Lesson 5: Tools for Sourdough Baking

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We have all heard the saying, "use the right tool for the right job!"

Sourdough baking like anything else uses tools. Understanding these tools can help make your baking easier and give you better results. I wanted to cover some of these tools, what my recommendations are and which tools you need start and the ones you can acquire later.

Sourdough Tools

Having a batch go bad is possible, but very rare. We’ve been fermenting and teaching others how to ferment vegetables for years… and we’ve only had a couple of “bad” batches over all that time.

• Mixing Bowls – Glass and ceramic bowls are excellent choices since they are durable and very food safe. I would not recommend plastic bowls since they tend to leach toxins into the foods mixed in them. Stainless steel bowls can be used in the mixing of the dough but should never be used for short or long term storage as the acidity of the dough will cause leaching.
• Danish Dough Whisk – This old world tool is useful for incorporating most all batters and doughs. Personally this is my go to tool when mixing, I even use it start mixing bread doughs.
• Electric Mixers – Handheld mixers are used to cream butter and sugars together when making muffins or cakes. A heavy duty stand mixer does have a place in bread making in that it will make the kneading process quick and easy not to mention pain free.
• Pastry Blenders – Primarily used when making “fluffy” baked goods, such as biscuits, tortillas, pie crusts and more. A fork will do the job too, but I have to say a pastry blender will make quicker better work of the job at hard.
• Dough Scraper – These can be made of plastic, silicone or metal with a smooth flat edge or rounded shape. Their use is to scrape the dough off your work area or mixing bowl. These tools can help make short work of getting the dough out of the bowl.
• Dough Blade aka (dough slasher) – has to be used with caution and is a very sharp razor blade-like tool known and used by most professional artisan bread bakers. Its use is for “slashing” or scoring loaves for both decorative and functional purposes. Slashing the dough allows it to expand during baking and controls the direction in which the bread will expand.
• Proofing Basket – also called a brotform or banneton, these are basically bread molds for the rising of the dough (also called proofing). These baskets can help to yield a traditional artisan loaf. Which are commonly used with no kneed breads, where the dough is allowed to rise in the proofing basket and then turned out into the dutch oven. Keep in mind the bread is never baked in the proofing basket.
• Donut Cutters – Donut Cutters are similar to a round cookie or biscuit cutter, but with a small cutter attached in the center. This is a useful tool for cutting out “doughnuts” with ease. People do like doughnuts so this maybe a tool you might want to pick up.
• Baking Vessels – Specialty baking pans for sourdough range from the baguette and french bread pans which help to achieve the specially shaped loaves to the dutch oven and clay baker.
• Dutch oven – For no kneed breads a Dutch oven is critical for the breads to achieve a crisp outer crust. Commonly made of cast iron these dutch ovens can also be enamel coated for easier clean up. There really is no sustution for these. Dutch ovens can also be used to make soups, sear meats, and other stove top or over baked meals.
• Clay Baker – A clay baker which is a covered clay baking dish can also be used to achieve the crispy outer crusts of artisan loaves. These pans are soaked in water before use so that moisture is released while cooking, simulating a traditional hearth oven. Clay bakers can’t be used on the stove top, but can be used to cook many food dishes prepared in the oven. If choosing between the dutch over or clay baker I would recommend the dutch oven because of its durability and versatility.

As you can see there is not really a large number of specialty items needed for sourdough baking. This allows you to start with what you have and still make some great sourdough food items and grow in your ability to produce different breads as you pick up more specialty items over time.

Continue to Lesson 6 – Sourdough Pancakes —>

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