Welcome to our page dedicated to all our bakers who are starting out on their own Sourdough Journey.

Our main website contains many step-by-step guides to yeast and sourdough bakes.

However, so much choice can make things confusing.

To help the inexperienced baker, this section gives you all you need to know about creating a starter and baking consistently good sourdough bread.

Remember, if you are a baker with BreadClub20, you can avail yourself of 24/7 help and support through the Facebook group page ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/208334310627572 ) or via Messenger or by email at breadclub20@gmail.com

Creating your own starter

MAKING YOUR OWN SOURDOUGH STARTER

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’. 

It’s not wizardry, witchcraft, alchemy or part of the Dark Arts. It’s not sorcery or voodoo, conjuration or sortilege. It’s not wonderworking or thaumaturgy…..

For further details click on https://breadclub20.blogspot.com/2020/11/making-your-own-sourdough-starter.html

OUR BC20 SIMPLY SOURDOUGH

This is our step by step formula and process for the BC20 Simply Sourdough

SIMPLY SOURDOUGH – BC20 STYLE

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.

Today is all about Simply Sourdough…not ‘Simple Sourdough’. Although sourdough is ‘simple’ in terms of its formula, it takes a bit of practice, knowledge and understanding before you have one of those ‘Eureka’ moments and you begin to understand how all the facets of sourdough baking integrate and make sense. 

For more information and details click here: https://breadclub20.blogspot.com/2022/10/simply-sourdough-bc20-style.html

This is the same recipe compiled as an easy-reference chart

BAKE-A-DAY SOURDOUGH

For bakers on tight schedules

BAKE-A-DAY SOURDOUGH

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.

I’m on a recruitment drive – to try and persuade all those of you for whom sourdough looks cumbersome, time-consuming and feel it needs to be planned like a military exercise, that it’s actually not. Not at all.

For more details, click here: https://breadclub20.blogspot.com/2022/06/bake-day-sourdough.html

A PERFECT INTRODUCTION TO NO-NONSENSE SOURDOUGH – SIMPLY MIX……WAIT…..AND BAKE…..

SOURDOUGH REVIEW : MIX – WAIT- BAKE. ARE THESE THREE SIMPLE STEPS TO GREAT SOURDOUGH?

Welcome to another step-by-step recipe from BreadClub20. Why not drop by our main Facebook page by clicking here…. If you like what you see and enjoy the recipe, we hope you go on to join us by ‘Liking’ and ‘Subscribing’.

This is part of a series of ‘worked examples’. I’ve taken a particularly interesting recipe, either from YouTube© or from a printed source and worked it through. Hopefully, you’ll see any ‘pressure points’ where I’ve had to consider alternatives or make some sort of allowance for factors that were not immediately apparent. 

Click here for more details… https://breadclub20.blogspot.com/2021/04/sourdough-review-mix-wait-bake-are.html

UNDERSTANDING BAKERS’ PERCENTAGES

This is a brief post to help those of you who are starting out on your bread-baking journeys and have been reading about the mysteries of the ‘Baker’s Percentages’ or ‘Hydration levels’. 

Hopefully, I’m going to demystify the terms for you and also show you how working with simple percentages can be adapted for yeasted and sourdough breads as well as other baking products.  

For more information, click here: https://breadclub20.blogspot.com/2021/03/de-mystifying-bakers-percentages.html

BreadClub20 YouTube Channel

We have a series of short videos that help to explain and exemplify the processes contained within the step-by-step guides. There are SEVEN.

Part One : STARTING YOUR SOURDOUGH JOURNEY – This deals with maintaining your starter

Part Two: STARTING THE SOURDOUGH PROCESS

Part Three : BUILDING GLUTEN

Part Four : PREPARING FOR BULK FERMENTATION

Part Five: PRE-SHAPING, RESTING, SHAPING AND COLD PROOFING

Part 6: BAKING AND THE CRUMB

Part 7: SHAPING BOULES

From here on in, the step-by-step guides explore different techniques and processes as well as offering more challenging bakes.

Please remember…

Sourdough bread is all about understanding the ingredients and understanding the processes that are employed in turning a handful of everyday ingredients into exceedingly good bread!

ALL THE GEAR, NO IDEA? WHAT KIT DO YOU REALLY NEED?

In the course of preparing and baking sourdough bread, you’re going to need some basic kit. As you proceed, you may well feel you want to also acquire some ‘specialist’ kit, but this isn’t necessary at the start.

Here’s a list of basic kit….there will be some of us who need to be thrifty and I’ve made notes of viable, but cheaper, alternatives.

WHY WE WEIGH AND NEVER MEASURE.

Measuring by weight is far, far more accurate than measuring by volume.

Did you know that a US ‘cup’ weighs differently than one from New Zealand? And that weighs differently from one from the UK. And that weighs differently from one from Canada And that weighs differently from one from Australia How can anyone use cups with any degree of accuracy? In the kitchen or in recipe books?

Let’s imagine we sift out flour….a cup of sifted flour will be a different volume than a cup of unsifted flour…BUT, 100 gms of flour will be 100 gms of flour whether it’s straight out of the bag or if we’ve been sifting it for three hours.

If I’m creating a formula in my kitchen here in rural Wales, and I recommend 60 gms of butter…that is a precise measurement. If you’re reading this out on the ice of Alaska or in the jungles of Borneo….then by weighing, we’re both on the same page, so to speak.

Volume simply does not work – it’s inaccurate, anachronistic and outdated.

Buy yourselves some scales.

Consider:

Digital or Analog? – I prefer digital with a TARE function that allows you to build up your ingredients in stages

Sensitivity and capacity? – how little or how much will you need to weigh. Yeast comes in small quantities and sensitivity is needed…flour needs a bigger capacity.

Container and platform? – Do you want to use your own container or would you like one built in? Can you see the dial when you have a large bowl on the platform? Is the dial illuminated? Battery or mains? Is it easy to store or are you happy with it on the worktop as a permanent feature? Does it clean easily?