Flavour & Fire
The Sourdough Journal
Sourdough Essentials
Sourdough has a curious way of making you believe that you need to set up a small bakery before you can begin. Banneton baskets, lamés, cast-iron Dutch ovens, specialist dough scrapers, proving chambers and complete starter kits appear everywhere once you start looking into what you are supposedly meant to have.
But sourdough is much simpler than that at its core.
You need flour, water, a way to weigh things, something to mix in and an oven. Everything else can make certain steps easier, more precise or more enjoyable, but that does not automatically make it essential. In fact, many of the things now sold as sourdough essentials only become useful once you already know how you like to bake.
The most important tool, then, is not something you can buy. It is learning to understand what your dough is doing.
What Do You Actually Need?
For a first starter and a first loaf, you can get surprisingly far with things you probably already have in your kitchen. There is no special sourdough equipment required to find out whether this is something you enjoy.
For Your Starter
A clean jar
A glass jar is useful because you can see how your starter grows, but it is not essential. Any clean jar or container with enough room will work perfectly well. A loose-fitting lid is useful for covering the starter without sealing it completely.
A kitchen scale
This is perhaps the first piece of equipment I would genuinely recommend. Sourdough becomes much more reliable when you can weigh your flour, water and starter rather than measuring by volume. A simple digital kitchen scale accurate to one gram is more than enough.
A spoon or spatula
You do not need any specialist equipment to mix your starter. An ordinary spoon, fork or small spatula will do exactly what you need.
Flour and water
And, of course, the two most important ingredients. Ordinary wheat flour is perfectly suitable for making a starter; later, you can experiment with wholemeal flour, rye or other varieties and see how they affect the behaviour of your starter.
That is really all you need for your starter.
For Your First Loaf
Once your starter is active enough to bake with, a little more kitchen equipment comes into play. But again, you do not need to buy everything specifically for sourdough.
A large mixing bowl
Your dough needs enough room to grow without immediately reaching the rim. Any bowl that allows you to mix and fold comfortably will do.
A dough scraper
Not essential, but very useful. A dough scraper makes it easier to remove sticky dough from the bowl, clean the work surface and divide or pre-shape the dough. A sturdy silicone spatula can take over much of that work when you are starting out.
A proving basket or banneton
A banneton supports the dough during its final prove and helps it retain its shape. For your first loaves, however, a well-floured tea towel placed inside an ordinary bowl makes a perfectly good alternative.
A sharp knife
You need something to score the loaf before baking. A specialist lame gives you more control and makes it easier to create clean, consistent cuts, but a genuinely sharp kitchen knife can work very well to begin with.
Baking parchment
Not strictly necessary, but practical. It makes it easier to lower a shaped loaf into a hot Dutch oven and lift it out again afterwards.
An oven
Ultimately, the bread needs somewhere to bake. An ordinary domestic oven is perfectly capable of producing good sourdough. You do not need a professional oven.
The Dutch Oven: Useful, But Not Essential
The Dutch oven is probably the piece of sourdough equipment you will encounter most often. And there is a good reason for that.
When the bread first enters the oven, steam is important. It keeps the crust flexible during the early part of the bake, giving the dough more time to expand before the crust sets. A heavy pot with a lid traps the steam released by the dough and keeps it close to the loaf.
That makes a Dutch oven particularly convenient and can help with good oven spring and a well-developed crust.
But you do not need to rush out and buy one.
A deep ovenproof dish or pan can work under the right conditions. You can also bake on a tray and create steam in the oven in other ways. The results may vary and require a little more experimentation, but the principle remains the same: you want enough steam around the loaf during the early part of the bake.
A Dutch oven is therefore a good investment if you plan to bake regularly, but it is not an entry requirement for sourdough.
What Actually Makes Baking Easier?
Once you have baked a few loaves, you will naturally discover which tools add value for you. Some are inexpensive and simple, yet make a surprisingly noticeable difference.
A Good Digital Scale
If you do not already have a good kitchen scale, this is where I would start. Sourdough relies on ratios, and a scale makes it much easier to measure flour, water, starter and salt accurately each time.
You do not need a specialist baking scale. A simple digital kitchen scale is enough.
A Dough Scraper
A simple plastic or metal dough scraper is inexpensive and useful at almost every stage of the process. You can use it to remove dough from the bowl, clean the work surface, divide the dough and help with shaping.
