are the hard lessons I learned and strategies I adopted to get more consistent results.

I observed patterns which helped me drew my own conclusions on why my sourdough failed to rise. I adopted techniques to troubleshoot my weak points.

If you’ve been following me on facebook, you must have seen how I “made” my own SCOBY or symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast from a commercial bottle of kombucha while on vacation.