Sourdough recipe testers wanted!

I am looking for recipe testers for my upcoming sourdough baking book.

The book
The book is unique homesteader-friendly approach to sourdough baking. The focus is:

• Flexible, adaptable recipes that use minimal hands-on time
• Working with local ingredients
• Working with minimal equipment, and using what you already have rather than buying new baking gear
• Real food, 100% wholegrain recipes

The recipes are 100% wholegrain and will work with home-milled flour as well as purchased flours. There are many wheat and rye recipes, and also some gluten-free ones.

What I am looking for
You don’t need to be an experienced baker to be a recipe tester, the most important things I am looking for are that you have an open mind, that you can note down timings and temperatures when you are baking, and that you can follow a recipe exactly as written and let me know your thoughts on it.

It would be nice to have photos of the dough and of the finished bread too, as it helps me see how these things look with other flours and ovens, but this isn’t essential.

I am also looking for beta readers who might not have the time or appetite to test recipes, but would be keen to read through the “how to” stuff and let me know if there is anything they are not clear about and provide feedback.

The rewards
In return for your help, bakers that test at least 5 recipes have the opportunity to be thanked on the “thank you” page of the book, and will receive the ebook when it is ready. Testers who test more than 20 recipes will receive a physical copy of the book as well.

The last two times I’ve done this it’s been a lot of fun and a great learning experience - there’s the opportunity to ask questions, where you can learn more about baking while also helping to create a better book that will help more people.

How to apply
Please leave a reply in this thread letting me know your level of experience, what kinds of flours and grains you have access to, what kind of oven/s you have, and if there’s anything in particular about this project that you’d especially like to help with. The last time I did a public call out for recipe testers there were a lot of people interested and I could not choose everyone, so people who were more active on Permies and gave more detail in their responses were chosen over people who just said “yes, pick me!”.

If you have access to a rocket oven, cob oven, or brick oven, please let me know, as I am very keen to have my recipes tested in these as well as the other types of ovens.

I am also keen to find people who have access to various heirloom grains (as well as different types of wheat), as I want to develop recipes that will work with a variety of grains. This is not essential, but if you have access to things like whole einkorn, emmer, and heritage wheat varieties, please let me know in your reply.

A few photos from the book so far

Hey Kate,
I am interested to test some of the recipes. 20 sounds a lot, but 5 I think I can do.

I have a rocket powered brick and cob oven.

I usually bake my bread once a week, a whole grain german style rye bread.

Hi Kate!
I'd love to have a go at trying some recipes. I'm very much a beginner with sourdough, although do a far amount of other baking, I haven't made much bread and am quite keen to go away from modern dried yeast which always seems to have 'improvers' in.
I have a wood fired range cooker and access to a range of flour through my shop, so if you want me to try something in particular (once I've managed a basic!) let me know.
One thing I'm less sure of is our home is always on the cool side and I don't know whether this is an issue (or a benefit) for sourdough cooking.

(Ooh - crumpets!)

OK, Ok, I just can't help myself.  There is something inside me that makes me want to serve.  Sooooooo I'm willing to eat any and all loafs and rolls that you send my way !!!  

Hope this may be of some small help.  (I'll supply my own butter)


Peace

Kate, I'd be glad to help you with the proofreading the text (and if you like, I can use my spanky editing tools). I am a professional editor, and I can make certain your language is consistent with previous publications, for example, or that language is the way you want it to be (remembering the infamous 'preferment").

I will be very happy to try a few recipes but not 20. if you find yourself lacking testers in certain spots, feel free to ask me to fill in. I also do use the air fryer oven (including to make great sourdough). My access is limited to whole wheat, oats and sorghum I grind myself, none of the other grains things you've listed.

Hi Kate,

I would love to help out with this. I’ve been baking with sourdough for sixteen years now and while proficient, I wouldn’t call myself an expert baker. I only have access to a conventional American electric oven and a smaller convection oven that we use in the summer time. But, I have used lots of different grains and have hard red and white, spelt, and kamut/semolina on hand and have access to others - including heritage grains like einkorn. I mill my own.  I also have lots of lab experience, can follow a procedure and take good notes.

