Kate Downham

Thanks so much to everyone that helped make the printing of Sourdough Without Fail possible!

A big thank you to Permies, and all my Kickstarter backers, in no particular order:

Jay Skiles, Andrés Bernal, Bill Erickson, Tina Wolf, Robert D. Stewart, Cate & Mark Mawson - Ontario, Canada, Neil Sun, Gina Jones, J Mills, Akkaydrah, Carl K., A Sourdough Explorer, Lif, Lyle Leslie, Paul Anguiano, Nancy Reading from permies, John Barclay, Sarah Camp-McMahon, Marcos Canek Vazquez, Lynne Tognoni Keating, Steve Welch, Tracy Popey, SB, Allen Ewe, Sandra C Uba, Melissa C., The SP, Terry Wren, Mike Gallowa, Sandy Kanaki, ELye, Tiffany, Steven Lindsay, Steven A Zilber, jjmcgaffey, Michael Tullius, Katrina Hennessy, Susan Boyce, Martin TCUP, Ty Miranda, Barbara manning, Tracey Smith, Alex "MonsterChef" Neilson, Luise, jetts @ ziggo, All Heavenly Hosts Homestead, Nancy Hanson, Rebekah Harmon, Marcel de Jong, Frances Mae, Vincent G., John J. Rynne, Wendi Barker, Thomas Pflueger, Stephen B. Thomas, OreGreen, Sefchen Coho, Boondocks Hawks, Neale Inglenook, Adam Stanford, Mindie and Drew Simmons, Eveline M., ElCocoLoco, Saleh Abdullah, Uskaba, William Hedges, Marshall R. Hilborn, Tilly B., Seattle Mike, Kharra99, Wendy Crazy Plant Lady, Elaine Goodman, Bill 3, Andrew, Han Phan, Balázs Virágh, Andrew Denehey, Eri Michelinaki, Tiersa Lynd, Silke Van der Stockt, ClLy, Ryan Haver, FlavorsByFarore, Elad Swisa, Klemen Urbanija, A. Rossi, Robert Eure, Jennifer Damschen, Christopher Kranz, Justice, Ivica, Micah R, The Krohn Family, Myself&Comics, Alanya L. Anderson, Daniel Iseppi, Leigh Tate, Mike Gherna, Becky Manes, This book is for my dad Jay Lefkovitz, I love you dad - Love Saylem baby puppy Lefkovitz <3, Lara Struttman, Brett Nishikawa, Bao Tu Cen, John Charles, Beau M. Davidson, Tom Jenkins, Heidi Aussie, Elysa Hager, TLit, Gina Jeffries, Paula DiBacco, Marko Sodec, Bala Ramanujam, james wiedman, Permies Shannon, Cardinal House and everyone else that backed the Kickstarter - Thank you!

Summary

Coming soon...
Where to get it?
Get an early copy of the paperback on the Permies Digital Market
Get the eBook on the Permies Digital Market
Pre-order on Amazon.com

Related Threads
What do you most want to see in a sourdough baking book?
Kickstarter planning
Designing a bread book that works for everyone
 

Related Websites
Kickstarter campaign for Sourdough Without Fail
The Nourishing Hearthfire
Nourishing Permaculture

This Digital Market thread is for sales of the Sourdough Without Fail eBook.

Buy your copy through this Digital Market thread and you’ll get instant access to both the beautifully designed PDF eBook (perfect for reading on a computer, or for printing out), and the reflowable EPUB ebook.

For paperback sales, visit this thread.

100% Whole Grain Sourdough Bread, Pizza, and Pastries for Any Kitchen

Discover the joy of sourdough baking without the frustration. Whether you're a complete beginner who's never made a loaf or a seasoned home baker ready to take sourdough to the next level, Sourdough Without Fail is your foolproof guide to crafting delicious, nutritious breads, crispy pizzas, and flaky pastries using 100% whole grains.

Packed with over 75 easy, adaptable recipes, this cookbook breaks the boundaries of traditional sourdough, showing you how to work with what you have in your kitchen - no fancy equipment required.

These wholesome recipes prioritise flavour, nutrition, and simplicity. Bake better - every time - with full instructions that demystify the process and empower you to create bakery-quality results at home.

In Sourdough Without Fail, you’ll learn:

Foolproof Sourdough for All Levels: Created for absolute beginners to experienced bakers, from a no-fail beginner recipe with step-by-step photos, through to inspirational recipes for anyone. From simple everyday loaves to advanced pastries and perfect pizza, all designed to work in real-life conditions.

