What would you most like to see in a sourdough baking book?

I’m creating a sourdough baking book and wondering if I’ve covered everything that people might want.

• What do you want to see in a sourdough baking book?

• Recipes for using up sourdough discard - do you want to see lots of these? Just a select few? Or none at all?

• Any bread or treat in particular that you’d love to see a wholegrain sourdough version of?

• Do you find it more appealing to go to a page and find one single recipe (with a photo next to it) for one specific type of bread (e.g. baguettes), even if it might use the same (or similar) amounts and techniques to a couple of other doughs, but it’s just shaped differently, or would you prefer to go to a page for something like a basic sweet bun dough or basic French-style lean dough and have several variations for shaping, flavouring, and baking? Which of these options is most likely to get you motivated to bake?

• I’ve created a thread about roadblocks to baking bread - I’m interested to hear about things that have prevented you from baking as much as you would like so that I can figure out ways to overcome this and bake lots of lovely bread. If you don’t bake as much bread as you would like to, please feel free to share your thoughts in this thread - maybe I can come up with strategies to get around your roadblocks. Here’s the link: https://permies.com/t/272980/bake-bread-biggest-breadmaking-roadblocks

• How do you think it is best to way to separate recipes into categories? Is it better to have chapters organised by shape and type (e.g. hearth loaves, pan loaves, flatbreads, rolls, pastries, etc), or by technique (e.g. same day loaves, overnight preferment loaves, overnight cold fermented loaves, overnight cold proofed loaves)? Right now I’m leaning towards the first idea.

• Would you benefit from having an absolute beginners bread recipe that goes really in depth giving detailed descriptions for the techniques used, and running over several pages so that the beginner can follow it from start to finish rather than needing to read all the intro stuff first?



Some things that are important to me:
• Practical everyday recipes that take minimal hands-on time but create great results.
• Weight measurements, volume measurements, and bakers percentages.
• Lots of information explaining why each step of baking is done, how to work with different types of dough, how to work with different temperatures during fermentation and baking, how to work with different equipment options - like with my cheesemaking book, I want the reader to come away understanding not just how to do the techniques, but why they are done and how to tinker with them to get different results.
• Recipes that work with fresh milled 100% wholegrain flours, as well as bought flours.
• Recipes that will work with different grains and flours.
• Ways to minimise or eliminate sourdough starter discard.
• Plastic-free and zero waste.
• Budget friendly - working with stuff that’s probably already in your kitchen rather than purchasing speciality gear.
• Recipes that work on or off the grid in all seasons - not just ones that work in centrally heated houses or warm climates.
• Recipes kept on the same page spread when possible, for easy use, because I think it’s more practical to teach techniques such as strengthening and shaping in one place in the book rather than explaining them again and again with every recipe and creating longwinded recipes, plus I don’t like turning pages when my hands are covered in dough!

Well, that stuff and your name as the author is good enough for me!

In my opinion (feel free to ignore), focusing on the method rather than lots of recipes would be more helpful.  However, if you have sourdough recipes for different baked goods like cookies, cakes, muffins, etc--the kind of baked goods people wouldn't normally associate with sourdough--I think these would be good with individual recipes.

Maybe a good detailed section on how to make a starter, preferably with more than one method:  aka, here's a really simple/foolproof/cheat's way to get started, here's how they do it in these cultures, here's a good method if you're wheat-free, etc.  

Also I like your idea of how to use up sourdough discard;  I don't like the word discard though, it's such a waste!  How to use up extra starter, how not to have any more than you need in the first place too.  This I think would be very helpful.

The cookbooks that I really enjoy are a bit chatty;  they are also older cookbooks--I don't know if some newer ones still employ this style as I only really buy secondhand these days.  I do have some newer ones (still secondhand) that I refer to for specific recipes (mainly "ethnic" cookbooks) but there's a couple I will never part with because they are so much fun to read!  Examples of the kind of chat I mean are menu suggestions (for example, an eclectic list of sandwiches, or what to pack for a picnic on the beach), anecdotes or little bits of history.  I find it interesting and engaging to have this kind of extra content sprinkled throughout the book, though not interfering with the recipe layout.  It might be distracting in an ebook though;  I've only read your writing here on permies, not your books so maybe you have a different writing style (and go with your own style of course!).

