About Sourdough Start
Sourdough Start is a dedicated resource for anyone who wants to understand, practice, and truly master the craft of sourdough bread baking. Our mission is to make this ancient, living tradition approachable for complete beginners while providing the depth and technical detail that experienced bakers need to keep growing. Whether you are mixing your very first flour-and-water starter or experimenting with high-hydration heritage grains, you have found the right place.
Our Story
Sourdough Start was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 2020 — a year when millions of people around the world suddenly found themselves at home, drawn into their kitchens and searching for something slow, grounding, and rewarding. Bread baking surged in popularity, but online resources were scattered, inconsistent, or buried behind confusing jargon. It became clear that there was a genuine need for a single, trustworthy destination that could walk someone from their very first loaf all the way through to advanced open-crumb techniques and fermentation science.
The site grew out of years of shared conversations between bakers, workshop participants, and home cooks who all asked the same core question: why does my bread not turn out like the one in the photo? The answer, almost always, came down to a lack of foundational knowledge about fermentation, dough temperature, hydration ratios, and shaping technique. Sourdough is not difficult, but it does require understanding a small set of principles deeply. That insight became the editorial compass for everything published on this site.
From the beginning, the goal was never to publish quick recipes for clicks. Every guide, tutorial, and troubleshooting article on Sourdough Start is written to actually teach the baker — not just give them a set of steps to follow blindly. We believe that when you understand why you are doing something, your results improve dramatically, and more importantly, you develop the confidence to experiment and adapt on your own.
Today, Sourdough Start covers everything from building and maintaining a healthy wild yeast starter, to cold retarding dough overnight, to scoring patterns and steam techniques that produce the kind of crackling crust you find at professional artisan bakeries. The community that has gathered around this content is curious, generous, and deeply passionate about good bread — and that spirit shapes every piece of content we create.
Meet the Expert
Emma Hartley — Lead Baker & Founder
Emma Hartley is a professional baker with 12 years of experience working at award-winning bakeries across the Pacific Northwest. She has spent her career specializing in long-fermentation sourdough — a process she describes as equal parts science, patience, and intuition. Emma’s approach to bread is rooted in the belief that quality comes from understanding your ingredients and your environment, not from following a rigid formula.
Over the years, Emma has taught hundreds of students through her hands-on baking workshops held across Portland and the wider Pacific Northwest region. Her teaching style is known for being clear, methodical, and encouraging — breaking down complex fermentation science into language that any home baker can understand and apply. She has a particular passion for helping beginners overcome the intimidation that sourdough can carry, and for pushing intermediate bakers past the plateau where many get stuck.
Emma created Sourdough Start to extend her teaching beyond the workshop setting and reach bakers who do not have access to in-person classes. Every article, video guide, and troubleshooting resource on this site reflects her professional experience and her genuine love for the craft.
Our Mission & Values
- Education over shortcuts: We are committed to explaining the why behind every technique. A baker who understands fermentation will always outperform one who simply follows steps.
- Accuracy and trust: Every piece of content on this site is reviewed for technical accuracy. We do not publish guesswork, and we update older articles when new information or better methods emerge.
- Inclusivity at every skill level: Sourdough Start is designed for everyone — the person who has never baked bread before and the experienced baker looking to refine a specific skill. No question is too basic, and no topic is too advanced.
- Respect for tradition: Sourdough has been baked for thousands of years across dozens of cultures. We approach this craft with genuine respect for its history and for the bakers who have carried it forward.
What You Will Find Here
Sourdough Start is home to a growing library of practical, in-depth content designed to support bakers at every stage of their journey. Here is what you can explore on the site:
- Beginner guides: Step-by-step instructions for creating and maintaining a sourdough starter from scratch, understanding baker’s percentages, and baking your first successful loaf.
- Technique tutorials: Detailed breakdowns of autolyse, stretch-and-fold methods, bulk fermentation timing, pre-shaping, final shaping, and scoring.
- Recipes: Tested sourdough recipes ranging from classic country loaves and whole wheat boules to rye breads, focaccia, flatbreads, and sourdough discard recipes.
- Troubleshooting guides: Honest, practical help for common problems — dense crumb, gummy interior, flat loaves, over-proofed dough, and starter that refuses to rise.
- Advanced topics: In-depth articles on flour selection, milling, high-hydration doughs, heritage grain varieties, and long cold-fermentation schedules.
- Equipment reviews: Honest recommendations for Dutch ovens, bannetons, bench scrapers, lame blades, and other tools that genuinely make a difference.
Get in Touch
We love hearing from our readers — whether you have a question about a recipe, want to share a baking win, or have a topic you would like to see covered on the site. Do not hesitate to reach out.