Another simple way to get started is to make no-knead sourdough bread that is cooked in a Dutch oven. I used to make that regularly (before quitting all flours and wheat), and it's great.

You use less starter and let it rise longer. Then bake it in the Dutch oven the next day without kneading it.

great tip on the Dutch oven, I graduated from there to making freeform/traditional sourdoughs and loved making both, really loved it. and while i didn't give up wheat or anything I did just end up with a ton of bread all the time which isn't good long term for me so mostly had to give it up.

Give it to neighbors, trade for pickled things or something :D

For a more in-depth / intermediate book, I recently purchased "Open Crumb Mastery" (https://trevorjwilson.selz.com/item/open-crumb-mastery-for-t...) by Trevor Jay Wilson (https://www.instagram.com/trevorjaywilson/?hl=en). It's a really deep dive into chasing that open crumb dragon. I'm really enjoying it.

I don't really get the open crumb fad. To me, the perfect bread is dense, rich and has a crumb that is stout and slightly chewy, definitely more crumb than air, and the air pockets should be small and even in size and distribution.

I want a reasonably even surface to spread butter on, with no gaping holes.

My girlfriend and I been working through Lutz Geißler's BrotBackBuch, his buttermilk bread (advanced version) is by far the tastiest and most satisfying bread we have made so far. Dense, complex and just the right texture.

We started our own sourdough on whole grain rye, and have been adapting it for wheat bread as well, as needed. It is rather fun keeping our little buddy alive and happy.

The book has some amazing recipes and very solid chapters on theory and practice in regards to yeast, sourdough, oven steam, baking methods and a while host of other things. Highly recommended. I don't know if there's an English version, but I'm finding it very helpful to improve my German skills as well. He also has a blog at ploetzblog.de, which has even more recipes.

Maurizio over at the Perfect Loaf [1] has some great some great instructions on capturing, feeding and cooking with sourdough starters.

[1]https://www.theperfectloaf.com

I have been extremely happy with Weekend Bakery's rye sourdough starter recipe:

http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/rye-sourdough-starter-in-...

I keep it in the fridge and feed it once a week or so with a 50/50 mix of rye and white bread flour.

Have also had excellent results with their Pain Rustique recipe:

http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/our-version-of-a-pain-rus...

Wait, is this the second sourdough link to this the front page in two days? Am I missing some important bread-tech connection?

Baking is science, there is some surprisingly complex chemistry that goes into a good loaf of bread.

Anybody has any data on how do these cultures compare to starting your own sourdough from cultures caught from the air?

I created my own starter about 4 years ago and have been feeding my little family of four using it ever since. I'm very happy to not have to buy that terrible bread that they offer in the stores anymore.

My understanding is that it really doesn't matter where you get the culture from. It takes a couple of weeks to get a starter started so if you want to get into sourdough baking I'd recommend just buying one if you can get one from anywhere else.

(I created my own mostly out of curiosity, it's fun, but it takes a couple of weeks)

I often hear about how for example the sourdough bread in San Francisco is special and that this has something to do with the culture. I don't think this is the case. My understanding is that you tweak the taste using temperature and proofing time (and flour mix, obviously). Personally I don't want my bread to be sour, so I generally feed the culture frequently and proof the dough at around 27C. If you lower the temperature and proof for longer you get a more sour tasting bread.

If you just want to make a tastier bread then simply using very small amounts of baker's yeast and a long proofing time (at low temperature) will get you very far. It takes time to develop the flavours and the main reason the store bought bread is so bad is simply that it's produced so quickly.

Oh and I can also recommend the dutch oven trick, with sourdough or not, it really is a very simple way to make great bread at home.

I'm not sure if we agree or not. I'm not at all after the classic sourdough taste, and am not really interested in keeping a friend. I buy bulk dried yeast and always use yesterdays dough as a starter, do a slow ferment in the fridge, or keep a fresh sponge fermenting for a day before I actually make bread. lots of fermentation really does develop a richer flavor.

if I do want to grow a friend you suggest I turn my culture over often to stop it getting too funky, and use proofing chamber to get rapid yeast development when actually baking?

I've purchased his book and a few dehydrated starters.

Definitely recommend both. The book is overly technically with various temperatures but was a soft read otherwise. I've been baking now for the past few months.

Still trying to get a very sour starter or loaf.

If you want to make a very sour loaf all you have to do is use well-ripened kefir [1] instead of water in the dough. Not only does this make the dough extra sour, it also adds some extra raising power by virtue of the yeast in the kefir.

For those who don't know, kefir is made by fermenting milk with kefir grains, a combination of yeast and lactic acid bacteria which forms a symbiotic colony.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

Any idea if seitan recipes appear anywhere?