It is not essential equipment, but it is one of those purchases that eventually makes you wonder why you did not buy one sooner.
A Proper Banneton
Once you bake regularly, a banneton is one of the first pieces of specialist sourdough equipment that becomes genuinely useful. It supports the dough during its cold prove, helps it retain its shape and often leaves the characteristic pattern on the outside of the loaf.
One good banneton in a size that suits the loaves you usually bake is more than enough. There is no need to build an entire collection.
A Dough Thermometer
A digital thermometer becomes particularly useful once you start paying closer attention to fermentation and timing. The temperature of your dough affects how quickly fermentation progresses, which is why the same recipe can behave differently from one day to the next.
You can absolutely bake without one at first. Later, it can become a useful tool when you want a little more control over your process.
What You Probably Already Have
A large part of your sourdough equipment does not need to be sold as sourdough equipment at all.
A mixing bowl is a mixing bowl.
A tea towel can line a proving basket.
A sharp kitchen knife can score a loaf.
A silicone spatula can act as a dough scraper.
A glass jar can house your starter.
A normal domestic oven can bake very good bread.
It sounds obvious, but it is a useful thought to keep in mind. The sourdough world has now found a specialist tool for almost every single step of the process. That does not mean you need to own all of them.
What Is Useful, But Can Wait?
Once you start baking regularly, there are a few other tools that may become interesting. Not because you need them, but because they can make certain parts of the process easier.
A bread sling — a reusable sling that allows you to safely lower dough into and lift it out of a hot Dutch oven.
A second banneton — particularly useful if you regularly make several loaves at once.
A straight-sided glass jar for your starter — makes it easier to mark and monitor how much your starter has risen.
A good bread knife — especially worthwhile once freshly baked bread becomes a regular part of your kitchen.
A baking stone or baking steel — interesting if you want to bake without a Dutch oven and have more control over how heat is transferred to the loaf.
A larger mixing bowl — useful when you start making larger batches of dough or several loaves at once.
None of these needs to be on your first shopping list.
What Will You Probably Never Need?
A specialist sourdough oven is unnecessary for most home bakers. An expensive stand mixer is not essential either; mixing and folding by hand is part of the appeal for many people who enjoy making sourdough.
Extensive starter kits containing a jar, wooden spoon, measuring cups and a bag of flour are mainly useful when you want to give someone sourdough as a gift. They do not change the fundamentals of the process.
And a proving chamber? Certainly interesting if you want to bake under highly controlled conditions, but for an ordinary home kitchen it is usually far more useful to learn how to work with the temperature you already have.
Sourdough does not become better because you own more equipment.
You become a better baker by understanding what to do with the equipment you have.
When Is It Worth Investing?
There is actually a very simple rule.
Buy a tool when you have a problem that the tool genuinely solves.
Finding it difficult to get wet dough out of your bowl? Buy a dough scraper.
Want more control over your scoring? Try a lame.
Baking every week and looking for more reliable oven spring? A Dutch oven may be a sensible investment.
Making two loaves regularly? That is when a second banneton suddenly becomes useful.
This way, your equipment grows naturally alongside the way you bake. Not because a list on the internet tells you that you need twelve sourdough tools, but because you gradually discover what makes your own kitchen and your own way of working better.
The Basic Equipment
If you wanted to start today, my list would be surprisingly short.
For your starter
- A clean jar
- A digital kitchen scale
- A spoon or spatula
- Flour
- Water
For your first loaf
- A large mixing bowl
- A kitchen scale
- A dough scraper or silicone spatula
- A bowl with a floured tea towel or a banneton
- A sharp knife
- Baking parchment
- An oven
Useful, but not essential
- A Dutch oven
- A lame
- A dough thermometer
- A good bread knife
- A bread sling
- A second banneton
That is enough.
The rest can come later, once you discover that you actually need it.
Start Small
The beauty of sourdough is that your equipment does not have to be complete from the beginning. You can start with a jar, a scale, a bowl and an oven, and discover along the way what kind of baker you actually are.
Perhaps you will love feeding your starter every morning. Perhaps you will eventually bake three loaves every weekend. Or perhaps it becomes one loaf a month, because that is exactly enough.
Your tools can grow with you.
Start with what you have. Buy what you are missing. And let your bread decide what comes next.
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