Four years, one jar

The starter in this kitchen was born in a jam jar during a wet March, from flour, tap water and a great deal of misplaced confidence.

The first dozen loaves were poor. Not inedible — sourdough is forgiving that way — but flat, dense and nothing like the photographs that had prompted the whole exercise. What eventually fixed them was not better flour or a more expensive pot. It was writing down what actually happened each time, including the kitchen temperature, and noticing that every failure clustered around the same step.

That is what this site is: the notebook, tidied up. The schedule works in an ordinary kitchen with an ordinary oven, and where a step is genuinely optional we say so instead of presenting a ritual as a rule.

There is nothing to buy here, no course, no affiliate links to bannetons. If a technique on this site does not work in your kitchen, the temperature is the first thing to suspect — and we would rather hear about it than pretend otherwise.

Standing advice

• Buy a scale before anything else. Volume measurements are the single largest source of inconsistency.
• Keep notes. Weight, times, room temperature, result. Three loaves in you will see the pattern.
• Bake the same loaf ten times. Variety comes later; repetition is what teaches the dough.