100% Whole Grains: Every recipe uses 100% whole grain flours, no white flour, no yeast, and no white sugar, prioritising flavour, nutrition, and digestibility through slow fermentation techniques.

75+ Versatile Recipes: Covers everyday essentials like sandwich bread, rustic hearth loaves, and pizza dough, plus creative options such as flaky pastries, crackers, pasta, pancakes, tortillas, cinnamon rolls, and even cakes - all adaptable to your schedule and kitchen setup.

No Fancy Equipment Required: Work with basic tools you already own. No need for a stand mixer or any single-purpose kitchen gear.

Practical Tools for Success: Starter maintenance guides, flexible scheduling, and endless variations to fit busy lifestyles.

Homestead Inspiration: Written by an author who bakes every day using home-milled grains, empowering cooks to create bakery-quality results with simple, nourishing, real food ingredients.

Multiple Batch Sizes: Handy ingredients tables will help you out, whether you’re baking just one loaf, or need to feed a crowd.

Never Waste Starter Again: Real-life feeding schedules, simple recipes for using up discard, and clear instructions to help you perfectly store your starter for later. Learn to nurture your sourdough starter to create the best possible bread, without finicky instructions or waste.

100% Whole Grain Sourdough Bread, Pizza, and Pastries for Any Kitchen

Discover the joy of sourdough baking without the frustration. Whether you're a complete beginner who's never made a loaf or a seasoned home baker ready to take sourdough to the next level, Sourdough Without Fail is your foolproof guide to crafting delicious, nutritious breads, crispy pizzas, and flaky pastries using 100% whole grains.

Packed with over 75 easy, adaptable recipes, this cookbook breaks the boundaries of traditional sourdough, showing you how to work with what you have in your kitchen - no fancy equipment required.

These wholesome recipes prioritise flavour, nutrition, and simplicity. Bake better - every time - with full instructions that demystify the process and empower you to create bakery-quality results at home.

In Sourdough Without Fail, you’ll learn:

Foolproof Sourdough for All Levels: Created for absolute beginners to experienced bakers, from a no-fail beginner recipe with step-by-step photos, through to inspirational recipes for anyone. From simple everyday loaves to advanced pastries and perfect pizza, all designed to work in real-life conditions.

100% Whole Grains: Every recipe uses 100% whole grain flours, no white flour, no yeast, and no white sugar, prioritising flavour, nutrition, and digestibility through slow fermentation techniques.

75+ Versatile Recipes: Covers everyday essentials like sandwich bread, rustic hearth loaves, and pizza dough, plus creative options such as flaky pastries, crackers, pasta, pancakes, tortillas, cinnamon rolls, and even cakes - all adaptable to your schedule and kitchen setup.

No Fancy Equipment Required: Work with basic tools you already own. No need for a stand mixer or any single-purpose kitchen gear.

Practical Tools for Success: Starter maintenance guides, flexible scheduling, and endless variations to fit busy lifestyles.

Homestead Inspiration: Written by an author who bakes every day using home-milled grains, empowering cooks to create bakery-quality results with simple, nourishing, real food ingredients.

Multiple Batch Sizes: Handy ingredients tables will help you out, whether you’re baking just one loaf, or need to feed a crowd.

Never Waste Starter Again: Real-life feeding schedules, simple recipes for using up discard, and clear instructions to help you perfectly store your starter for later. Learn to nurture your sourdough starter to create the best possible bread, without finicky instructions or waste.

Delivery estimate: Your book will arrive in around 3 weeks if you’re in the USA, Australia, or the UK, or a bit longer if you’re outside these countries.

Tori Escobar wrote:
I have had goats for just about 2 years. They are rotationally grazed through our land which includes lots of trees, bushes and browsing options. They are never in one place more than 2 days.
They go in a shed at night and when weather is very bad. I only have three right now. They have only received herbal dewormer and have access at night to a full mineral bar.
My one milk doe who kidded in December is so thin. She is a nubian but looks to be just loosing weight since kidding. I’ve been milking her but decided to stop because of her condition. She gets some supplemented oats and alfalfa pellets but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
What would you do?
Is this a situation where she’s just not a good fit for the farm or do I use chemical dewormer to save her from continued weight loss?
Her doeling I hope will be more suited to our management.

Sounds like an excellent setup. How long are you resting each space for after they’ve been in it?

