Tested in a home kitchen
Sourdough bread, starter, and discard — made clear
Everything here is written by one baker who tests every recipe in one ordinary home kitchen. From your first active sourdough starter to your first open-crumb loaf — no gatekeeping, everything in grams.
Main sections
Sourdough Bread Recipe
The pillar recipe: a 246K-search-per-month question answered step by step, start to finish.
Read more →Sourdough Starter
Build, feed, and keep an active sourdough starter — from day 1 to forever.
Read more →Sourdough Discard Recipes
Pancakes, crackers, bagels, cookies, and more. Never throw away the discard again.
Read more →Sourdough Troubleshooting
Not rising? Bubbly but not doubling? Direct answers first, fixes second.
Read more →The recipe
Your first loaf, without the guesswork
The most-searched sourdough question on the internet deserves a complete answer. This recipe takes your first, second, and twentieth loaf seriously: exact temperatures, timings, and what to do when something looks wrong.
- One recipe, three ways to schedule it (same-day, overnight, or two-day)
- Grams and cup measures for every ingredient
- A troubleshooting chart for every stage
- Optional whole-wheat and rye variations
Pillars of the site
Fresh from the test kitchen
Sourdough Discard Bagel Recipe
Chewy bagels with discard for flavor and a little yeast for lift — boiled in malt syrup, baked hot, cold-proof optional.
Read more →Sourdough Discard Bread Recipe
The fast loaf: discard, flour, a pinch of yeast, and an overnight rise — a crusty Dutch oven bread in about 14 hours.
Read more →Sourdough Discard Brownie Recipe
Fudgy, crackly-top brownies where unfed discard replaces some of the flour — denser, tangier, and impossible to overbake past fudgy.
Read more →Sourdough Discard Cinnamon Rolls
Soft, enriched cinnamon rolls built on 200 g of unfed discard and a little yeast — overnight cold proof for deep flavor, or same-day.
Read more →Technique, explained
The guides bakers keep coming back to
How to Autolyse Sourdough Dough (Timing, Water, Mistakes)
Mix flour and water, rest, then add starter and salt. Autolyse builds gluten and flavor with almost no work — here are the timings and mistakes to avoid.
Read more →Baking Sourdough Bread in a Dutch Oven
A Dutch oven is the closest thing to a bread oven in a home kitchen. Here is the full preheat, parchment, scoring, and lid-timing routine.
Read more →Activate Sourdough Starter: Feed and Manage It
Wake, feed, and manage your starter: daily ratios, fridge vs counter schedules, the hooch question, and reviving a neglected jar.
Read more →Baking Bread Proofing: Times, Signs, and Temperature
Proofing is the rise that decides oven spring — and the stage most loaves get wrong. Here is the bread proofing chart plus the signs of a ready dough.
Read more →See the full library: the complete beginner’s guide, 13 technique guides, and buying advice on kitchen scales, bread knives, and bread flour.