Essential Tools for Sourdough

What is a craft without it's tools?

Most people will have much of the equipment already, but there are key pieces that will help you ensure consistency and good practice. I like to have a complete separate set of everything for bread making so there aren't bowls and towels crusted with sourdough all over the place.

Container/Jar

A couple litre sized glass jars with a wide mouth and a tight-fitting lid are perfect for storing your starter, discard, and making a leaven.

Bench Scraper

A 'bench' is just referring to the surface you're working on, and the tool literally helps you scrape the dough off of it. One stiff, metal rectangular one is great for the work surface and a malleable curved-edged plastic one for scraping down the dough when it's in the bowl. You could use your hands for all of these things but using a bench scraper does a better job and prevents the dough from tearing and sticking to your hands.

Bowls

A few different sized bowls are essential. It's good to have one bowl or large container that is thick-walled to maintain temperature during bulk fermentation. We use thick glass bowls so we can watch the progress. It's cool.

Digital Scale

Cannot stress this enough. If you and everyone in your family measured out a cup of flour, they would all weigh a different amount. A cup of bread flour is different from a cup of whole wheat flour is different from a cup of water. Using a digital scale in grams allows you to get precise measurements every time and makes calculations way easier. In recent years many affordable models have come out and it can assist you in so many other ways. Highly recommend.

Sifter

Whether you're sifting off the bran or getting clumps out of very finely milled flour, a sifter is always good to have on hand.

Towels

A couple of kitchen towels are invaluable. Wiping down surfaces, covering the loaves while they rest so they don't lose moisture, grabbing hot stuff out of the oven, lining baskets, a tiny cape, etc.

Heavy Pot

You want a heavy, tight-fitting lid pot that can tolerate high temperatures for a long time. It becomes a micro bakers' oven by trapping steam for the first part of the bake and keeps a consistent temperature throughout. That's what makes cast iron and enameled cast iron pots the perfect baking vessel. Le Creuset, Paderno, Staub, and Lodge are all great brands that make a variety of heavy pots, but any brand will do as long as they meet those requirements. Pro-tip: A cast-iron double cooker is your best starting out pot. Cast-iron is way more affordable than enameled pots and the double cooker allows you to easily place your loaf in the shallow pan and score right in the cooking vessel.

Baking Tray/Stone

A stone is a nice-to-have for certain types of bakes, but if you're just starting out it's not super necessary. A baking tray is just always good to have, even just for everyday cooking. You can bake buns, demi-baguettes, foccacia, fugasse, sheet pizza, cookies, ciamelle, etc.

Razor Blade/Serrated Knife

You'll want a really sharp or serrated knife for scoring your loaf before it goes in the oven, however it can be hard sometimes to manipulate a knife the right way to get the best angle, that's why I would always suggest razor blades. They come laser sharp and when slightly bent make scoring much easier and cleaner. Rockwell is a great company to get it from. A lame (pronounced lahm) is a simple device that comes in all shapes and sizes. It holds the razor blade at the perfect angle. If you don't want to get one, Chad Robertson suggests splitting a wooden coffee stirrer lengthwise and fitting the razor onto that.

Baskets

These are what you proof your loaves in. There are special sourdough baskets made of all shapes and sizes, but you could even rest your loaf in a towel lined colander. Basically, you want anything that breathes and is the relative shape of what you want the final product to look like. Wooden or bamboo baskets are always recommended.

Thermometer/Humidity Monitor

This also isn't totally necessary for a beginner, but it does help down the road when comparing notes. For example, you may have baked a flat, sour, over-fermented loaf because you didn't consider the warmth or humidity of your kitchen, or maybe your bulk fermentation is taking forever because you used cold instead of warm water in the mix. These all play a factor in the proper development of sourdough, and it helps to have these metrics to troubleshoot.

Final Thoughts

There are all kinds of tools and gadgets that help in different ways like incubators, stand mixers, steam injectors, etc. but we made this list so folks who want to get started without breaking the bank can order a couple things online or run out to the store and grab them for a weekend project. Plus, now you have these tools to use for all different kinds of recipes!

Sourdough has been something made by hand since the beginning of Mesopotamian agriculture, you really don't need much to get started. If they could do it, so can you!

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'Til next time, happy baking!