---
title: 'I Made Sourdough Bread like they did 200 years ago - No measuring, and no scale'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=3udIzr5-35M'
video_id: '3udIzr5-35M'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 1102
---

# I Made Sourdough Bread like they did 200 years ago - No measuring, and no scale

> Source: [I Made Sourdough Bread like they did 200 years ago - No measuring, and no scale](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3udIzr5-35M)

## Summary

The video explores historical sourdough methods from 200 years ago, discarding modern precision tools like scales and measuring cups. The creator attempts to replicate pioneer techniques, including storing leaven in salt or flour, and baking by feel.

### Key Points

- **Historical term for sourdough** [01:05] — Sourdough was originally called leaven, an old piece of fermented dough.
- **Short-term storage in flour** [01:39] — Store leaven in a container covered with whole wheat flour for short-term use.
- **Long-term storage in salt** [02:39] — For long-term storage, keep leaven in a canister covered with salt, which forms a crust and dries it out.
- **Dehydrated starter powder** [03:04] — Pioneer women dehydrated leaven and ground it into powder to carry on journeys.
- **Restoring salt-stored leaven** [03:36] — To restore salt-stored leaven, soak in water for 2-4 hours until soft, then add flour.
- **Warm storage method** [04:22] — Women kept sourdough in a pouch around their waist to keep it warm.
- **Mixing by feel** [05:36] — The creator mixes dough by feel, using about 3-4 cups flour, half cup leaven, warm water, and salt.
- **Historical cookbook reference** [06:16] — Reference to 1823 book 'The American Domestic Cookery' by Maria Rundle, stressing kneading.
- **1869 recipe details** [06:45] — 1869 recipe: 1 coffee cup flour, 2 coffee cups gram flour, 1 coffee cup warm water, half cup yeast, molasses, salt, soda. Rise overnight, bake 1 hour.
- **Baking temperature and time** [11:02] — Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes after 8-hour fermentation at 65-70°F.
- **Saving leaven for next bake** [13:16] — Pinch a piece of dough from the bread to store for the next bake, as Maria Rundle advised.
- **Core philosophy** [16:54] — Main takeaway: keep bread simple, focus on feeding family, not perfect crumb.

