Sourdough blogs
Blogs can be a great source of information and ideas. Whether you’re new to sourdough baking and looking for a guide to getting started, or more experienced and wanting inspiration and new techniques for your home bread making, there are a whole range of useful blogs and websites out there. They cover pretty much everything – advice on ingredients and equipment, tips and tricks for baking that perfect loaf, and, of course, lots of recipes. You can join in too, some of the blogs listed below have weekly or monthly baking challenges, or forums where bakers can share experiences and get advice.
An engaging blog with posts on, well pretty much all things bread. The recipes aren’t always 100% sourdough, but this blog with its collection of posts containing recipes, techniques and reviews is a good read.
Art of gluten-free sourdough baking
Written by the author of an eBook of the same name, this blog explores some of the issues around a gluten free diet. There’s a list of gluten free ingredients to use in baking, and instructions for creating a brown rice starter.
A very practical guide to sourdough bread making, with plenty of photos so you can check your loaf is looking as it should every step of the way.
Although the blog hasn’t been updated for some time, and not exclusively sourdough, the collection of recipes (you’ll find them under the ‘Formulae’ tab) are worth looking at for ideas.
Not exclusively sourdough, but there’s a good range of recipes on this site plus reviews of equipment and books.
A baking blog with ideas for using your sourdough starter in more than just bread – expand the range of your sourdough baking with muffins, pancakes and cakes. There’s also a link to a sourdough forum where you can join in the sourdough conversations, ask questions, offer advice, or just browse for information.
A growing, collection of interesting articles about sourdough baking and ingredients ..
Noel’s bread blog hasn’t been updated since 2010, but it’s still there and is a good source of bread recipes.
The posts are written by the Real Bread Campaign blogger and guest bloggers, and cover a range of bread-related topics. The Real Bread Campaign website also has a home baking section (http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/homebake/) with plenty of information and recipes.
This website brings together a useful collection of recipes, baking tips and stories. There’s also a link to the sourdough baker blog, but this doesn’t seem to be updated very often.
With recipes, tutorials and discussion forums, this site is a great way to explore sourdough baking. Whether you are a complete beginner looking for advice on how to get started, or a more experienced baker wanting to expand your sourdough repertoire, you’ll find something here. The site also brings together blogs from bakers across the world who share recipes, techniques and ideas.
Sourdough home has lots of recipes, information on how to create and maintain a starter and some handy tips and techniques. There is also a link to Mike’s bread blog.
This blog is no longer updated, but worth a look for the recipes and ideas based on the bread recipe from Tartine in San Francisco. Great photos and lots of recipes written in a very distinctive style.
The bread geek is an enthusiastic home baker who uses natural yeast and home-ground flour in her bread making. There are recipes for breads, ideas for using your homemade bread in other dishes and advice on how to get the best from your starter.
An online community for amateur artisan bakers and bread enthusiasts. The site has a lot of information, including recipes, videos and a chance to share your experiences and questions through the forum. There’s also a blogs section with posts from a whole range of bloggers, who bring different ideas for bread making.
This blog hasn’t been updated since 2011, but the recipes are still there interspersed with posts about life in a small mountain town in France… worth a look.
Wild yeast is a mixture of posts on home bread making and linkups to other blogs. There is a good long list of recipes to try, and a weekly photo collection of links to sourdough recipes on other blogs (see YeastSpotting below).
Blog challenges for sourdough bakers
Fresh from the oven
The ‘Fresh from the oven’ challenges aren’t exclusively sourdough, but this is a bread making challenge for all home bakers. There’s a different theme each month, so it’s a perfect excuse to try different recipes. See Utterly Scrummy Food For Families or Purely Food for more details of how to join the challenge.
Sourdough surprises gives you a great reason to try making something new each month. This online baking group is open to anyone who loves to bake with sourdough. To take part you simply need to cook up something in keeping with the current theme, and either link a blog post about your experience or email a photo of the finished dish. And if you don’t already have a sourdough starter, but want to join in, there are step-by-step instructions for creating and maintaining one.
Not so much a challenge as a weekly round-up of yeasted goods, submit your post via the Wild Yeast website to join in.
British Artisan Flour Mills by Region
How do you maintain your sourdough starter, and what are some common mistakes to avoid?
I have bought your book, The Sourdough School, and have been successful with white boules. I want to move on to wholemeal loaves but have noticed that, as in the white boule formula, you appear to be specifying wholemeal flour not strong wholemeal flour. I have tried to get clarification from the book but have failed. Can you help and if it is wholemeal not strong can I use strong wholemeal for my refreshing my starter? Thanks very much.
Hello Robert, we prefer to use organic stoneground wholegrain flour but you will find every flour is different so I suggest you use the flour that you can get, record what you do and adapt accordingly. There is a whole section on flour on page 30 – 39 that looks at various factors. Here are the forms to help record and analyse what you use: https://www.sourdough.co.uk/sourdough-loaf-record-forms/ You can use wholemeal for refreshing your starter. I hope this helps.
I hope you will forgive my ignorance but I assume the use of strong white flour is because of the amount of gluten therein. I therefore would have thought that when mixing white and wholemeal you would have specified strong wholemeal as well as strong white. Unless of course I am missing a basic point and there is naturally more gluten in wholemeal flour and therefore no necessity to get strong wholemeal. It is not a big point but I would like to be clear. Further I have noticed on page 108 ‘Score’, you recommend baking at 220C and yet on the following page you immediately reduce the oven temperature to 180C. I am confused. Thank you.
Robert, we use strong white flour to strenthgen the gluten structure in dough especially when using wholemeal flours such as heritage flours that are weaker and benefit from extra gluten structure. It does not all need to be strong flour and depends on the recipe you are following and if you are using a tin to bake in or a banneton – there are so many variables that alter the way you bake and the end result. Nutrition and diversity from using heritage flours that have a naturally weaker gluten structure is very important for health and nutrition. On the baking temperature every domestic oven is different. We recommend getting your oven as hot as possible to start with and when you put your loaf in to reduce a little – from 220C to 180C but you willneed to learn your oven and may need ot adjust the settings accordingly. There is much more information and support in the Sourdough Club but you would need to be a member to access it: https://thesourdoughclub.com/join-the-sourdough-club/