Can You Skip the Levain? I Made Sourdough With Just 20g of Starter
Russell Peace Baker
11,392 views
Can you skip the levain and add a tiny amount of sourdough starter directly to your dough?
Join The Sourdough Collective:
https://community.russellpeacebaker.com
My normal process begins by using 20g of starter to build a 100g levain. Once that levain reaches peak, I add it to the remaining flour, water and salt to make my dough.
But what happens if we remove that separate levain build completely?
In this experiment, I compare my traditional levain method with a low-inoculation, direct-to-dough method using only 20g of ripe starter.
Both loaves contain exactly the same final ingredients:
• 550g total flour
• 400g total water
• 10g salt
• 20g of original starter
• 72.7% hydration
The only difference is the order in which those ingredients are combined.
TRADITIONAL LEVAIN METHOD
20g starter
40g flour
40g water
Once the levain reaches peak:
100g levain
500g flour
350g water
10g salt
DIRECT-TO-DOUGH METHOD
20g ripe starter
540g flour
390g water
10g salt
The direct method uses just 1.8% prefermented flour—a starter-to-new-flour ratio of approximately 1:27.
This raises some fascinating questions.
Does the direct method take longer because the starter must ferment such a large quantity of flour in a lower-hydration, salted environment?
Or does skipping the levain build reduce the total process time?
Does hydrating all the flour for longer affect gluten strength, handling or fermentation?
And will the finished loaves look or taste noticeably different?
The result surprised me.
The direct-to-dough loaf completed the entire process in approximately 9½ hours. The traditional levain process took approximately 11 hours.
Despite following two very different routes, both doughs fermented beautifully and produced excellent oven spring, crumb structure and flavour—with very little separating the finished loaves.
The method worked, but it introduced another challenge: timing an extremely low-inoculation starter build so that it reaches peak exactly when you need it.
Would you consider skipping the levain and adding your starter directly to the dough? Let me know in the comments.
If you enjoy detailed sourdough experiments like this, please subscribe and give the video a thumbs up.
My name is Russell Peace, and I teach sourdough one clear step at a time.
#sourdough #sourdoughbread #breadmaking
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
04:43 - The first problem
07:03 - Let the games begin!
12:55 - Mixing & Strengthening
17:12 - Stretch & Folds
19:30 - First coil fold
20:50 - Second coil fold
22:09 - Starting the other dough
22:52 - Strengthening
23:48 - Stretch and Folds
24:47 - Direct to dough - end of bulk
26:05 - Pre-Shape & Shaping
27:18 - The Results
20 Comments
Can You Skip the Levain? I Made Sourdough With Just 20g of Starter
Russell Peace Baker
11,392 views
Can you skip the levain and add a tiny amount of sourdough starter directly to your dough?
Join The Sourdough Collective:
https://community.russellpeacebaker.com
My normal process begins by using 20g of starter to build a 100g levain. Once that levain reaches peak, I add it to the remaining flour, water and salt to make my dough.
But what happens if we remove that separate levain build completely?
In this experiment, I compare my traditional levain method with a low-inoculation, direct-to-dough method using only 20g of ripe starter.
Both loaves contain exactly the same final ingredients:
• 550g total flour
• 400g total water
• 10g salt
• 20g of original starter
• 72.7% hydration
The only difference is the order in which those ingredients are combined.
TRADITIONAL LEVAIN METHOD
20g starter
40g flour
40g water
Once the levain reaches peak:
100g levain
500g flour
350g water
10g salt
DIRECT-TO-DOUGH METHOD
20g ripe starter
540g flour
390g water
10g salt
The direct method uses just 1.8% prefermented flour—a starter-to-new-flour ratio of approximately 1:27.
This raises some fascinating questions.
Does the direct method take longer because the starter must ferment such a large quantity of flour in a lower-hydration, salted environment?
Or does skipping the levain build reduce the total process time?
Does hydrating all the flour for longer affect gluten strength, handling or fermentation?
And will the finished loaves look or taste noticeably different?
The result surprised me.
The direct-to-dough loaf completed the entire process in approximately 9½ hours. The traditional levain process took approximately 11 hours.
Despite following two very different routes, both doughs fermented beautifully and produced excellent oven spring, crumb structure and flavour—with very little separating the finished loaves.
The method worked, but it introduced another challenge: timing an extremely low-inoculation starter build so that it reaches peak exactly when you need it.
Would you consider skipping the levain and adding your starter directly to the dough? Let me know in the comments.
If you enjoy detailed sourdough experiments like this, please subscribe and give the video a thumbs up.
My name is Russell Peace, and I teach sourdough one clear step at a time.
#sourdough #sourdoughbread #breadmaking
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
04:43 - The first problem
07:03 - Let the games begin!
12:55 - Mixing & Strengthening
17:12 - Stretch & Folds
19:30 - First coil fold
20:50 - Second coil fold
22:09 - Starting the other dough
22:52 - Strengthening
23:48 - Stretch and Folds
24:47 - Direct to dough - end of bulk
26:05 - Pre-Shape & Shaping
27:18 - The Results