It’s summer break here and I have helpers, but I am not going to commit to a certain number right away. I would like to try a few and go from there. I can also help with proofreading of the text.

My family and I love baking!   We just started using sourdough a few years back and would love to be included.  Your approach and recipes look delicious!

Hello,

I’ve dabbled in Sourdough for years, but in the last year upped my game and I finally have a regular starter/baking routine. I also exclusively use whole einkorn flour, and I just got seed stock to start my own field!

I would love to test your recipes, I usually make the same 3 basic breads (plain water or milk kefir dough, olive oil dough, and enriched ‘brioche’) and I would really love to try out some new recipes.

Rose

Hi! While I do love to bake bread, I don't really have a lot of time right now to be baking, but I feel that I would be better suited for reading. It is easier for me to carve out time to read. If I can help just let me know.

Daniel

Hi! I’ve been baking sourdough breads once every other week or so for about 10 years. I have a small organic farm in Maine and try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Currently use an electric oven, which works well. I use a lot of King Arthur flours, and some Maine Grains, but they’re too expensive for me generally. I’d love to try out your recipes and let you know how they work out.

Jerry

I would love to do this. I have a hundred pounds of winter wheat that I’m planning to grind with the manual grain grinder that I just bought. I have never yet ground grain into flour, but I’m very interested in baking some sourdough bread. I’ve never baked sourdough before, although I’ve occasionally baked yeast bread in the past. You can reach me at owoodward at hotmail dot com.

Hello:
I would love to be a tester or a reader or both.
(Good) bread is the one food I never get tired of eating.

I have experience making my own (wild) sourdough using regular wheat flours as well as rye.
For the baking, of course I have experience regular wheat flours. But over the last few years I’m more interested in flours that, with the exception of organic whole wheat, are not stocked in my local grocery stores.

I just did a purge of flours of doubtful freshness.  So at the moment, my flours on hand include standard unbleached bread flour and sprouted whole wheat (and oats of course), as well as dark rye, einkorn, quinoa, and chickpea flours.  I am enthusiastic about branching out into other heirloom grains/cereals, wheat and otherwise.

I would love to have an excuse to experiment with more varieties of heirloom flours of any sort. I’ve been in a bit of a baking rut and just reading about your project has got my pulse racing. I’m always up for bread, but am also enthusiastic about doing more experimenting with other sourdough recipes.

I don’t mind at all buying ingredients.  If I can’t find locally (I’m in Oregon, south of Portland), I’m would order them online.  That’s actually a plus when it comes to being able to buy a wider variety heirloom/heritage flours sourced from smaller producers.

Unfortunately I don’t have an interesting  oven. I don’t enough have space outdoors to devote some to a Cobb or rocket oven.  So I just have a regular electric range and a toaster oven that does convection. Oh, and a regular wood burning fireplace.

As I said, if you can use me, I could be a tester, or reader, or both. I have a good deal of experience writing for wide audiences.  Never about food, but more often  the subjects were on the technical side, usually research oriented.  Over the years I have received good feedback from all sorts of groups who were pleased with their ability to understand complex subject matter after reading my written (or oral) presentations.

I’ll stop there.
If  you don’t need me, I’ll just buy your book.
(But of course it would be more fun to work through the process.)

Hi Kate!

I would love to be that 20+ recipe tester!  I have had success with sourdough in the past.  I love the details and can take lots of photos.  I can get any flour/grain on the market.  I only have a regular convection oven but am willing to try some recipes in a dutch oven in my fireplace. I have a big family so have many taste testers after I am done baking! Let me know how I can get started and i will jump on board.  

Sami

Hi Kate
I would love to be part of your sourdough team😊

I have a propane convection oven.  I have ouon hand einkorn, kamut, millet all as whole kernel.  I have access to white wheat, hard red winter wheat, rye, all as whole kernel from my local store in 2 pound packs.  Countless other grains.

I have an electric flour mill… with grinding stones.  I can adjust the fineness of the flour I am grinding.  

I have a vitamix and a cuisinart food processor and a live sourdough starter, though I am not a confident sourdough baker.

I have baked countless loaves of the no knead slow rise dutch oven bread recipe.

And after you published your cookbook, I have made many batches of sourdough crackers.

