Last Updated on January 21, 2023 by Michelle
Sourdough bread is always in high demand in this house. I’d never dream of making just one loaf.
So I thought it was time I break down the details… no fluff…
Can you Double a Sourdough Bread Recipe?
Yes! Not only can you, I’d argue you should double your sourdough bread recipe! This is how to make two loaves of amazing sourdough bread at once.
But consider yourself warned. You might be a sourdough addict in no time flat.
If you’re new to sourdough or bread making in general, start here: How I Make Sourdough Bread WIthout Wasted Discard That’s a thorough run down of everything you need to know.
Sourdough Bread. Doubled.
Today I’m giving you the one-stop page to pull up whenever you want to make a few loaves of delicious homemade bread for your family. For me, it’s once a week. And yes, I refer to this page every stinking time. Nope, I don’t have this recipe memorized, I just have it bookmarked. If you like to pin your recipes to find them easily, pin this one right here.
The Night Before
In an extra large bowl (this is mine), add these ingredients:
3 cups warm, filtered water
2 cup sourdough starter (I explain how to make a sourdough starter here)
6 cups of flour (If I can’t mill fresh flour, I like this flour, but I get my wheat berries here)
Mix & let set overnight in bowl on your kitchen counter that you’ve covered over with a towel.
You don’t even have to mix it super well. It doesn’t need to be like true dough.
In the Morning
In the morning, you’ll discover your dough has risen to fill (or overflow) your bowl.
Add these ingredients, right on top:
2 TB sugar (I use maple sugar)
2 TB salt (this salt is my favorite)
2 cup of flour
Add a little more flour if needed (no more than 1 more cup).
Knead in the bowl a little, just until all the ingredients are incorporated. This is what your dough should look like at this stage:
Drop your dough onto the counter and kneed a little more (just a minute or so) until you have a nice texture. No need to overwork the dough. It won’t be smooth, but will look like the picture below. Then place it in a clean bowl you have oiled well. I like spraying my bowl with avocado oil, using this sprayer. Cover your bowl with a towel and let the dough rise until it’s about 1.5x it’s size.
In the Afternoon
Jiggle your beautiful dough out of the bowl and onto the counter, where you can divide it. Create two “balls” by pulling a top “corner” in, pressing down, and rotating your circle of dough 90 degrees. Keep doing this until your dough is no longer stretchy, about a dozen pulls/turns. You now have a nice ball of dough, which will lead to a firmer, airy loaf of bread.
Turn the balls over and lightly dust w flour. Cover each with a towel and let have a bench rest for 10 minutes.
After the bench rest, I pre-heat the oven to 350, place my bread pans in to preheat, and prepare the loaves to rise one final (much shorter) time in the lids of the bread pans. Read more about the final rise of your sourdough bread here, if you need some pointers for this stage.
Baking Your Sourdough Loaves
When oven is nice and hot (and after the final rise), score your dough, transfer the loaves from the lids to the hot pans in the oven (I line my lids with parchment paper, which makes the transfer super easy) and bake for 30-40 minutes.
Remove lids and let loaves brown another 8-10 minutes.
Remove from oven and place loaves (without parchment paper) on a cooling rack, covered with a kitchen towel. Let rest for 10-20 minutes then enjoy.
10 Tips for Doubling Your Sourdough Bread Recipe
- Feel free to experiment with any old bread pans you have, glass, cast iron, stone, whatever you have. After years of trying all of the above, I found these pans produce far superior, consistent results I’m looking for. Since I’m baking a few loaves of bread every week, I just don’t want to waste time on sub-par baking results.
- In this article I explain how you can also make two different size or shaped loaves.
- Don’t forget to score your loaves… it might sound silly but once I started doubling my amount that I was baking I somehow was much more likely to forget this step.
- Place a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of your oven, below your bread pans, to keep the bottom of your loaves from getting overcooked. (While the above loaf was delicious, I forgot to place the cookie sheet under it in the oven and you can see my loaf bottom got a little too done.)
- Feel free to double this recipe and make four loaves if you’d like. If you only have 2 pans, it’s perfectly fine to bake 2 at a time, back to back.
- Also feel free to half this recipe and make a single loaf of bread.
- While this recipe works with any flour, sugar, and salt you have on hand, some options do indeed give superior results. Go here to grab my complete Pantry List that you can print out and use to help you make sure you always have the ingredients on hand the you need, when you need them.
- Watch me make two sourdough loaves in this instagram highlight.
- The best way to know if your loaves are done is to check the internal temperature with a digital thermometer like this one. It should register around 190-200F.
- See my favorite ingredients in my kitchen (including the flour, sugar, and salt I often use for this sourdough bread recipe).
Watch Every Step of the Process
I documented my process, from starter to bread, one day on my instagram stories and saved the whole bread-making process right here if you’d like to watch.
While you’re there please say “hi” and follow my page. I find instagram to be my favorite “hang out,” and would love to see you there.
Talk to me!
If you have any questions, leave a comment below. And please tag me on ig to show me your amazing sourdough bread @souly.rested.
A Few Things I Use for Making Sourdough Bread
Want more sourdough?
How to Make Sourdough Without Discard
More info & recipes you’ll love:
How a homesteader makes French toast.
Products I LOVE that can turn every kitchen into a homestead-kind-of kitchen.
Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands. I Thessalonians 4:11
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Again I would love to know what fresh milled flour you use for your loaves of sourdough. I learned how to make the BEST sourdough after starting my own starter in 2020 (when everyone else did too) but I use store bought bread flour and desperately want to know how to make the same delicious loaves with fresh milled flour. Hard white? Mix of 2 different? Thanks for your videos and instructions.
Enjoying the learning process! Your articles are very informative and clear! I’ll be on thr sidelines for a bit more, absorbing like fresh milled flour! Will first try with the flour you recommend without a mill, glad to know there is one. I don’t want to invest that much yet if I won’t actually use it. So will do some practice runs, and who knows, maybe I’ll win the mill…!!?? Still searching for that pesky egg…happy baking!