Kate Downham

For equipment, for starters, you'll need a bowl that will fit however much dough you'll be working with. 5 litres (5 quarts) is a good size for up to 3 whole grain loaves (but 1or 2 loaves are easier to manage with this size), 10 litres (2 1/2 gallons) is good for larger batches. I use stainless steel ones from the catering shop, which get used for all kinds of things.

Then you'll need something to proof your bread in: either loaf pans if you're doing pan loaves, or a bowl and a tea towel if doing dutch oven bread. I like using a 3L (3 quart) pyrex bowl and a linen tea towel, again, these two things get used for many purposes.

For baking, either the loaf pan that you've proofed it in, or a cast iron dutch oven. 5 litres (5 quarts) is a good size to have, because you can bake large boules as well as small ones, and it's a great size for many other things, but you can go as low as 3.5 quarts if you're only baking small loaves.

I prefer to weigh my ingredients, so I find a kitchen scale is useful (I use a non-electric one), but, I write my recipes with dual measurements, and many other bakers do too, so you can use a measuring cup as well if you want. The scale gets used for preserving food as well and all kinds of baking.

For scoring bread, when I do it (I don't usually), I use a steak knife.

So my basic list is all stuff that I use for other purposes as well as bread. I got into baking on a very tiny budget, and just used stuff that I already had, rather than going out and buying a bunch of single-purpose baking gear, and you can bake beautiful bread with this minimalist setup.

Ashley Redding,
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Yes, that one is baked in a loaf pan. It works really well, slices thinly for sandwiches and toast, and when toasted and spread with jam it reminds me of French toast (but without all effort) so good!

I've uploaded the first chapter plus the full recipe list here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xUu-8CPgmC5swhCh-dc_pdU5U88lIqmC/view

I've made some lovely sliceable sourdough corn bread (50% corn, 50% rice or sorghum) with chia and psyllium husk, and that recipe is in my book. It uses way less psyllium than other bread recipes because of the chia and the scalding process that gets used on the cornmeal.

For non-sourdough recipes, Carol Deppe has a recipe in her Resilient Gardener book for a 100% corn bread.

I also wonder with keto, if fasting comes into it at all? I've heard that with 16:8 fasting, the body goes into ketosis, so maybe people who are regularly fasting can get away with more carbs than people who don't?

I buy some grains direct from the farmers, others through an organic distributor.

For the farm, I had no idea they sold direct to the public until I sent them an email asking, and it turned out that they do, so finding local grain could just be a matter of looking around for organic grain farms and contacting them directly.

The standard size of grain bag is 20kg here (50 pounds in the USA), you'll get the best prices if you buy whole bags rather than wanting smaller quantities. I try to stock up for a while when I buy grain, as I know the farmers especially are busy and prefer larger orders.

May Gardner wrote:Are you asking about Kate Downham's Sourdough Without Fail book? If so, the  description on Amazonincludes:

100% Whole Grains: Every recipe uses 100% whole grain flours, including wheat, ancient grains, and gluten-free options. No white flour, no yeast, and no white sugar, bake healthy bread with slow fermentation techniques that prioritise flavour, nutrition, and digestibility.  

So seems like it does.

Not sure why that's not on the Permies digital market thread for it, but I think she would have that based on her A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen: Homestead Kitchen Skills and Real Food Recipes for Resilient Health book's sample on Amazon. The section 'A few kitchen notes' in that sample includes codes for recipes for various things like GF = Gluten Free, PF = Paleo Friendly/grain-free, DF = Dairy Free, V = Vegetarian, O = Option (for a recipe with options), and that PF recipes sometime have potatoes or dairy so may not be suitable for all versions of Paleo.

Thanks for pointing that out, May. I've now updated the Permies description to be the same as the Amazon one.

Here's a couple of my favourite basic bread recipes:

https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/2026/09/03/fresh-milled-flour-sourdough-boule/

https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/2026/05/04/fresh-milled-flour-sourdough-beginners/

Both of these use the stretch and fold approach rather than kneading.

I often just do one round of stretch and folds, which is similar to the schedule that you mentioned.

The beginners recipe is probably the best place to get started - it's quite high in hydration, so you can do minimal strengthening, bake it as a pan loaf, and it will turn out beautifully.

Yes, there is a whole chapter of gluten-free breads, using different binders and different grains, plus how to make a gluten-free starter, and all about the properties of different gluten-free grains. One of the doughs in the gluten-free chapter works really well for rolls, baguettes, and pizza bases too.

The discard chapter has lots of gluten-free options too like pancakes, crackers, cakes, muffins, apple pie, chocolate cookies, and flatbreads.

I think this could work well for sourdough. The amount of flour + water to replace with starter would depend on how slow you want it to ferment - replace 5% to 10% of the flour and it would ferment slowly overnight, or use a bit more to have it ready in a couple of hours instead.

He uses 14oz flour, which is slightly over 400g, plus 2 cups (480g) water, so you could even use all sourdough starter for this, with a little extra water added to make it more pourable.