I'm not particularly drawn to photos in cookbooks, but that's just me.  Unless illustrating something very specific, I find them distracting;  like the author/publisher needed to fill some pages to make the book worth printing.  Other people may not agree with this.

I think you've got a lot covered and it sounds like a great project.

A procedure for making delicious whole-grain burger buns. I don't really need a sourdough book, but I'd buy one for that.

G Freden wrote:The cookbooks that I really enjoy are a bit chatty;  they are also older cookbooks--I don't know if some newer ones still employ this style as I only really buy secondhand these days.  I do have some newer ones (still secondhand) that I refer to for specific recipes (mainly "ethnic" cookbooks) but there's a couple I will never part with because they are so much fun to read!  Examples of the kind of chat I mean are menu suggestions (for example, an eclectic list of sandwiches, or what to pack for a picnic on the beach), anecdotes or little bits of history.  I find it interesting and engaging to have this kind of extra content sprinkled throughout the book, though not interfering with the recipe layout.  It might be distracting in an ebook though;  I've only read your writing here on permies, not your books so maybe you have a different writing style (and go with your own style of course!).

One of my very favourite cookbooks, “The Old World Kitchen” by Elisabeth Luard is a favourite for this reason (along with other reasons), I love the things she says about different recipes, from what other dishes to serve them with, how to serve them, what to drink with them, or finish the meal off with, or descriptions of how the recipe is used in the culture it is from. I just really like her writing style and the enthusiasm she has for what she’s writing about.

For what I write about, I never feel obligated to have lots of descriptive stuff just for the sake of it, but sometimes I’m very enthusiastic and share my quest for creating what I think the original aebelskiver was, if a particular bread goes really well with particular foods, what each bread is good for in terms of scheduling, keeping a long time, etc, and so on.

Any easy to follow recipe would do for me.  Or perhaps a sourdough recipe for "old dummies" might be a better fit for me !!

I'm interested in the temperature thing - not having a consistent warm place puts me off even getting started! I think for me a very basic easy ways to get started would be excellent, then how to keep things going when life gets in the way. Are there ways to recover from failures, and even how to tell when things aren't right?
On a side note, have you come across staffordshire oatcakes? These might be fun to experiment with too - see this 'blog for example.

Lots of ideas for using the discard - it really irks me to throw anything away!

I have multiple books, entirely or in part on making sourdough bread.  Among these are:
- Vanessa Kimbell's "10 Minute Sourdough"
- Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions"
- Wing and Scott's "The Bread Builders"
- Tom Jaine's "Building a Wood-fired Oven..."
- Kiko Denzer's "Build Your Own Earth Oven"
- Laurel Robertson's "The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book"
and a few more with only sidelong references to sourdough, rather mostly focused on using commercial bread yeast.

But, I am always game for another!

I do not have Mollison's book on fermentation, but my understanding is that it is more anthropological in its treatment rather than a how-to manual.

What I have observed is that there are manifold procedures for making and maintaining sourdough starters, each expected to be followed with a devotion approaching religious.  Given all of these varied rules, my supposition is that the several yeasts and bacteria involved will grow under varied conditions, and it's probably not nearly as fussy as some people make it out to be.  But, I am far from expert, having only baked some dozens of loaves of sourdough bread, and only a few of those what I would consider to be great successes, though all were edible and were readily identifiable as bread.

As best I can tell, rye flours seem to require a more acidic starter than wheat to rise well, due to low gluten and high pentosan levels in rye.  Coarser grinds seem to do better with longer fermentation times, which is only reasonable.  Rye chops can reputedly benefit from several days of fermentation, but I haven't tried making vollkorn yet.

I would like to understand what is gained or lost by following various procedures - multiple feedings and discards versus no discard; keeping a cool dry starter in flour versus maintaining a high hydration starter in a jar or crock at higher temperatures; various lengths of fermentation time; varied fermentation temperatures; varied cereal grains; varied fineness or coarseness of grind; etc.  I'd like to know what I am giving up by following simpler procedures versus more complicated and long drawn out methods.  I'd like to know which methods are robust under a broad range of environmental conditions, and which teeter on the knife edge of success over abyssal chasms of abysmal failure.  I'd like to know what are the trade-offs, not just in terms of taste, crust, and crumb, but nutritionally.  I don't necessarily need to be as deep into the science as Wing and Scott, but I would like to at least know the what, if not all of the why.

