How and Why to Score your Sourdough Bread

Two naturally-leavened sourdough loaves well scored. Front: White flour sourdough proofed in a brotform. Back: Whole-wheat miche. |Image by Chris R. Sims (Simsc) licensed under the Creative Commons

What does it mean to score your bread?

When your dough has finished the bulk rise, or first rise, long enough and it has been shaped, it’s ready for final proofing. This is the final hour or so that you let it sit and rise before it goes into the oven. At the end of that final proofing, it will be time to score your bread.

“You can score the bread with any very shape knife, but you will soon find a lame is thinner and much easier for slashing a loaf’s surface. Scoring bread (also know as slashing or docking) bread dough is done just before it goes into the oven, which allows the dough to expand as it is baked in a controlled way. It also lets moisture escape from the dough as it bakes.”
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You are going to want to score it or cut it with a very sharp knife or even some people use a razor blade, (or lame) that gives it a nice clean slice.

So I am just going to cut it in a square, but you could also do several straight lines. Or you might make a pretty wheat shaft.

But the reason that we score bread is that when you bake bread it’s going to break open as the heated steam inside tries to escape. If you don’t score it on the top, it’s most likely going to break open around the bottom side. Then when you slice it the bottom crust will fall off and hang there. After all your work, that’s no fun.

So we score on the top to encourage it to break there and not on the side or bottom. Then as it bakes, it grows up and out.

And so that’s why we do that and it’s just pretty to have that little pattern on the top.