Three Ingredients. One Loaf.
What this module is
This is the shortest path from nothing to a baked sourdough loaf. No commercial yeast. No special equipment. Just flour, water, and salt — and about 10 days of patience.
The idea is simple: wild yeast already lives on flour. When you mix flour and water and leave it out, those yeasts wake up, multiply, and eventually become strong enough to raise bread. This is how bread was made for thousands of years before commercial yeast existed.
What you actually need
Flour — King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour is the recommendation here. It's widely available, consistent bag to bag, and works for both building your starter and baking your first loaf. No specialty flour required. A kitchen scale — the single non-negotiable tool. A glass jar, at least 750ml. Water — filtered or left out overnight if your tap water is heavily chlorinated. A Dutch oven or heavy pot with a lid. That's it.
Tap a day to see what happens.
The two phases
Phase 1 (Days 1–10): Build a starter. You're cultivating a stable colony of wild yeast and bacteria from scratch. It takes about 7–10 days of once-daily feeding.
Phase 2 (Days 10–12): Bake a loaf. Once your starter is active and predictable, you mix a simple dough, ferment it, shape it, and bake it.
Total active time across both phases: maybe 2 hours. The rest is waiting.
What you're learning
The goal isn't just to bake one loaf. It's to understand what's happening at each step — so that when something goes wrong (and something will), you know what to adjust. By the end of this module, you'll have a working starter, a baked loaf, and a mental model that makes every future bake easier.