Mostly now I only use soaked or sprouted grains, or sourdough bread and pasta from an excellent new sourdough bakery that opened up in our town ~ five years ago.

Here’s the link to a thread on permies about a recipe I created for a sprouted kernel loaf, vollkornbrot :  https://permies.com/t/66366/vollkornbrot

It will give you an idea about my level of baking experience

It’s summer here for a while more.  I hope to build a brick oven as part of a Matt Walker design riserless rocket stove.  Theoretically I will have that wood fired cook stove and oven by October of 2025.

As I said, I would be delighted to be on your team again!  The off grid kitchen and the small batch cheese book were a lot of fun.

Best wishes
Thekla

Love to try your recipes

Hi Kate, I've been baking sourdough for about 6 years now (started when I was 19 and I'm 25 now). I've got access to all the average flours you'd find in a grocery store and can probably get some more of the fancy ones if I had to. I have an electric standard oven and a gas convection oven as well and I love doing Dutch oven cooking on the fire. I'd be good with trying 5 recipes and if that goes well maybe even 20!  

Hi Kate I’m keen
I’ve baked some sourdough in the past and am keen to try again. I have access to regular flours (and could probably hunt out some interesting ones too) and a gas oven. My mum is really into baking with sourdough so I could probably rope her into the experiment too, I imagine she would be keen!

Hello!

I've been baking for a few years now, but have always been intimated by sourdough. I would love to try your recipes and participate! Would we be able to post final pictures or would you want to retain them? I have a homesteading oriented blog I'm working on building up and this would be just the daily post/kick in the pants I need.

Would love to hear more! Thanks Rose

Hi Kate.
I'm interested in helping you test recipes. I've been baking sourdough for 10 years. It's the only kind of bread I eat now. For a long time I shaped round boules and baked in a cast iron pot. Lately I've been baking more of a sandwich style mostly white bread (using Sunrise Flour Mill's Heritage Bread Blend along with some rye and WW) because my 2 year old grandson likes a softer bread. I also have a good supply on hand of Azure Standard ultra unifine Spelt and WW bread flour. I have a flour mill and a supply of rye, einkorn, and wheat (hard white and soft) berries that I haven't used in about a year. I hope they're still good! I bake in a gas oven. Let me know if I can help you. I will take pictures. I love trying new recipes!

I would love to help out. Sourdough is my family's favorite. Thank you

Hi Kate! I would love to test your recipes! I bake more or less weekly but not with sourdough, which is something I was about to dive into! I've been baking for 5 or 6 years, I use dutch ovens in an electric oven but I do have access to a brick oven (a local sourdough baker!). I have access to all the grain you can get on the internet and whatever new stuff I find at the Maine Artisan Bread Fair. I like to experiment with various heritage grains like Oland and red turkey but some just come out weird. But I am willing to experiment cause my toddler and wife are happy to eat the weird loaves! I also have a supply if spent grains as I am a brewer, so if any of your recipes head that way i'm ready! Looking forward to hearing from you!

Hi I am in the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve, Querétaro MX, 1800 masl, working for www.sierragorda.net and began stovetop 4 burner baking in cast iron Dutch oven, no big gas stoves here, 20! years ago I learned from a traveling French farm baker and local knowledge,  and gained experience with masa madre sourdough and kefir sourdough having kept kefir grains in water and milk for over a decade, and I have a stone mill for wheat grown in Michoacán on a biointensive organic farm, and centeno rye from there, too. Savory and sweet sourdough and small batch hand kneaded are my thing. Sounds fun and would help me ,too, to learn and creative community building. Good luck.

Hi Kate,
I’ve kept a strain of sour dough for 10 months. I killed the previous strain by adding teff flour.  Too much too fast?  not sure, but currently feed it with og white bread flour. I have a conventional/convection oven and an ooni pizza oven that uses wood pellets to make its heat.  I’ve baked loaves in pans, free from on stones, made cinnamon and cardamom buns, and pizza crusts with oo flour.    If you are short on testers, I am happy to throw my hat in the ring.  I don’t make a lot of time for permies, but I think this community is a great resource.  I’ve been to Wheaton Labs, and enjoyed meeting and interacting with the people there.  It was there I learned that you can spread your starter out in a thin layer, let it dry, crumble it up, and use it to bake with like dry yeast.  It is also a way to preserve the starter and you can start more from that powder too.
I can get any grain you specify.  There are several botique grain operations within a few hours of my home that I can order from.  

