What is the role of salt in sourdough baking, and how much do I need to use?
Salt serves several purposes in breadmaking:
• It slows down fermentation, to help achieve more flavour development without overfermenting or overproofing.
• It prevents yeasts from eating all the sugars, helping to make a caramelised crust.
• It strengthens the gluten strands, to help make dough more elastic.
• It is a natural preservative, reducing the rate of staling by binding water within the bread, keeping it moist for longer.
• It adds to flavour.
Most recipes call for between 1.4% and 2.2% salt by weight in relation to the flour. For gluten-strengthening purposes, anything higher than 1% is fine.
Below 1.4% is generally not salty enough for most tastes. Anything between 1.4% and 2.5% tastes good to most people.
1.8% to 2% salt (or up to 2.5%) is best if you need to use salt to help your bread keep for longer. Higher amounts than 3%, as well as tasting too salty, can tighten the gluten excessively and make your dough hard to shape.
My favourite salt for sourdough, and how to measure salt
I use fine Himalayan salt, and measure it by volume, as my scale is not accurate enough to measure small amounts and I also find it easier to measure in this way. 1 teaspoon of this fine Himalayan salt is around 3.3 grams of salt by weight, and 1 US/UK tablespoon is around 10 grams of fine salt by weight.
Flaky salts, such as Maldon and kosher salt will contain less salt per teaspoon than fine salt, so if you are working with a salt that seems flaky or fluffy rather than fine-grained, it might be best to use weight measurements.
I recommend using unrefined salts, such as Himalayan salt, Celtic Sea salt, or Redmond Real Salt, because these are as natural as possible, containing a variety of beneficial minerals beyond sodium chloride, and it’s easy to find these salts without additives.
Fine salt is best for baking, as it can quickly be absorbed and incorporated into the dough. If you can only find coarse salt, you can either dissolve it in some of the water used in the recipe, or grind it in a grain mill or with a mortar and pestle.
How to figure out the right amount of salt for your bread
The salt percentage in many bread recipes is usually around 2%, or 20 grams of salt for every 1000 grams of flour. Anything between 1.8% and 2.2% works well for most recipes.
The amount of salt that you would want to use in your bread depends on what you are serving it with, the fermentation temperatures you are working with, the level of hydration, whether you need its preservative qualities, any health or budget concerns, and personal taste.
If you are serving your bread with salty foods, you may want to use less salt. There is a famous bread from Tuscany which is served with salt-cured meats and other high salt foods, it uses no salt at all.
I make breads for home use with less salt than many bakers use, because I serve them with salted butter, but if I were making bread less often and wanted to keep it from staling in between bakes then I would use more salt.
Higher hydration doughs can sometimes use higher levels of salt than lower hydration doughs, because the salt is working with the total weight of the dough, rather than just with the flour percentage.
The power of salt can be harnessed to help with delaying fermentation in hot weather or hurrying it up in cold weather. You may want to adjust the amount of salt you use throughout the year to encourage faster fermentation in winter and slower fermentation in summer.
I sometimes use as little as 1.4%, or 14 grams of salt for every 1000 grams of flour – not because I am afraid of salt, but simply because I have been measuring salt by volume for so long and these are the amounts that have worked for me over the years. If you love salted butter and go through bread quickly, feel free to lower the amount of salt in any sourdough recipe. If you want to slow the fermentation in hot weather or want your bread to taste saltier, feel free to increase the amount in any recipe.
Floury regards,
Kate
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