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 Dinner Rolls
Soft, pull-apart dinner rolls with discard for tang and butter for tenderness — baked in a pan, same-day, they're the easiest crowd-pleaser in the jar.
Read more →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 →
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, 28 technique guides and buying advice on kitchen scales, bread knivesand bread flour.