This may be a big ask.  I don't get the impression that this information exists, at least not all in one place.  It seems that most practitioners of the art know a procedure which works for them, and they instruct others to slavishly follow exactly in their footsteps.

Wing and Scott have some of the above (rye versus wheat, for example), but their recommended procedures, both in the main text and sidebars, are really only appropriate for someone who is running a commercial artisan bakery.  At least for the present, I'm interested in home baking, and staying up most of the night to make bread the next morning really isn't very workable for me.  The Laurel's Kitchen desem recipe is discardless if baking is done once or twice per week, but many other procedures require a lot of discards, which seems wasteful and perhaps superfluous, unless there is something gainful to be done with the discards.  The Laurel's Kitchen book also has some rising schedule variations to adjust timing so that one's life needn't (entirely) revolve around fermentation cycle timing.  The "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" procedure is workable for me, but only eventually becomes more sourdough-like if the bowl is scraped down, but not washed, between batches.  I had less success with this method when using freshly ground whole meal flour than I had when using white King Arthur bread flour.  I did keep a high hydration commercial sourdough starter (bought from King Arthur) going for a while by "hibernating" it in the fridge between bakings, and did manage to make some passable bread with it.

I know this is a bit rambling.  I haven't given up on sourdough, but I am a bit baffled by what seems to be a lot of "you do the hokey pokey, and you turn yourself about" stuff.  Sorting all of this out may be one of those lifetime quests for me, which is fine.  It's the sort of thing that will keep me off the streets!

So, whether your book has all (or any) of this, I'm clearly a sucker for books on sourdough, and you'll find a ready market with me!

What Nancy said -- really happy to see you are thinking about the various ways permies live their lives!

I:ve only ever made sourdough with scoby so I would be most interested in your sections on technique (and I would understand a book separating sections by technique). I like the idea of things to do with leftover starter, and I would appreciate ideas on cooking for one -- and I would try something like a sourdough beef Wellington if there were such a thing!.

I will definitely buy your book. I would actually prefer to buy an ebook in epub because I am in Canada. Thank you for asking for input, but feel free to do what you think is best: you're the expert.

Edit: if you are writing a book that also targets novices, it might have a section that is more than two open pages for a recipe in order to photograph steps, and more than a page or two for one basic recipe would then be okay with me too, ideal in fact, but your plan of a recipe on a page -- or an open book two pages -- I am not certain what you meant but either way -- is really smart thinking: being possible to display in a transparent book support for hands free reference -- or display on a tablet / Chromebook etc., is excellent: it shows that you have given this a lot of thought.

Um, and I read better with large print -- another reason epub is great let alone saving trees!

I would love to see some gluten free recipes if it's at all possible. Hubby is gluten, egg, and soy intolerant and finding sourdough recipes that he can eat is a bit of a challenge. So many gluten free breads use eggs.

Nancy Reading wrote:I'm interested in the temperature thing - not having a consistent warm place puts me off even getting started! I think for me a very basic easy ways to get started would be excellent, then how to keep things going when life gets in the way. Are there ways to recover from failures, and even how to tell when things aren't right?
On a side note, have you come across staffordshire oatcakes? These might be fun to experiment with too - see this 'blog for example.

It’s good to hear that you’ll find the stuff about how to bake when it’s colder than ideal useful too. It’s always been a challenge for me, so I’ve figure out strategies and recipes that work well for winter.

I haven’t heard of that kind of oatcakes before, only the ‘biscuit’ kind. Shannon Stonger’s frugal cookbook has a recipe for pancakes made from rolled oats and no flour, and these are really delicious, I imagine the Staffordshire oatcakes would taste similar and would be worth making.

Kevin Olson wrote:
What I have observed is that there are manifold procedures for making and maintaining sourdough starters, each expected to be followed with a devotion approaching religious.  Given all of these varied rules, my supposition is that the several yeasts and bacteria involved will grow under varied conditions, and it's probably not nearly as fussy as some people make it out to be.  But, I am far from expert, having only baked some dozens of loaves of sourdough bread, and only a few of those what I would consider to be great successes, though all were edible and were readily identifiable as bread.

