 If you're like most home bakers, you've probably been in this situation. You wake up nice and early ready for a day of baking, get out your carefully-curated sourdough starter, and spend all day mixing, folding, and shaping your dough. And so far, everything's going great. You throw your loaf in the oven and come back 20 minutes later, expecting to find your perfectly risen loaf, you remove the lid, and bam, it's still flat as a pancake. That lack of oven spring is one of the most frustrating things that can happen in sourdough baking, but it's definitely not an uncommon issue, and there's plenty of things you can do to fix it. So today, we're going to talk about that. Let's get into it. If you're new here, my name is Charlie, and on this channel, I show you how to make delicious food using simple ingredients and techniques so that you can become a more confident home cook. So let's talk sourdough. For those of you that don't know, oven spring is basically that initial rise that you see in your bread during the first 10 to 15 minutes of baking as the fermentation speeds up and the gases in the dough start to expand. So it's really important to maximize your rise during that time, because by the time those first few minutes are over, the bread heats up to the point where the yeast can no longer survive, which marks the end of the fermentation process and therefore the end of the rise. So let's get into five tips that I've picked up throughout my sourdough baking endeavors that'll help you get a better oven spring on your loafs. Keep in mind these steps aren't necessarily listed in order of importance. In fact, they're all necessary steps in getting a great oven spring. So make sure to watch the entire video so you get all the info that you need. So let's get into it. So tip number one is to make sure that your starter is nice and strong and that you add it to the dough at the proper time. It seems pretty obvious, but to get a bread that rises sufficiently, you'll first need a starter that rises sufficiently. If you're struggling with your starter, I've got a video about that too, which I'll link in the description below. But basically your starter should rise and fall within a 12 to 24 hour period. And in its maximum rise, it should be about doubled in size. If your starter is just weakly bubbling and not really rising much, then it's probably not strong enough and you'll end up with a weak rise to your bread. The starter is the foundation of your entire loaf. So it's really important to build up that strength. But once you've built up a strong starter, the next factor you need to pay attention to is the timing. The best time to mix your starter into your dough is when it's achieved its maximum rise and it's just starting to fall, because that's when the yeast activity is going to be at its maximum. So like I said, the starter should be at least doubled in size at that point. And it should also pass the float test, which indicates that it's nice and aerated. For me, this usually happens about 12 hours after I'd mixed my Levan. But your timing will depend on your particular environment and the feeding ratios that you're using. So now let's move on to tip number two, which is the shaping. Proper shaping is crucial for developing tension on the dough's outer surface, which will help the loaf rise up rather than spreading out. So learning the shape of a high hydration dough like sourdough does take a bit of practice, but there's a few things you can do to make it a little bit easier. The first is just making sure that you have a nice large work surface with plenty of space and that you're using the proper technique, scraping the dough from the side as you rotate it 90 degrees and scrape it back toward yourself. And the next factor is proper use of flour. So you want to make sure that the top of the loaf is sufficiently floured and you can also feel free to flour your hands and your bench scraper as necessary to make sure they don't stick, but you want to leave your actual work surface and the bottom of the loaf as unfloured as possible so that it can pick up traction as you scrape it along your surface. And then the last factor is to make sure not to over shape the dough. You may think that the tighter you shape the loaf, the better it's going to end up, but it is actually possible to shape it too tightly, which will cause the surface to tear. Here you can see a loaf that I totally over-shaped right next to a well-shaped loaf and it's easy to see that the over-shaped loaf completely lost its structure. So really just a few good turns to develop some tension is all you need. You can refer to my complete sourdough bread baking tutorial, which I've also linked below, for a more in-depth walkthrough on shaping, but those are the most common issues that I've encountered. Now this leads us into tip number three, which is to make sure not to over-ferment your dough. And this is the biggest mistake that I made when I first got into sourdough, but once I figured it out, it made all of the difference in my loves. Over-fermentation basically just happens when your bulk rise phase is too long and it causes your dough to become really wet and sticky and prevents it from holding its shape properly. So not only is an over-fermented dough really hard to work with, but it also won't rise properly in the oven because the yeast activity has already peaked too early and started to decline again by the time you throw the bread in the oven. I know it's tempting to extend the bulk rise phase as you see your dough getting softer and airier, but you really just want to let it go until you start to see some bubbles forming and the dough has grown in size by about 20 to 30%. So if you're currently doing a four-hour bulk rise phase, for example, maybe try reducing it to about two and a half or three hours. And I think you'd be surprised by how big of a difference that can actually make. Now moving on to tip number four, which is to score your loaves properly. A good score will allow the steam and other gases to escape through the top of the loaf, which will lead to a nice clean rise. And it'll also give your loaf a good ear, which is that little flap of dough that springs up as it bakes and gets nice and charred. If you don't score the loaf, the gases will just try to escape wherever they can, causing your loaf to burst in unexpected places and sometimes causing big air bubbles to form inside of the loaf. So it's definitely not a step that you want to skip. Really the main two things to consider when scoring are one, to score the loaf deep enough. So I'd recommend about half an inch to one inch deep and then two, to score at a slight angle rather than directly perpendicular to the loaf. And you want to score in one smooth, swift motion. So having a sharp razor definitely helps with this. As you get more advanced, you could try out some fancier scoring patterns, but really one single slash right down the middle will make all of the difference in allowing the gases to escape properly, leading to a better oven spring. Now finally, tip number five for achieving a perfect oven spring is to create steam in your oven during the first few minutes of baking. This steam helps the crust to remain soft for longer so the loaf can rise freely at the beginning of the baking process. Commercial bakeries use special ovens that can actually inject steam inside during the first few minutes of baking. But since most of us don't have access to those, the easiest way to duplicate this effect at home is just to bake your bread inside of a Dutch oven. So as the bread starts to bake and releases steam, that steam gets trapped within the Dutch oven, creating that humid environment that we're looking for. Then after about 20 minutes of baking, we can remove the lid from the Dutch oven, which allows the crust to get nice and brown and crispy. I'd recommend this Dutch oven combo cooker, which is pretty inexpensive and the low sides make it easy to just drop the loaf in, score it, toss the lid on and throw it in your oven. But if you don't have a Dutch oven, you could also just toss a baking tray filled with water onto the bottom rack of your oven and then add some damp towels or lava rocks to slow the release of steam. Then after about 20 minutes, you can remove that tray from your oven to allow the crust to get nice and browned. So both methods work, but in my experience, the Dutch oven method does work quite a bit better and it's a lot easier too. So I hope this video helped you out and remember for a full walkthrough on my favorite sourdough baking recipe, be sure to click the video in the bottom right corner of the screen. So there you go. I'll see you all in the next one.