Super Simple Sourdough Helpful Tools

Hello, folks! Thank you so much for joining my sourdough class! I hope that after this class you will feel super confident in your ability to make sourdough bread for your family.

I wanted to write a quick post with the necessities for baking with sourdough at home as well as a couple of ‘nice to have’ items. You will likely have all or almost all of the must-have things already!

Remember, the only thing you need to bring to the class with you is a mixing bowl! You can also bring an apron if you like to use one. You will be taking home dough in your bowl that you can bake at home. :-)

Here is what you need to have at home for future baking:

Necessities

Flour (all purpose or bread flour)

Nonchlorinated water

Salt (kosher or a good quality salt- not iodized table salt)

Sourdough starter (You will get this in class!)

Oil or Parchment Paper (for helping your bread not stick to the pan)

Mixing bowl (any bowl that will hold at least 10ish cups will be fine)

Kitchen Scale

• The idea of using a scale to weigh ingredients was really intimidating to me at the beginning. But I promise, it is so easy! Plus it helps to use a lot less dishes! I’ll show you how to weigh your ingredients in class. They range in price from about $10-$40. The one I use is one of the cheaper ones. You can find it here, but any scale that measures in ounces and grams will be fine!

Loaf Pan or a Dutch Oven

• A cast iron dutch oven is ideal to bake artisan bread. However you can use a regular loaf pan in a pinch. It will not have the same crunchy crust that artisan bread is known for, but it will still be delicious and good for you! I prefer a solid cast iron dutch oven over a ceramic coated dutch oven, but either will work. You can also open bake on a sheet pan if you need to!

• I recently discovered that baking in a graniteware roaster works VERY well. Just as good as cast iron at a fraction of the weight and price. I bake regularly now in this pot.

The following items are NOT necessities, but they can be useful, and I like using them!

Nice to Have

Large glass jar with loose fitting lid

• You can easily keep your starter in a mason jar of any size, but if you would like to keep a large amount of starter like I do, one of these anchor hocking half gallon size jars are perfect. These are cheaper to buy at Wal-mart! I think they are about $10 there.

• White Rice flour is great for dusting the top of your loaf before you score if you want your design to show up better.

• You can score your bread with a sharp knife, razor, or even kitchen shears, but a bread lame makes easy work of it and allows you to make more detailed scores.

• If you would like to use a banneton, I have found that the silicone banneton baskets work well for me. This is a link to a small sourdough kit that includes 2 silicone baskets, a lame, and some other items.

Hopefully you have all the necessary items in your kitchen already, but I wanted to make sure you have access to this before class in enough time for you to get what you want if you don’t have it!

Remember, you do NOT need to buy any of this for class. All you need to bring to class is a mixing bowl!