As best I can tell, rye flours seem to require a more acidic starter than wheat to rise well, due to low gluten and high pentosan levels in rye.  Coarser grinds seem to do better with longer fermentation times, which is only reasonable.  Rye chops can reputedly benefit from several days of fermentation, but I haven't tried making vollkorn yet.

I would like to understand what is gained or lost by following various procedures - multiple feedings and discards versus no discard; keeping a cool dry starter in flour versus maintaining a high hydration starter in a jar or crock at higher temperatures; various lengths of fermentation time; varied fermentation temperatures; varied cereal grains; varied fineness or coarseness of grind; etc.  I'd like to know what I am giving up by following simpler procedures versus more complicated and long drawn out methods.  I'd like to know which methods are robust under a broad range of environmental conditions, and which teeter on the knife edge of success over abyssal chasms of abysmal failure.  I'd like to know what are the trade-offs, not just in terms of taste, crust, and crumb, but nutritionally.  I don't necessarily need to be as deep into the science as Wing and Scott, but I would like to at least know the what, if not all of the why.

This may be a big ask.  I don't get the impression that this information exists, at least not all in one place.  It seems that most practitioners of the art know a procedure which works for them, and they instruct others to slavishly follow exactly in their footsteps.

Wing and Scott have some of the above (rye versus wheat, for example), but their recommended procedures, both in the main text and sidebars, are really only appropriate for someone who is running a commercial artisan bakery.  At least for the present, I'm interested in home baking, and staying up most of the night to make bread the next morning really isn't very workable for me.  The Laurel's Kitchen desem recipe is discardless if baking is done once or twice per week, but many other procedures require a lot of discards, which seems wasteful and perhaps superfluous, unless there is something gainful to be done with the discards.  The Laurel's Kitchen book also has some rising schedule variations to adjust timing so that one's life needn't (entirely) revolve around fermentation cycle timing.  The "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" procedure is workable for me, but only eventually becomes more sourdough-like if the bowl is scraped down, but not washed, between batches.  I had less success with this method when using freshly ground whole meal flour than I had when using white King Arthur bread flour.  I did keep a high hydration commercial sourdough starter (bought from King Arthur) going for a while by "hibernating" it in the fridge between bakings, and did manage to make some passable bread with it.

I know this is a bit rambling.  I haven't given up on sourdough, but I am a bit baffled by what seems to be a lot of "you do the hokey pokey, and you turn yourself about" stuff.  Sorting all of this out may be one of those lifetime quests for me, which is fine.  It's the sort of thing that will keep me off the streets!

So, whether your book has all (or any) of this, I'm clearly a sucker for books on sourdough, and you'll find a ready market with me!

Maybe you will like my book. I’m going into a lot of depth, but from a homesteader’s perspective rather than a full-time bakers. I think there are a lot of books out there from the professional baker’s perspective, but not enough out there about how to fit bread into real life conditions. I’m not going into as much science as Wing and Scott, but I am going into different things that affect the home baker, what I think it's important to know, and looking at what the various options such as autolyse, scoring, scalding, and retarding do, when it makes sense to use them, and when it doesn’t.

Ra Kenworth wrote:What Nancy said -- really happy to see you are thinking about the various ways permies live their lives!

I:ve only ever made sourdough with scoby so I would be most interested in your sections on technique (and I would understand a book separating sections by technique). I like the idea of things to do with leftover starter, and I would appreciate ideas on cooking for one -- and I would try something like a sourdough beef Wellington if there were such a thing!.

I will definitely buy your book. I would actually prefer to buy an ebook in epub because I am in Canada. Thank you for asking for input, but feel free to do what you think is best: you're the expert.

Edit: if you are writing a book that also targets novices, it might have a section that is more than two open pages for a recipe in order to photograph steps, and more than a page or two for one basic recipe would then be okay with me too, ideal in fact, but your plan of a recipe on a page -- or an open book two pages -- I am not certain what you meant but either way -- is really smart thinking: being possible to display in a transparent book support for hands free reference -- or display on a tablet / Chromebook etc., is excellent: it shows that you have given this a lot of thought.

