How long to bake sourdough bread, start to finish

Most loaves take 40 to 50 minutes total: 20–25 minutes covered at 450–500°F, then 20–25 minutes uncovered. How long to bake sourdough depends mostly on dough weight, not on the recipe. An internal temperature of 205–210°F is the real doneness test.

Why the sourdough bake splits into two stages

A covered Dutch oven traps the water the dough itself gives off. That steam keeps the outer skin damp and stretchy through the first ten minutes or so, which is the entire window in which the loaf can still expand. It also gelatinizes the surface starch, which is where the glossy sheen and the fine blistering come from.

Lift the lid and that steam is gone in seconds. From there the loaf is drying and browning, not growing. The uncovered stage sets crust color, crust thickness, and how long the crust stays crisp on the counter. It does not decide whether the inside is baked. That was mostly settled under the lid.

Two loaves can spend the same total time in the oven and look nothing alike. Pull the lid at 20 minutes and stop at 40 and you get a pale, papery crust. Pull it at 25 and give it 25 more and you get mahogany.

Preheat the empty Dutch oven along with the oven for 45–60 minutes. Cast iron reaches the dial temperature long after the air does, and a pot that only feels hot will cost you spring.

How long to bake sourdough by loaf weight

Times below are for total dough weight, weighed after mixing, going into a fully preheated Dutch oven.

Dough weight	Lid on	Lid off	Total
450–550 g	20 min	15–18 min	35–38 min
700–800 g	20–22 min	18–22 min	38–44 min
900 g – 1 kg	25 min	20–25 min	45–50 min
1.2–1.5 kg	28–30 min	25–30 min	53–60 min

Four adjustments worth making:

• Straight from the fridge. Dough baked cold off a long cold retard needs 2–3 extra minutes covered to bring the core up. It also scores more cleanly and springs harder, so the trade is worth it.
• Batard versus boule. An oblong loaf carries more surface per gram and finishes a few minutes sooner than a tall round of the same weight.
• High hydration. Doughs at 80% hydration and up usually want the top of the lid-off range to drive off the extra water, or the crumb stays damp near the base.
• Whole grain and rye. More available sugar and more enzyme activity means faster browning. Check color at the low end of the uncovered window.

Sourdough baking temperature: three workable settings

There is no single correct sourdough baking temperature. Three approaches all produce good bread, and they fail in different ways:

• 450°F the whole way. The most forgiving, and the least likely to scorch the base. Slightly less dramatic spring.
• 500°F covered, dropped to 450°F when the lid comes off. The strongest spring. The same fierce floor heat is also the most common cause of a scorched bottom.
• 475°F flat. A middle setting that suits most home ovens and most loaf sizes in the table above.

One caveat on enameled cast iron: several manufacturers set an empty-preheat ceiling below 500°F, so check what your pot's maker allows before preheating it empty at that temperature. Home ovens also drift from their dial, and a cheap oven thermometer on the rack tells you more than any change in technique.

The covered stage is where sourdough oven spring happens

Sourdough oven spring is essentially over by minute 12 to 15, once the crust sets and stops stretching. Everything that helps happens before or during that window: dough proofed to the right point rather than pushed past it in bulk, a decisive score about a quarter inch deep at a shallow angle, cold dough into a screaming-hot pot, and the lid staying shut.

Peeking at minute 10 vents the steam you spent the preheat building. If you want to check something, check it when the lid comes off for good.

Internal temperature is the doneness test, not time

A lean sourdough is done at 205–210°F (96–99°C) in the center. Below roughly 200°F the starch has not fully set and the crumb reads gummy no matter how dark the crust looks.

Probe through the base or the side of an ear rather than straight down through the top, and take a second reading elsewhere if the first comes back low. The thump-the-bottom test works once you have baked the same formula thirty times; a thermometer works the first time.

Three fixes for a sourdough burnt bottom

A sourdough burnt bottom is nearly always radiant heat from the oven floor, not overbaking. Fixes, in order of how much they help:

1. Shield the base. Slide an empty sheet pan or a baking stone onto the rack below the Dutch oven, preheated with everything else. It absorbs and diffuses the heat coming off the floor instead of letting it hit the pot directly.
2. Double the parchment. A second round of parchment under the loaf buys real insulation. You can also lift the loaf out of the pot entirely for the last 10 minutes and finish it on the rack.
3. Raise the rack. Middle or upper-middle third, not the lowest position. On gas ovens especially, the burner cycles at the floor and the lowest rack takes the brunt.

If the base is already dark when the lid comes off, the problem is the setup, not the schedule. Shorten nothing; fix the heat path next bake.

When to cut sourdough bread

Knowing when to cut sourdough bread is the last piece, and the one most people get wrong. Give a 1 kg loaf at least two hours on a wire rack. Small loaves can go at one hour. Rye and very wet doughs are better after four.

The loaf is still cooking as it cools. Starch that gelatinized in the oven retrogrades and firms as the temperature drops, and moisture keeps migrating from the crumb toward the crust. Cut into it at 150°F and the knife smears that soft starch into a gummy band, then the loaf goes stale faster because you opened it early. Cool on a rack, not on a board, so the base does not steam itself soft.

The lid-off switch and the cooling window are both timers, and missing either one ruins a well-fermented loaf. Sourdough Tracker is a sourdough baking companion app for iPhone, which keeps those two alarms next to the record of how that particular dough was fermented.

FAQ

How long do you bake sourdough at 450°F?

For a 900 g to 1 kg loaf, about 25 minutes covered and 20–25 minutes uncovered, so 45–50 minutes total. At a flat 450°F the crust browns a little slower than it would after a 500°F start, so judge the second stage by color and pull at 205–210°F internal.

Can you bake sourdough without a Dutch oven?

Yes. Bake on a preheated stone or steel and create steam another way, such as a preheated pan of lava rocks or a metal bowl inverted over the loaf for the first 20 minutes. Timing stays roughly the same, though open-oven bakes usually need slightly longer to reach the same crust color.

Why is my sourdough gummy inside if I baked it the full time?

Usually the loaf came out under 205°F internal, or it was cut before it finished cooling. The other suspect is fermentation rather than baking: badly underproofed dough can hit temperature and still read dense and pasty near the base.

Should I bake longer if the dough was cold from the fridge?

Add 2–3 minutes to the covered stage for a fully chilled loaf. Leave the uncovered stage alone and judge it by color, then confirm with a thermometer rather than adding blanket time.