Essential Tools for Beginner Sourdough Bakers

You don't need a lot of equipment to bake excellent sourdough at home. What you do need, you really do need — and using the wrong substitutes makes an already challenging bake harder than it needs to be. This guide covers the tools that genuinely matter, why they matter, and what you can reasonably skip at the start.

The Essentials — You Need These

1. A Kitchen Scale

Sourdough baking is done entirely by weight, not volume. Cups and tablespoons are not accurate enough for flour, water, or starter ratios. A digital scale accurate to 1g is the single most important piece of equipment in your kitchen. Without it, you're guessing — and guessing produces inconsistent results.

2. A Sourdough Starter

The culture that makes sourdough bread rise and taste the way it does. You need an active, healthy starter to bake sourdough bread. Everything else in this guide assumes you have one. Our sourdough starter kits include both wheat and rye starters in live and dehydrated forms.

3. A Starter Jar

A tall, narrow jar for storing and feeding your starter. The narrow shape makes rise tracking easy and reliable. A wide bowl or yoghurt container makes the starter look inactive even when it's performing well. Our sourdough starter jar has a measurement scale printed on the glass — no rubber bands needed.

4. A Banneton Proofing Basket

The basket that supports your shaped loaf during the final proof. It prevents the dough from spreading and creates the characteristic spiral pattern on the crust. A round banneton for boule loaves, oval for batard. Browse our banneton range — all come with a linen cloth liner and brush.

5. A Bread Lame

The tool used to score (slash) the top of the loaf just before baking. A razor-sharp blade at the right angle creates the ear and controls how the bread opens in the oven. Kitchen knives and scissors don't work — they drag and deflate the dough rather than cutting cleanly. Our magnetic bread lame has a curved blade holder and magnetic closure for safe storage.

6. A Dutch Oven

A cast iron pot with a lid. This is how you replicate the steam-injection deck oven of a professional bakery at home. The covered pot traps the steam the dough releases, keeping the crust soft long enough for the bread to spring and expand. Without a Dutch oven, bread springs much less and the crust can be pale and thick. A 24–26cm round Dutch oven handles most home sourdough loaves.

7. A Bench Scraper

A flat metal blade used for dividing, pre-shaping, and moving dough. Indispensable for shaping without adding too much flour. Our bench scraper is made from stainless steel with a comfortable grip.

Very Useful — Worth Getting Soon

Danish Dough Whisk

A stiff wire whisk that mixes thick doughs without clogging. Much more efficient than a spoon or spatula for mixing sourdough and levain. Our Danish dough whisk is used in almost every bake.

A Large, Clear Mixing Bowl

For bulk fermentation — ideally with straight sides so you can track the rise. The volume markings on a 4L straight-sided container let you monitor the dough's increase in size.

Nice to Have — Not Essential Yet

• Baking stone or steel: For multiple loaves or scoring practice without the Dutch oven. Not needed for your first bakes.
• Thermometer: For accurate dough temperature. Useful, but you can estimate by touch.
• Lame replacement blades: Stock up so you're never baking with a dull blade.

The Shortcut — Baker Sets

If you want to start with everything you need in one order, our baker sets bundle the essential tools together. Each set is curated to get you from starter to first loaf without additional shopping.

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