Um, and I read better with large print -- another reason epub is great let alone saving trees!

I will definitely do an EPUB version as well as print.

Jane Mulberry wrote:I would love to see some gluten free recipes if it's at all possible. Hubby is gluten, egg, and soy intolerant and finding sourdough recipes that he can eat is a bit of a challenge. So many gluten free breads use eggs.

I have succeeded in making a gluten free bread that is egg-free and actually tastes good - I gave some to celiac friends and they loved it, and even my husband who would not normally try gluten free bread thinks it actually tastes good! I have a couple of other ideas for GF breads that I might try too.

Kate Downham wrote: I have succeeded in making a gluten free bread that is egg-free and actually tastes good - I gave some to celiac friends and they loved it, and even my husband who would not normally try gluten free bread thinks it actually tastes good! I have a couple of other ideas for GF breads that I might try too.

Fab! I can eat gluten with no problem, but I'd buy the book for that recipe alone!

First, I am in TX (think triple digit days day after day after day) with NO A/C. Outside of just putting the starter into the fridge for the summer. And winter....... Can see MINUS 4 with just wood heat in a virtually uninsulated place........ I guess I am saying handling extremes. Also...... Lot's of uses for discard.

I would really, really love to know how to make my sourdough more sour. Please and thank you 😊

Oh Kate, I'm looking forward to your book. Something in print form, easy to read typeset and no pale colors (too hard on weak eyes) and some pictures showing critical steps or ideal results. I'm a beginner having tried 2 times making a starter but forget to feed it or to follow the exact steps in the right order, or got busy and didn't use in time and it went to waste.
This is so exciting: Kate Downham wrote:
"I have succeeded in making a gluten free bread that is egg-free and actually tastes good - I gave some to celiac friends and they loved it, and even my husband who would not normally try gluten free bread thinks it actually tastes good! I have a couple of other ideas for GF breads that I might try too."   Big YES please Kate!!
I would love a GF sourdough starter recipe that works and gives a good rise to bread/rolls/pizza crust and other non-traditionally sourdough applications (as G.Freden requested).
Definitely want recipes using "discard" for things like pancakes, waffles, cookies, muffins, burger buns, corn bread or breadsticks.
I used to love baking regular wheat & multi-whole grain breads with bakers' yeast but developed gut/auto-immune issues nixed all that. I miss making cinnamon rolls and holiday "braids" and various shaped dinner rolls for special occasions. Giving us the basic recipes and a comment on what variations are possible to make with it is good - so the baker can springboard from there. A recipe that gives the basic idea of how the dough can be handled and worked into other forms. Show some pictures to give the idea of shapes/forms/variations would spark creativity.
I'm not keen on long intro or chatty type stories - no time and it distracts from the goal. Would rather have recipe as quickly and simply as possible. If you could include variations of what other flours or ingredients could be substitued right in the recipe line that would be very helpful for those with allergy/intolerance/preference/what's on hand.  [i.e. 1 c. wheat flour - or sorghum, rice, millet, oat]
Not interested in knowing what other foods can be served as a meal with the breads. Keep length of recipes as short as possible and the pictured steps to a minimum (only what needed for critical points/clarity).  The idea is not to overwhelm the eye but get the mind to grasp principle steps.
An intro chapter to explain important rationales/chemistry of why and what to do to avoid major failure is good and "the reader to come away understanding not just how to do the techniques, but why they are done and how to tinker with them to get different results" - big YES!. Also give ideas/options to work with "difficult" environmental conditions and minimal equipment.  
If you do an ebook, please make it possible to print it out on as few pages as possible. Thank you Kate!
Your book idea is definitely sounding like a WINNER! I'm looking forward to it!

I have your Off the Grid cookbook and love it. Would love to see some gluten free sourdough options and recipes for sourdough crackers. I love the crunch! I think others have covered anything else that I would like to see. I'm not into chatty recipes, either, but using a side bar as in Nourishing Traditions might be an option. Photos and artwork are always welcome. Looking forward to it!

This would be a reference book since
I'm new to sourdough.
I would like to see your book organized by different breads. Maybe a page at the beginning of the chapter mentioning all the things I can do with it then move on to recipes with pictures.
I also bake when I have time only so would love to see how to dehydrate the sourdough to store it for later use without it going bad.
I love your books!

