Here you will find my most helpful tips to get started with sourdough. If you have looked into making sourdough at all, it is my guess that you read the first few paragraphs of recipe and got lost in all of the terms and logistics of baking sourdough. It is my hope that once you go through this blog post that you will have a little better understanding, and a clear direction to dive in! So let's get to it.
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Supplies:
I am going to start with a list of things I have found very helpful as I have baked sourdough.
You will need:
Sourdough Starter- you can make your own but I highly suggest getting a dehydrated one and simply rehydrating it for a quicker start. I got this kit from Cultures for Health, it came with a dehydrated starter, banneton, bread lame, and scale all in one. You can use my code MILLI15X for a discount.
Jar of some kind to keep your starter in. I like the weck jars. I have a small 1/2 liter tulip jar one to keep my starter in and the bigger 1 liter tulip jar to make my leaven in. I ordered them straight from the Weck Jars website to get more bang for my buck.
Dutch Oven- I have a few dutch ovens, some really expensive ones and some very affordable ones and I will be honest, they all perform the same. The one I use most often is this one. I like that it is oval so I can bake oval and round loaves. I got it in black because baking at extremely high temps has completely discolored my white Le Creuset dutch oven. Oof.
Food Scale- sourdough is most often measured in grams so you will need a good scale to measure your ingredients.
Proofing Baskets I like these ones, they are 7 inch and seem to give me the tall pretty loaf that I like. I also have this one from Better Basics Milling and it is my very favorite.
Resources
Okay so now you have your tools, your starter is active and ready, now what? Instead of writing the process out and reinventing the wheel, I am going to link the exact resources I use regularly.
The first thing you need to do is go download this free e-book from Better Basics Milling and read it. Scroll to the bottom of the page and subscribe to the email list and you will get the Sourdough 101 e-book. You will finish the e-book confident to start making sourdough.
Then go read this blog post. I find myself using the method/recipe in this post most often. I double the recipe and make two loaves at once. When I'm using this method I make my leaven before I go to bed. I use 20g starter 200g water 200g flour. Then I follow this recipe.
I also have this cookbook from The Food Nanny, it is a great resource for using your discard and baking many more things besides just sourdough bread. It also has a sourdough sandwich loaf recipe that my family absolutely loves.
That's it!
I know there is so much information out there. Trust me, I sifted through it all. Hopefully this simplifies it a little an saves you the time searching for what you need. Happy baking! Tag me over on instagram in your bakes, I love to see what you are doing!
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