If my background fits your needs, I'd like to test recipes.

I grew up baking bread with my mom. As an adult I did some but much less bread-baking. As a working mom I resorted to bread machine baking.

I have not used sourdough but as a retiree I have wanted to start for years. We are building a house, and a couple months ago we finally completed a working kitchen after 5 years with an ovenless outdoor kitchen, so the timing is good!

Does your book start with the starter making part, or assume that the baker is already a starter parent?

I just have access to flours and grains from the grocery store and co-op.

I have a countertop combi steam oven.

In any case, good luck with your very cool project!

Hi Kate,

I would love to be a tester!  I have edited courseware and written instructional design, so I think I can follow your recipes!  Currently this summer, I am learning to perfect sourdough whole grain breads.  I used to be good at making yeasted breads, but gave that up for gluten-free 15 years ago and recently (past few months) have been switching back to Weston Price and sourdoughs.  I think it isn't the modern wheat necessarily that is causing major problems, just contributing.  Pesticides and GMOs with poor soils are likely doing the bulk of it. Anyway, trying traditional methods with a host of other ways to get more nutrition and less bad stuff!

On my sourdough journey I have been using the "scrapings" method and I have a very active starter that I got from a friend.  I am now going through the Bittman Bread book and I'm getting so good.  Baking recipes twice really helps.  I made a Rye bread yesterday, and today was a Brioche sandwich loaf.  These are all whole wheat and I am finally getting the lift and crumb right!  I've made sourdough focaccia, pretzels -- tomorrow is a scallion pancake, and I think I'm prepping a cinnamon roll for the day after.

I totally would love to help test recipes.   Here's some of my recent pictures.

I use only whole grains and have access to einkorn, wheat, emmer, rye, buckwheat.  I could get spelt and probably whatever else whole grain.  I have a mill and hard red wheat berries.  I'm not sure what to do with whole einkorn, but I have some of that.  I thought someone said you have to de-hull it somehow before you grind it.  So I'm not sure how that works.  But it's always nice to learn something!

I don't have any of the other kinds of ovens, just a regular oven.  

Good luck with the book.  I'm excited for you and for more people learning this skill!  So thank you for writing this.

Hi Kate,

I am relatively new in permies (and farming in general), and have not yet participated in the forums.
But I have been wanting to try and make sourdough bread for a while now, and would love to be a part of your test team!
I've been the one trying out new recipes in my family since my teenage years, especially when it came to backing. One of my
latest attempts has been making my own pizzas.

My oven is electric, but it has a max temperature of 300ºC. I have neighbours who have a wood oven, I could ask to use it to bake the occasional bread too.
I've been considering buying a dutch oven, so that could also be an option.

With online shopping options, I should have access to most types of grains and flours that are legal in the EU.

It looks like you have plenty of volunteers already but I'll add my name just in case you need one more! I've been baking sprouted, sourdough einkorn bread for many years now as I don't tolerate other kinds of wheat well. I'd love to try some other recipes especially for cakes or cookies or crackers.

I am interested in doing 5 recipes to start. I have a lot of regular baking experience and none with sourdough starter. I have an electric oven and acres to lots of different flours.

Thanks,

Susan

Hi Kate,
I am not the world's greatest chef but am happy to read the books and help with the editing.  You have been great to work with on your previous books.
Just quietly, I have eaten some of Kate's bread and it something not to be missed should the opportunity arise.
Best wishes

Hello Kate,
I love to bake sourdough bread. I live in Canada. I use a gas stove to bake. I also sometimes use a barbeque for flat breads / pizza. I like to change it up and try new recipes and I prefer adding rye and whole grain flours.
Very interested in helping with testing your recipes.
Cheers

Rose Fontana wrote:Hello!

I've been baking for a few years now, but have always been intimated by sourdough. I would love to try your recipes and participate! Would we be able to post final pictures or would you want to retain them? I have a homesteading oriented blog I'm working on building up and this would be just the daily post/kick in the pants I need.