To repeat what has been said…expand methodology and have a couple of clearly identified, easy , simple, recipes.

To add my own, I am big on markers. That is ..if this happens you are doing things right. And, if that happens, you are doing things wrong.

Nancy Eason wrote:I have your Off the Grid cookbook and love it.

Yes, everyone with Kindle unlimited should read this! And any who don't, the ebook is $9.99

The use of perennials that we can grow ourselves in our permaculture food forests.  I haven't looked, but for example, can we use chestnut flour or other nut flours?  Gluten free is also critical for my family.

I have more sourdough recipes than I ever would have time to bake. I also have recipes for things like cinnamon rolls, crepes and pancakes you can make from the sourdough discards. I even have sourdough recipes for different types of grain. What I don't have is step by step basic instructions for making a good quality sourdough starter. I can not get a sourdough starter to work. I have changed grains and water sources. I weigh everything that goes into the starter.  I would love a really basic book with pictures so I know yes that's what it should look like so move on to the next step. Sourdough has defeated me. I do live in the desert so I keep blaming the dry humidity but it's probably something I'm doing or not doing.. Also how to dehydrate or freeze dry starter for the future.

Ra Kenworth wrote:

Nancy Eason wrote:I have your Off the Grid cookbook and love it.

Yes, everyone with Kindle unlimited should read this! And any who don't, the ebook is $9.99

I also sell the eBook on Permies for the same price - for those interested in the ebook, I recommend ordering it through Permies as you’ll get three different format options (print-ready PDF, normal PDF, and EPUB), and it helps to support Permies at the same time. Here’s the link: https://permies.com/wiki/157756/Year-Grid-Kitchen-eBook

Greg Martin wrote:The use of perennials that we can grow ourselves in our permaculture food forests.  I haven't looked, but for example, can we use chestnut flour or other nut flours?  Gluten free is also critical for my family.

I’ve had crackers made from half chestnut flour and half rice flour that were really delicious. I may just have to experiment with making a sourdough version of these next chestnut season! Do you have any tips on processing chestnuts for baking?

Kate Downham wrote:

Greg Martin wrote:The use of perennials that we can grow ourselves in our permaculture food forests.  I haven't looked, but for example, can we use chestnut flour or other nut flours?  Gluten free is also critical for my family.

I’ve had crackers made from half chestnut flour and half rice flour that were really delicious. I may just have to experiment with making a sourdough version of these next chestnut season! Do you have any tips on processing chestnuts for baking?

I harvest them and lay them out in a single layer to dry in my sunroom.  Once dry the shells break away easily and then I grind the nuts into flour, which I freeze until use.  This is actually the first year for me in making flour so if anyone has any recommendations, I'm also very open to tips.

Did a little morning web searching.  Now I really want to try chestnut sourdough bread

Here's a bit on making chestnut flour from the Forager Chef

And here's a go at making chestnut sourdough from Bewitching Kitchen .  They make it sound so good and have a pretty decent percent chestnut flour in their recipe.  

I can't wait for my trees to really start pumping out chestnuts.  This past year they gave me enough to make about a half a gallon of flour, so I got to play a little.

Cinnamon or orange rolls! Orange rolls are my favorite, but the rest of the family prefers the cinnamon rolls best.

Thea Morales wrote:Cinnamon or orange rolls! Orange rolls are my favorite, but the rest of the family prefers the cinnamon rolls best.

I've been working on a new recipe for cinnamon rolls for the book. I've never tried orange rolls before though - looking them up now  : )

I have not read the replies.

My suggestion:

How to use wild yeast or make sourdough with wild yeast

What can be made from discarded sourdough

Is there gluten free sourdough

I’d heard that “Josey Baker’s Bread” had a really good system for displaying several batch size options and found this example of it online (the first image attached below).

After seeing this, I also think it is a good system - there are several batch options without having to do a bunch of maths on the spot. I’d previously thought I could only have two options, so this is really good.

There are two ways I could do this - the first is to do it similar to how the Josey Baker book has done it, with the tables interspersed in the recipe text when it’s time to add different ingredients.

