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Your first sourdough loaf starts before mixing day
A practical reading path: choose a recipe, check your starter, plan the stages, and keep useful notes.
Read the guide ↗THE SOURDOUGH REFERENCE
Sourdough guide library
Explore the guides in this section.
Starter guides
A calmer guide to your sourdough starter
Understand feeding ratios, observe a rise-and-fall cycle, and separate starter activity from safety.
Read the guide ↗Starter guides
Build a starter routine around your baking week
A maintenance checklist for an established starter, with practical notes on storage, feeding, and preparing to bake.
Read the guide ↗
Troubleshooting
Sticky sourdough: find the cause before adding flour
Distinguish freshly mixed dough from a handling problem, excess water, or dough that has lost strength.
Read the guide ↗Troubleshooting
Gummy sourdough: check cooling, baking, then fermentation
Use the loaf’s history—not a single crumb photo—to narrow down a wet or gummy interior.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Bulk fermentation: watch the dough, keep the clock
Know where bulk begins and ends, which observations to record, and why a universal time table cannot judge readiness.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Sourdough hydration, with the starter included
See the flour-and-water arithmetic and calculate total hydration without hiding the assumptions.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Autolyse: what the flour-and-water rest can do
Understand the purpose of a rest before adding one to your recipe.
Read the guide ↗Starter guides
Levain: build the amount your recipe needs
Separate feeding arithmetic from the question of ripeness.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Mixing sourdough: keep the formula intact
A mixing checklist that does not invent a new recipe.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Shaping and scoring: two different jobs
Build a supported shape, then give expansion a place to go.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Final proofing: combine the clues
Use expansion, feel and the recipe together; do not ask one poke to decide everything.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Dough temperature: measure the dough, not just the room
A repeatable way to interpret faster and slower fermentation.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Steam for bread: use an equipment-safe method
Keep the early crust flexible without improvising around hot glass, metal or heating elements.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Baking temperature: a recipe setting, not a universal answer
Match the temperature and bake stages to the loaf and equipment.
Read the guide ↗Troubleshooting
A starter that is not rising: check before changing
Distinguish a young culture, a missed peak and an established starter that has slowed down.
Read the guide ↗Starter guides
Starter discard: quantities, use and limits
Understand what is removed at feeding time and when it belongs in a recipe.
Read the guide ↗Starter guides
Storing a starter: maintenance and backup are different
Choose a documented storage method and allow time to restore activity.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Choosing flour for sourdough
Compare grain, extraction and the formula before comparing brand claims.
Read the guide ↗Troubleshooting
Dense sourdough: reconstruct the bake
A tight crumb is an outcome, not a diagnosis.
Read the guide ↗Troubleshooting
Poor oven spring: inspect what happened before baking
Expansion depends on dough condition as well as heat, steam and scoring.
Read the guide ↗Troubleshooting
Why a loaf spreads sideways
Separate a soft formula from a dough that has lost strength.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Same-day sourdough: plan around the dough
A same-day schedule requires a suitable recipe and an already-established starter.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Tangier or milder bread: compare the whole method
Sourness reflects interacting ingredients and fermentation choices.
Read the guide ↗Tortillas & masa
Masa harina: what to look for on the bag
A practical ingredient guide for the tortilla section.
Read the guide ↗Tortillas & masa
Types of masa harina: compare the product, not the promise
Color, grind and intended use answer different questions.
Read the guide ↗Tortillas & masa
Hydrating masa harina: make a small, measured adjustment
Use the product’s method, then examine a test tortilla.
Read the guide ↗Tortillas & masa
Using masa harina for pupusas
Choose a complete stuffed-flatbread method, including its filling instructions.
Read the guide ↗Tortillas & masa
From sourdough to tortillas: what transfers and what does not
Bring the habit of observation, not an assumption that the dough works the same way.
Read the guide ↗Sourdough science
Is sourdough healthier? Ask what was compared
Separate fermentation chemistry from evidence about people.
Read the guide ↗Sourdough science
What fermentation changes—and what it does not prove
A guide to reading claims about fermented bread.
Read the guide ↗Sourdough science
Phytase in sourdough: the mechanism and its limits
Lower phytate in a test is not a blanket mineral-absorption promise.
Read the guide ↗Sourdough science
Proteolysis: protein breakdown in dough
A process that changes dough is not automatically a health benefit.
Read the guide ↗Sourdough science
Yeasts and bacteria in a sourdough starter
A starter is a changing microbial community, not one universal yeast.
Read the guide ↗Bread history
Leavening in colonial kitchens: avoid a single story
One period recipe is evidence for that recipe, not every household.
Read the guide ↗Bread history
Indigenous food traditions: name the community and process
Do not turn diverse maize traditions into one invented sourdough origin story.
Read the guide ↗Tortillas & masa
Nixtamalization: what it is and how to study it
Alkaline maize processing, distinct from fermentation.
Read the guide ↗Bread history
Ancient bread: evidence is not an invention story
Bread-like remains, leavening and sourdough are related but distinct claims.
Read the guide ↗Bread history
Gold-rush sourdough: keep California and the Klondike separate
Similar stories from different places cannot be exchanged without evidence.
Read the guide ↗Bread history
Comparing bread traditions without flattening them
Name the product, ingredients and leavening method.
Read the guide ↗Bread history
Sourdough in Britain: what the available evidence can say
Separate a breadmaking milestone from claims about a market boom.
Read the guide ↗Arithmetic reference
Starter feeding calculator: quantities, not peak times
Scale a starter : flour : water ratio by weight.
Read the guide ↗Arithmetic reference
Scale a dough formula by weight
Apply one multiplier to every ingredient in a simple four-ingredient dough.
Read the guide ↗Arithmetic reference
Convert oven temperature and weight
Exact unit arithmetic without pretending that every cup of flour weighs the same.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
Fermentation planning: replace a predicted hour with observations
Temperature is one input, not a complete fermentation model.
Read the guide ↗Baking guides
A bake-planning checklist
Plan availability around a complete recipe instead of an exact predicted finish.
Read the guide ↗