Would love to hear more! Thanks Rose

Any photos posted during the project belong to whoever posted them - I was just interested to see how the doughs and breads look when made from other flours, they won't be used in the book.

Kimi Iszikala wrote:If my background fits your needs, I'd like to test recipes.

I grew up baking bread with my mom. As an adult I did some but much less bread-baking. As a working mom I resorted to bread machine baking.

I have not used sourdough but as a retiree I have wanted to start for years. We are building a house, and a couple months ago we finally completed a working kitchen after 5 years with an ovenless outdoor kitchen, so the timing is good!

Does your book start with the starter making part, or assume that the baker is already a starter parent?

I just have access to flours and grains from the grocery store and co-op.

I have a countertop combi steam oven.

In any case, good luck with your very cool project!

The first recipe I'll post is about making a starter, and the next few recipes will be discard recipes to make while the starter is growing, so this project is perfect for anyone that doesn't already have a starter (but I'm happy for people to bring their existing starters along too)

Nancy Reading wrote:Hi Kate!
I'd love to have a go at trying some recipes. I'm very much a beginner with sourdough, although do a far amount of other baking, I haven't made much bread and am quite keen to go away from modern dried yeast which always seems to have 'improvers' in.
I have a wood fired range cooker and access to a range of flour through my shop, so if you want me to try something in particular (once I've managed a basic!) let me know.
One thing I'm less sure of is our home is always on the cool side and I don't know whether this is an issue (or a benefit) for sourdough cooking.

(Ooh - crumpets!)

Our home gets quite cold in winter, so I've been working on ways to reliably make good sourdough bread in cooler-than-ideal (and warmer-than-ideal) conditions and I'd be interested to see if they will work for you as well.

I would love to test recipes. I do use sourdough in all my bread, pancakes, bagels, buns etc.

I use my kitchen oven and sometimes my dutch oven over coals. Still perfecting that process.

I use some heritage wheat flowers that are locally stone ground.

I also use bread flour from other sources.

I would love to test recipes and proofread the book (I am a linguist). I have never baked with sourdough but very interested in starting with it. I have a regular oven and can also try recipes in a bread machine. I could test 20 recipes in the machine but will try to make some by hand too. I have einkorn, whole wheat, oat and buckwheat flour and the store where I shop has other flours too that I am interested in testing.

...I forgot to mention that I am at 7200' in dry New Mexico, if that makes any difference...

Good one!  I’m high elevation too!

7000 feet,

And it’s an arid climate low humidity which sometimes affects baking.

I’d love to be a tester for your sourdough recipes.  I use mostly King Arthur’s flours and bake in a KitchenAid convection oven and use a Le Cruset cloche (dome) enameled baking dish for my bread or flat baking pan with parchment paper. My email address is lizlake1968@gmail.com and my name is Lizzie Lake Ayub. I’ve been baking for 45 years and will faithfully follow your recipe and document the results accurately with timely submission of my project reports back to you if selected. Best of luck to you on your cookbook adventures!
Warmly,
Lizzie

Hi Kate, my wife and me would like to test your recipes. Our goal would be 20.

We live in an off grid tiny house and are using a wood fired tent oven for heat and cooking/baking: https://www.kaminofen-shop24h.de/outdoor-herd-brot-pizzaofen-rosalie-backfunktion-gulaschkanone-terrassenofen-gartenkamin.html
 

It quickly gets up to heat, quite easily to 300°C if we wanted to, but it also looses heat fairly quickly again.

My wife bakes already a fair amount, including a kefir sourdough bread (she mixes flour, water and kefir, lets it stand 10-24h and we get a delicious sourdough bread). This is more practical for us, to save maintaining a sourdough starter.

We generally use either an old wheat variety called öland wheat, which has its name after the Swedish island, or Mariagertoba wheat, which is a new, very local, organic variety, specifically bread for baking, or spelt. 100% whole grain only and we aim to grind freshly before making the dough (but that does not happen always yet).
I also have access to an old, local Rye variety, it would translate to slash-and-burn rye, which we haven’t used yet. But I would be curious.

Edit: In theory I also have access to Einkorn and Emmer, but they are sold out until the new harvest comes in.

We also have your off grid kitchen cookbook and use it extensively.