The second way is to have one half of the page devoted to these tables and stuff like bakers percentage, timings, and equipment, and the other just for the recipe method text. I’ve done a couple of mockups to show what I mean by this.

I’m also contemplating doing a table for timings (the last picture is for that). I’ve given a couple of font variations for the tables, right now I’m leaning towards the top option with the bold font.

What are your thoughts? Does this table system with multiple measurements look like it would work well for you? Or are you worried you would accidentally read the wrong column and add the wrong amounts? Any comments on font choices or any other aspects of design? Font sizes are the same as what I used in "A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen.

If you like the table system, which way of doing this do you think is best - the way from the book design (first attachment) or the rough mockups that I’ve done below that?

Love this idea. Some suggestions:
- A very detailed description of how to make a starter. Perhaps different recipes, troubleshooting, etc.
- A short section on what sourdough is and it's origins ?
- sourdough in dutch oven / camping applications?

Add me to the gluten free future customers! Well, actually it's not the gluten for me, it's modern wheat. I can eat spelt and other grains except amaranth and millet. So the fact that you include other grains is important to me; other whole grains, not just "substitute a store bought gluten free 1-to-1 blend", which is all just empty starches such as potato starch and tapioca starch. I want a fluffy, non-gluey, whole grain bread.

Hi Kate,

I was reading and catching up on Permies and reactivated my account just because I discovered you are writing a new book and was seeking input!

I learned how to bake with sourdough when my oldest was a toddler over a decade ago from WAPF bloggers Wardee Harmon and Katie Kimball, Peter Reinhart’s books and the Fresh Loaf forums. I never did get into a good grove though till I read Shannon Stonger’s Traditional Foods for the Frugal Family (or was it her Off Grid Homestead?) and your own Off Grid Kitchen. What was hampering me was my own health issues, perfectionism, feeling like I needed precise measurements, and never having a good starter routine. From Shannon, I learned to have a rhythm to my baking day and from you I learned to retain only a small piece of starter (often times it’s only a tablespoon and I build it up for the next time I anticipate baking) and how to tell what the dough is supposed to feel like so that I didn’t have to worry about measuring. I also learned through experience to add a pinch or two of yeast to all my loaves so that no matter what the quality of the starter the dough will still rise even while there is a long and slow fermentation. Using your method of keeping just a bit of starter, I have successfully kept a starter going now for a couple of years! Never could keep a starter alive long term before.

If I make a levain and don’t get around to making bread, no problem, we eat it as pancakes. I rarely venture into other sourdough goods these days, though there was a period of time when my children were all younger, we lived in an apartment, and I made many sourdough based foods (pies, muffins, tortillas, etc). When we moved out to the country, got animals, and the children increased in number, grew and needed more academics, I honestly stopped being able to make as much from scratch and stuck to bread, pancakes and sourdough as the acid soaker for oats and whatever else.

That said, even now during busy periods or when I have health relapses, baking bread goes to the bottom of the priority list and I end up buying sprouted bread at the grocery and that’s a lot more expensive. Or I end up making biscuits and that’s more time consuming, ironically. I have tried the 5 minutes a day method with sourdough and sometimes I have just stuck a loaf in the fridge, but the end results are always dense bricks that even my super tolerant family does not enjoy eating and the “bread” goes to the chickens. Freezing already baked loaves usually ends up in them being wasted too. I am kind of experimenting with a completely no knead overnight loaf, but I have never really had success with a dough that didn’t have some stretches and pulls and a little bit of kneading. So, maybe I am chasing a pipe dream. We need bread to fill up hollow legs ha ha! My husband and I can get along without carbs just fine, but even things like potatoes don’t fill my children up like a whole meal loaf of bread does and they eat a loaf at a time!

I don’t understand why even with being on the grid with all the modern conveniences I have such a hard time keeping up with bread through every season. I would like to rectify the situation of letting go of bread baking during less ideal times and a book that shows me how to do it would be super helpful. I also never did find a truly great sourdough hamburger bun recipe. Plus, I would like to have a book that assembles the collective wisdom on this topic to be able to pass on to my children: books that will help them avoid having to “reinvent the wheel” are always valued and purchased in quantity for their hope chests - and so far your Off Grid Kitchen and Cheesemaking have  made it into that category.

