FOR THE LOVE OF SOURDOUGH - BREAD BAKING 300 EPISODE 1 INTRODUCTION

3 minutes ago

5 min read

THE PRINTABLE IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE ⬇️

Learn to understand your starter, read your dough, and bake naturally leavened bread with confidence.

There is something deeply satisfying about making bread with nothing more than flour, water, salt, and a healthy sourdough starter.

No packet of commercial yeast. No rushing the process. Just a living culture, a little patience, and the skills to recognize what your dough is telling you.

Welcome to Bread Baking 300: For the Love of Sourdough!

This is the next chapter in our bread baking education at Homestead Wife Life. We'll build on the foundational skills from Bread Baking 100 and 200 as we explore naturally leavened breads, enriched doughs, holiday baking, and the many wonderful ways to use sourdough in our kitchens.

And we're going to do it together.

Watch the Dough, Not the Clock

If there is one principle I want you to take away from this entire series, it's this:

Watch the dough, not the clock.

Sourdough doesn't operate according to a fixed schedule. Your starter, the temperature of your kitchen, your flour, and the conditions of your dough all influence how quickly fermentation progresses.

A dough that is ready in four hours in a warm kitchen may take eight hours in a cooler one.

Rather than relying entirely on a recipe's timing, we'll learn to recognize the physical signs that tell us when our dough is ready for the next step.

Once you understand what to look for, sourdough becomes far less mysterious.

What You'll Learn in Bread Baking 300

This is a complete sourdough baking series, not a single recipe tutorial.

We'll begin by understanding the living culture that makes sourdough possible and progress through increasingly interesting baking projects.

Our lessons include:

Maintaining and feeding a healthy sourdough starter
Understanding starter activity and readiness
Baking your first sourdough loaf
Making beautiful sourdough dinner rolls
Using discard in homemade pie crust
Preparing overnight cinnamon rolls
Making a rich chocolate babka
Preparing sourdough pancakes and waffles

After the holidays, we'll continue with sandwich bread, artisan boules, baguettes, crusty rolls, focaccia, and more.

Each lesson will have its own printable, so you can build a collection of recipes and reference materials as we work through the series.

Meet Margaux and Jacques

Before we bake our first loaf, you'll meet the two sourdough starters living in my kitchen.

Margaux has been with me for years and years.

Jacques arrived dried, in a packet, with a rather interesting claim about his ancestry. According to the seller, he came from a 200-year-old mother starter. I have my doubts!

We'll meet them both properly in our first lesson and talk about what really matters when choosing and maintaining a starter.

Because whether your starter has been in the family for generations or you created it last week, the important thing is understanding how to keep it healthy and ready to bake.

Don't Have a Starter Yet? Start Now!

You do not need an established sourdough starter to join this series, but you'll want to begin preparing one before our first loaf lesson.

You have three options:

1. Make your own starter. Allow approximately one to two weeks for a new starter to become strong enough to raise a loaf, although individual starters may take longer.

2. Ask another baker for some starter. A spoonful from a healthy, established starter is a wonderful way to begin.

3. Purchase a dried starter. Follow the supplier's instructions to revive it and establish regular feeding.

Already have a starter resting in the refrigerator? Bring it out and begin feeding it so it's active and ready.

Our first sourdough loaf lesson premieres October 14.

What Equipment Do You Need?

You don't need to purchase an entire collection of specialty baking equipment before you begin.

THERE IS A COLLECTION OF LINKS FOR ALL THE EQUIPMENT YOU NEED AND SOME YOU MAY JUST WANT IN THE DESCRIPTION BOX UNDER THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.

The free syllabus separates essential equipment from optional conveniences, so you can decide what makes sense for your own kitchen.

We'll also discuss ingredients and what to have on hand before each lesson.

Download Your Free Bread Baking 300 Syllabus

I've put together a three-page printable to help you follow the entire series.

Inside you'll find:

An introduction to the series and its learning objectives
Our lesson schedule and baking projects
Checkboxes to track lessons watched and recipes baked
Guidance for getting your starter ready
Essential equipment and optional tools
An ingredient checklist
A preview of the lessons continuing into 2027

Print it, place it in your kitchen binder, and follow along as we build our sourdough skills.

Bread Baking 300 Lesson Schedule

Our series begins Sunday, September 27, 2026.

LessonProjectPremiereIntroductionSeries overviewSeptember 271Your Starter: Reading It, Feeding It, and the DiscardSeptember 302Your First Sourdough LoafOctober 143Sourdough Dinner Rolls, Three ShapesOctober 284Sourdough Discard Pie CrustNovember 185Thanksgiving Morning Cinnamon RollsNovember 256Chocolate BabkaDecember 167Christmas Morning BreakfastDecember 23

The series will continue during winter 2027 with additional lessons and recipes.

Subscribe to Homestead Wife Life on YouTube so you don't miss the next lesson.

New to Bread Baking?

If you're just beginning your bread baking journey, I encourage you to start with Bread Baking 100.

Those foundational lessons cover mixing dough, kneading, stretch and folds, bulk fermentation, shaping, proofing, and scoring.

These skills carry directly into sourdough baking.

You don't need years of experience to begin working with a sourdough starter. A solid understanding of the fundamentals simply makes the process easier.

[WATCH BREAD BAKING 100]

[EXPLORE BREAD BAKING 200]

Join Me in the Kitchen

Sourdough is a wonderful skill to learn because it rewards observation, patience, and practice.

There will be beautiful loaves. There may be a few less-than-beautiful ones along the way, too. Every bake teaches us something.

My hope is that by the end of this series, you'll feel comfortable maintaining your own starter and using it to bake the breads your family enjoys, on a schedule that works for your household.

Print your syllabus, get your starter ready, and join me for Bread Baking 300.

I look forward to baking with you!

Tamatha

Homestead Wife Life

Practical things done beautifully.

**[DOWNLOAD THE FREE BREAD BAKING 300 SERIES SYLLABUS]

https://youtu.be/rGbwbEurkHs

BELOW ARE TOOLS YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER FOR THE SERIES. YOU DO NOT NEED ALL OF THESE TOOLS. IT'S BETTER TO PICK THINGS UP AS YOU FIND YOU NEED THEM INSTEAD OF BUYING A WHOLE BATTERY OF TOOLS.

-YOUR WALLET WILL THANK YOU 🤣

These are affiliate links that come at ZERO cost to you but do help support the channel. Thank you for your support.

DIGITAL SCALE - https://link.amazon/B0gyajA4N

MIXING BOWL - https://link.amazon/B02RhwRWs

SMALLER BOWLS - https://link.amazon/B012QHMcF

6 QT Large Glass Mixing Bowl https://link.amazon/B05fF83UZ

DANISH WHISK - https://link.amazon/B0eJnPrta

BOWL COVERS - https://link.amazon/B0csEHf9k

FRENCH TEA TOWELS - https://link.amazon/B00fiOdOv

RUBBER SPATULAS - https://link.amazon/B01P4BKPS

COMBO COOKER - https://link.amazon/B0j4xbLhG

CAST IRON DUTCH OVEN - https://link.amazon/B06naE9OF