That baker who told me to stop over-kneading my sourdough changed everything

I always thought more kneading meant better gluten structure, but a lady at the farmers market said I was killing the air pockets. I cut my knead time from 12 minutes down to 6 and my crumb went from dense to open and airy overnight. Has anyone else found that less effort actually gives better results with certain doughs?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana_black221mo ago

wait i thought you were supposed to knead more for like bread and less for like pizza dough? i always did 10-12 mins for sourdough too but now i'm wondering if i've been overworking it this whole time

olivia_carr71mo ago

That's funny @diana_black22 because I always did the OPPOSITE. I knead pizza dough way more than bread, like a good 15 minutes for pizza to get that smooth stretchy ball. With sourdough I actually knead LESS because the stretch and folds do half the work for you. If you're doing 10-12 minutes of straight kneading on sourdough you might be making it TOUGH instead of light and airy. I'd try cutting it back to like 5-7 minutes of actual kneading and then doing a few stretch and folds during the bulk rise.