Oh and one of my children may need to cut out gluten permanently. I know I can figure this out and I have Shannon’s works that are very helpful with this, but I will happily read anything you contribute to the subject. You both share a very practical for large families approach to getting stuff done!

Maria Sal wrote:Hi Kate,

I was reading and catching up on Permies and reactivated my account just because I discovered you are writing a new book and was seeking input!

I learned how to bake with sourdough when my oldest was a toddler over a decade ago from WAPF bloggers Wardee Harmon and Katie Kimball, Peter Reinhart’s books and the Fresh Loaf forums. I never did get into a good grove though till I read Shannon Stonger’s Traditional Foods for the Frugal Family (or was it her Off Grid Homestead?) and your own Off Grid Kitchen. What was hampering me was my own health issues, perfectionism, feeling like I needed precise measurements, and never having a good starter routine. From Shannon, I learned to have a rhythm to my baking day and from you I learned to retain only a small piece of starter (often times it’s only a tablespoon and I build it up for the next time I anticipate baking) and how to tell what the dough is supposed to feel like so that I didn’t have to worry about measuring. I also learned through experience to add a pinch or two of yeast to all my loaves so that no matter what the quality of the starter the dough will still rise even while there is a long and slow fermentation. Using your method of keeping just a bit of starter, I have successfully kept a starter going now for a couple of years! Never could keep a starter alive long term before.

If I make a levain and don’t get around to making bread, no problem, we eat it as pancakes. I rarely venture into other sourdough goods these days, though there was a period of time when my children were all younger, we lived in an apartment, and I made many sourdough based foods (pies, muffins, tortillas, etc). When we moved out to the country, got animals, and the children increased in number, grew and needed more academics, I honestly stopped being able to make as much from scratch and stuck to bread, pancakes and sourdough as the acid soaker for oats and whatever else.

That said, even now during busy periods or when I have health relapses, baking bread goes to the bottom of the priority list and I end up buying sprouted bread at the grocery and that’s a lot more expensive. Or I end up making biscuits and that’s more time consuming, ironically. I have tried the 5 minutes a day method with sourdough and sometimes I have just stuck a loaf in the fridge, but the end results are always dense bricks that even my super tolerant family does not enjoy eating and the “bread” goes to the chickens. Freezing already baked loaves usually ends up in them being wasted too. I am kind of experimenting with a completely no knead overnight loaf, but I have never really had success with a dough that didn’t have some stretches and pulls and a little bit of kneading. So, maybe I am chasing a pipe dream. We need bread to fill up hollow legs ha ha! My husband and I can get along without carbs just fine, but even things like potatoes don’t fill my children up like a whole meal loaf of bread does and they eat a loaf at a time!

I don’t understand why even with being on the grid with all the modern conveniences I have such a hard time keeping up with bread through every season. I would like to rectify the situation of letting go of bread baking during less ideal times and a book that shows me how to do it would be super helpful. I also never did find a truly great sourdough hamburger bun recipe. Plus, I would like to have a book that assembles the collective wisdom on this topic to be able to pass on to my children: books that will help them avoid having to “reinvent the wheel” are always valued and purchased in quantity for their hope chests - and so far your Off Grid Kitchen and Cheesemaking have  made it into that category.

Oh and one of my children may need to cut out gluten permanently. I know I can figure this out and I have Shannon’s works that are very helpful with this, but I will happily read anything you contribute to the subject. You both share a very practical for large families approach to getting stuff done!

I am a big fan of Shannon’s books too.

Most GF recipes I find are full of refined starches and weird binders that can only be made in factories, so I really appreciate how Shannon uses only whole, natural ingredients and keeps the methods and ingredients lists pretty simple.

I’m so pleased to hear that my methods helped you to keep your starter alive.

A couple of tricks to make no knead bread more successful are to keep the hydration as high as possible (e.g. 900g water to 1000g wholewheat flour), and you can also do some gentle strengthening right before shaping - either fold the dough in quarters, or do some other form of pre-shaping, and this helps it to give it a bit of extra strength when it’s needed. I still generally just mix minimally, rest 10-20 minutes, then do a little stretching and folding or kneading, and then just leave it - sometimes I come back and do a couple more stretches and folds if I’m nearby but most of the time I forget about it and it still makes great bread.