Dairy goats often go through a skinny phase shortly after birth, but if they’re healthy, they bounce back over time. Most dairy goats will lower their milk production on their own if they are not getting enough calories or if there are serious health issues.

You could try feeding sunflower seeds in with her treats, these will provide fats as well as extra calories. How much oats are you feeding her each day?

The most important thing about any change in feed is to do it gradually - start with a small amount (or small increase) and work it up gradually to whatever amount seems right.

If you’ve done a worm count and it looks like worms, feeding herbs, diatomacious earth, and tannin-rich plants such as oak leaves can help.

If she has trouble with lots of oats, you could consider feeding barley instead. My goats don’t seem to show any difference between oat, barley, or wheat feeding though. Probiotics might help too.

I've been raising goats 100% naturally for 12 years now. It definitely is possible.

We've built up a herd over time that thrives on our land without chemicals.

Some things that have been helpful:
Understanding that goats are browsers and not grazers by nature - many of the worm problems that people think are common in goats are because they are forcing their goats to graze grass that is too low or has not been rested long enough. Goats have high mineral needs, and by providing mineral-rich feed, either from access to trees, or through a mineral lick, will help them become resilient to parasites and other health problems. Keeping their food well off the ground, either by keeping them as forest animals, in pasture at least 6” high, or fed hay in hay racks, will help them to avoid ingesting parasites.

Understanding that you don’t need a zero worm count to have a healthy goat. Some parasite load can be OK if the goat is healthy in other ways, so it’s always best to just observe your goats first for signs of health rather than relying on worm counts.

It’s far easier to prevent health issues in the first place with good management, than it is to deal with full-blown health problems. Backyard Dairy Goats goes into a lot of detail about signs of health to look for, preventative remedies, and simple natural remedies you can use to nip a problem in the bud.

The ideal situation is to start with goats from a breeder who has been raising them without chemicals - that way you are starting out with the best genetic potential for your needs rather than having to do many years of selective breeding like I have. Some of the best goats we’ve bred have come from “no-name” bucks of random origin rather than pedigree animals, because the best breeding animals have not necessarily been selected to thrive without chemicals - different breeders will take different approaches to that. So if you’re looking for your first goats, it’s best to ask a lot of questions of breeders about whether they use chemicals, how they deal with health issues, and how they manage their goats.

Sometimes I feel like I should be “prepping” more by storing more cheap food or long-life food, but at the end of the day, if we’re not going to eat that food unless it’s something like in “the road” happening outside, then we are far more resilient storing the foods that we do eat.

A pressure canner has been a great help - it means we can have shelf-stable bone broth, meat, and ready-to-eat meals that meet my family’s requirements.

Encouraging the best kind of weeds in the garden makes us more prepared too. When life has been crazy or weather at planting time has not been good, it has given us nutrition and resilience just having a huge amount of dandelions and fat hen coming up all over the place. Planting and tending any kind of perennial can be seen as a gift to a future self.

I’d like to put ads for some F-code stuff in my new blog design and was wondering how I go about linking the things that have their own websites e.g. https://woodheat.net/ - how do I make an F code link for that?

Also I was sure that there was a solar dehydrator website somewhere like the free heat one above, but I can’t find it linked in the top bar on the free heat and other sites - am I just imagining that there was one for this? And are there any other websites that are missing from the top of the free heat site?

Also is there anywhere that I can find all the square pictures that are used to advertise stuff on Permies? I already have the free heat and the solar dehydrator ones, and am not sure what other ones there are around. If there is anywhere on here that I can find images that look good as small sidebar ads, please let me know.

What an inspiring thread! Your pictures are making me hungry.

Do you have any tasty ideas for polenta? Or sesame seeds? I too many of both of these.

Drinking lots of water seems to help. Bentonite clay foot baths also seems to help.

Reducing exposure is important. We use the phone/internet 3x a week instead of every day, and I think that makes a difference. Phones can be switched on to aeroplane mode when not in use. Electronic stuff gets locked away in faraday bags overnight, and that helps us avoid exposure while we're sleeping.

I can definitely feel when the phone has been accidentally switched onto wifi mode. Some phones do this automatically, and often the default setting for a new phone is to have wifi constantly on and many people don't realise that they are blasting wifi at everyone around them.

The most EMF sensitive person that I know is currently getting chiropractic treatment, and that seems to be helping. This could be because his EMF issues are related to a nerve injury and the symptoms are a bit different to most peoples, but it is something that could be worth trying for other EMF sensitive people.