## Transcript

[Music]
[Music]
Sourdough as we know it today is a lot
different than what it used to be 200
years ago and even earlier than that.
I have learned to make sourdough bread
by counting every gram of flour and
every drop of water and wondering where
I went wrong when my bread doesn't quite
turn out even though I followed a recipe
precisely. Well, I think that maybe
we've over complicated the sourdough
thing. Uh maybe we are
overthinking all of this. And so today
I'm throwing caution to the wind. I am
throwing out the measure, the measuring
cups, the recipes, the scale, and I've
done some research, and I'm going to be
using some 200-year-old sourdough bread
baking methods. First of all, what we
now call sourdough used to be called
levan, which simply refers to an old
piece of dough that has been sitting and
souring and has gone through a
fermentation process.
So, I've milled some fresh flour and
I've prepared some sourdough bread the
way I normally would, but I have taken a
piece of my sourdough bread and I'm
going to be storing it in the ancient
way. And that is by taking a piece of my
sour dough, my leavenven, and storing it
in a container and covering it with some
whole wheat flour. Today, I actually am
going to be mostly using freshly ground
whole wheat flour. This is how they
would store their sourdough bread for a
short period of time. They would
probably be using this on a daily basis
or maybe every other day is how long it
would be able to keep in a canister or
even a pouch that they would carry on
them if they were walking across the
prairies.
Although they didn't have the science
that we do today, these women were smart
and they understood the power of
fermentation and they knew that heat was
important for their bread to rise. And
so even though they didn't have
refrigerators, they knew that their
leaven needed to stay warm if they
wanted to make some bread and it needed
to stay cool if they wanted to store it.
If they wanted to store it for a long
period of time without refrigeration or
an ice box, they would keep it in a
canister covered in salt. And what would
happen is this salt would create a crust
around their sourdough ball of dough and
it would dry it out inside and almost
kind of a petrified way of storing the
sourdough.
I also read that these pioneer women
would dehydrate their sourdough starters
and grind it into powder and take it
with them on their long journeys.
Especially if these women were coming
across the Atlantic Ocean making their
ways west, they had to figure out a way
to store their leaven for long periods
of time. And this is what my leavenven
looked like after 5 days of sitting in
my salt canister on the counter. It had
formed a hard crust around the dough and
inside was a
petrified piece of leavenin. And so I
scraped all the crusty edges off and
pulled out the inner parts. And to
restore it to make bread, you just put
it in a bowl of water and let that sit
for maybe 2 to four hours until it's
nice and soft. And then you can go ahead
and throw in the flour and continue to
make bread as normal.
And that's how you could store your
leavenven for a long period of time. But
for today, we're going to go with the
short period of storing our leaven by
just using my lump of dough that I had
put in our flower
canister. Speaking of these brave
pioneer women who came west, they often
would keep their sourdough in a pouch
around their waist to keep it warm in a
little pouch of flour.
from an old pioneer woman who wrote in
her journal probably around the time of
1848 as she was traveling west across
the American frontier. She wrote, "When
we camped, I made rising and set on a
warm ground. It would be up about
midnight. I'd get up and put it to a
sponge in the morning first thing. I
would mix the dough and put in the
reflector oven. With good hot coals, the
breads or cakes for a hearty breakfast
were ready. By the time the men rounded
up the
teams, these women traveling west would
indeed make bread along the way. They
would keep their lump of sourdough in a
pouch covered with flour wrapped around
their side and they would carry it with
them. Or they would even keep it in a
canister and set it in the sun on the
wagon to let it
rise. While everyone was setting up
camp, they would mix their sourdough
leaven with some flour and water and
they would set it to rise on the warm
ground. And at midnight, this woman
recalls, she would mix the dough and
then it would ferment throughout the
night and she would bake it in the
morning for breakfast. So, I'm going to
mix together my bread in a similar way.
I'm just going off of what feels right.
I've put together about 3 to four cups
of flour just using a bowl and a big
wooden spoon. I put about a half a cup
of lemon and poured some warm filtered
water in there. I've also added a bit of
salt and I'm just eyeballing everything.
I think I've made enough bread that I
can understand what it's supposed to
feel like. I'm mixing my dough together
until there's no more dry clumps in it.
I took a lot of notes from an old book
from 1823 called The American Domestic
Cookery by a lady. That's literally what
it's called. It was written by Maria
Rundle and she really stressed the
importance of kneading the
dough. In these early pioneer American
cookbooks and journals, no stretch and
fold methods were ever mentioned.
Although the importance of actually
kneading your dough thoroughly was
mentioned quite a
bit. Next, I'm going to mix together a
sandwich loaf that is actually from
1869.
This recipe is one coffee cup of flour,
two coffee cups graham flour, one coffee
cup warm water, half coffee cup yeast, a
little molasses, a teaspoon of salt,
half teaspoon soda dissolved in the
water. Make as stiff as it can be
stirred with a spoon. Let it rise
overnight and bake about an hour in
moderate oven. This quantity makes one
loaf.
You'll also notice that I'm mixing my
bread dough and baking it in the exact
same pan, which is a nod to Ma Engles,
who also did this. And she also baked
sourdough, by the way, in the 1800s.
[Music]
[Music]
On the prairie, no food would have ever
gone to waste. So, with the rest of our
leaven, we're going to mix together some
pancakes or some flapjacks, as they
might have called them. And I mixed
together some corn flour and some whole
wheat flour and some milk. And we are
going to let this ferment with the rest
of our doughs overnight.
I'm also going to incorporate a little
bit of kneading on the rest of my doughs
to get that gluten
going. And I would love to hear if you
have any recipes passed down by your
families or any history on bread making,
anything you want to share down in the
comments below. I would love to hear
what you guys have to say on the subject
of ancient bread making.
[Music]
So, our bread has been fermenting here
for about 8 hours, and it's probably
about 65 to 70° in my kitchen. You can
see that this has risen a little bit,
and I didn't shape it. I just gave it a
little cut on top, and I'm baking it at
350 for about 45 minutes. And then we'll
check on
it. In the meantime, I'm going to pull
out our other loaf. I think I'm going to
call this our pioneer loaf. This is
based off of a rough schedule from one
of our pioneer women and just roughly
made by eye. We're going to give it a
quick stretch and a shape and get this
ready to go in the oven. I'm going to
let it sit here on the counter for about
an hour while we're waiting for the
other loaf to finish baking because I'm
going to bake them at a considerably
different temperature.
We know that people have been making
bread for centuries. And that also makes
sense that there would be so many
different recipes for making a sourdough
starter. And so it kind of blew my mind
all the different methods and ways to
make a sourdough starter other than the
typical way that you would find on the
internet today. Today we start a starter
by putting flour and water together,
discarding that amount, and feeding it a
new amount of flour and water every day
for about a week. I was surprised to
find that back in the day, you could
just mix your flour and water into a
lump of dough and leave it on the
counter for about 12 days and that would
be your sour lemon. So, there are some
things that I would keep and there's
some things that I would not keep that
I've learned this week. One thing I
thought was also very interesting was
that they would use the same dishes for
mixing their doughs. They really did
understand fermentation and the
importance of keeping those bacterias
around and not washing them away.
So, I don't think I could really stand
to have a bunch of dirty dishes in the
kitchen, but I think I can stick with
one sourdough mixing bowl that I don't
wash and keep that for mixing my
sourdough in. And that just makes sense
to keep all those live cultures in your
bowl alive and not sanitizing things all
the time.
And just like Maria said from her 1823
book, I am pinching a piece of my
sourdough off of the bread that I'm
about to bake and I'm going to store it
for later. And this is how they would
keep their sourdough lemon going for the
next bake.
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
So, what is the
takeaway? What did I really learn
through these past few days
of researching old sourdough methods?
Well, like I always say on this channel,
I think we need to keep things simple. I
think we're overthinking this whole
bread thing. It's not just for looks.
It's not about making the perfect
sourdough loaf and having the perfect
crumb. I don't really think that
mattered at all back then. What really
mattered was feeding your family and
feeding them good
food. So, what I'm really trying to do
is restore home and family and spirit
through triedand-true homemaking skills.
And I feel that is exactly what we did
this week. We simplified things. We
brought it back to the way that they
were intended to be
made. It's just bread.
Maybe it's time for you to put those
recipe books aside and just make some
bread. Enjoy the process of making bread
with your own hands and seeing how it
turns
out. Thank you so much for joining me
here today. I can't wait to hear from
you all in the comments down below.
Share your recipes and your thoughts.
I do have lots more videos on baking,
bread making, and so much more in my
playlist that will be down in the
description box below. Make sure to
watch that. And I will see you guys all
next week for more restoring home,
family, and spirit through tried and
trueue homemaking skills. Love you lots.