Essential Equipment for Sourdough Bread Baking
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You don’t need any fancy equipment to make sourdough bread.
If you have a sourdough starter and some sort of baking vessel on hand, you can start baking. This sourdough focaccia recipe, for instance, requires nothing more than a sourdough starter and a 9×13-inch baking vessel or something similar.
If you find yourself, however, really getting into sourdough baking, and if, in particular, you’re after a crusty boule, you may want to pick up a few more pieces of gear.
Here are the tools and ingredients I find essential for sourdough bread baking.
10 Essential Tools for Sourdough Bread Baking
1. Sourdough Starter
As you know, a sourdough starter is what distinguishes a loaf of sourdough bread from a loaf of yeast-leavened bread. For various reasons, which I outline here, I suggest buying (or procuring otherwise) a starter as opposed to making one from scratch. In short: it’s for ease. If you know a sourdough baker, he or she most likely will share. If you don’t, here are a few online sources:

2. Digital Scale
I say this all the time, but if you are serious about bread baking or baking in general, you must measure your ingredients with a digital scale. It’s the only way to truly accurately measure ingredients and to, in turn, make smart/informed changes based on your results. In fact, I will go so far as to say: do not attempt making sourdough bread without a digital scale on hand.
This scale costs under $10, is very accurate, holds up to 11 pounds, and is beautifully designed as well.

3. Clear, Straight-Sided Vessel
This 4-qt Cambro (**this one is BPA-free!**) has become, after my scale, my most valued tool for sourdough baking. Why? It lets me see exactly when the dough has doubled or nearly doubled and is therefore ready to be shaped. When dough rises in a bowl, judging when it has doubled is tricky. There’s no question with a straight-sided vessel.

4. Non-Stick Flour-Sack Towels
These flour-sack towels are amazing. Dough, even very high-hydration dough, releases without any sticking.

5. Rice flour
I sprinkle a little bit of rice flour on the flour sack towel before placing the shaped dough on it. It’s purely for looks — I like the contrast of the dusting of white flour against the auburn hue of the bread, and rice flour doesn’t burn the way wheat flour does. Before I discovered the flour sack towels, I used the rice flour to help prevent sticking with my tea towels, so you may find it helpful for that purpose as well.

6. Bench scraper for shaping.
I no longer flour a work surface for shaping. I rely on my bench scraper and minimal handling of the dough. See video here or below.

7. Parchment Paper
For ease in transferring dough from counter to Dutch oven, I rely on parchment paper.

8. Razor Blade
For slashing dough before it bakes, you’ll need a razor blade. I don’t do any fancy scoring, but it doesn’t matter. A simple X looks dramatic in the end.

9. Double Dutch Oven
If you are after that crusty boule, you’ll need a Dutch oven. This one essentially lives in my oven these days. If you have a Dutch oven, you can definitely use it, but keep in mind: you might not like what the hot temperature of the oven for an extended period of time does to it. My Le Creuset Dutch oven, for instance, turned very dark on both the exterior and interior and required a deep cleaning afterwards. I use this Lodge Double Dutch oven exclusively for sourdough baking. It’s durable and reasonably priced, and it lives in my oven.

10. Oven Mitts
And if you’re going to be handling a screaming hot cast iron vessel, you’re going to need a good pair of oven mitts. These have been great.

A Few More Things
- Sharp Bread Knife
Crusty loaves require a good, sharp knife. This one is attractive and reasonably priced. This one is a little more expensive, but also nicely designed and sharp.

2. A large bowl for mixing the dough. Something like this is nice because it’s clear, which makes it easy to read the scale.
3. A spatula: Love my GIR Spatula.
4. **Treat Yourself**: Dot and Army Cloth Bowl Cover. I love my cloth bowl covers for keeping loaves of rising dough cozy.

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14 Comments on “Essential Equipment for Sourdough Bread Baking”
My husband and I did a month long road trip to Alaska when we were first married. I went into a bakery and asked if they would let me take a bit of their sourdough starter home with me (I thought it would be the best Alaskan souvenir!) And they did! It is 15 years old. I cradled it in a paper coffee cup on ice the whole 44 hour drive home. Now I have brought it around the world with me in all the places we’ve lived and it’s still going strong. Can’t wait to give it to my great grandchildren 🙂
So sweet indeed, and truly the best Alaskan souvenir 🙂 🙂 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing this Kelly! You have lucky grandchildren.
So happy you are doing a sourdough series! Just wondered what your thoughts are on using a banneton or brotform basket for proofing?
Oh definitely! Go for it. I was mostly trying to keep the list to a minimum, and 2-qt mixing bowls work well for proofing, but I love bannetons and brotforms. Use ’em!
Hi! Do you exclusive use the 5 qt cast iron? I’m going back and forth between getting the 4 and 5 qt for bread baking. Also, I have loved every recipe I have made from your site and found them incredibly approachable and delicious!
So nice to hear this, Rebecca … thank you ?☺️
I do use the 5 qt exclusively for bread baking. I don’t think I would recommend going smaller. When I make a larger boule with 500 g flour (as opposed to 400 g), the loaf nearly fills the pot … there’s a little bit of extra space, but I wouldn’t be able to bake a loaf much larger than that.
Hope that helps!
What width bread scraper would you recommend?
Hi Katie,
Mine is 6 inches wide, and I think that is sufficient. I have seen larger ones on youtube videos, but those are generally used with much larger loaves. For the loaves I am baking, which never call for more than 500 g flour, a 6-inch bench scraper is great. I also use it to shape smaller balls, like when I’m dividing and rounding up pizza dough portions, and I think if my bench scraper were larger, this would be trickier.
I’m looking for a consistent bread flour- do you have any recommendations? I got some bulk all purpose four however it has rock hard chunks in it that I attempt to sort out by hand.
King Arthur Flour has been my favorite flour for 20 years. I love their bread flour and all-purpose flours in particular. It’s a little hard to come by these days, but if you can get your hands on either, it’s no fail.
What can be used instead of a Dutch oven?
Do you have an oven-safe pot? You can use that with a sheet pan placed on top.
Hi I enjoy the comments. Is there much to mess up a starter?
I get beautiful starter in 10 to 12 days start with 1/2 cup Rye 1/2 cup whole Wheat 1/2 cup home distilled water. Yet my Boule turns out like Swiss cheese heavy moist, yuk!!! What am I doing wrong? Makes me cry!
?
Oh Billie! Don’t cry!
A few thoughts: first of all, it’s great that you have no trouble getting a starter going. Once you get it to the point that it is doubling in volume within 8 hours and passes a float test, I would start changing your feeding schedule so that you are feeding it equal parts by weight flour and water. This will give you a 100% hydration starter, which is what many recipes call for.
Second: Are you using a scale to measure the flour/water/salt/starter etc? It makes all the difference.
Third: This is the starter recipe I suggest you try: Favorite Sourdough Bread