What you need to get started

Essential ingredients and tools for baking

Feb 16, 2020

107 year old organic rye sourdough starter, sourdough bread, dehydrated starter, Australian flour, bake sourdough at home, rye flour, salt, water, RNR Sourdough, Rock n Roll Sourdough

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Before you start baking, you will need some kitchen tools, flour, water and salt. I have created a list to make this process easier for you.

Tools

You’ll need the following tools to get started.

Digital kitchen scales - baking requires exact measurements to succeed
Spoons
Large mixing bowl
Glass jars x 2 - 350+ gram size jars
Round or oval proofing (banneton) basket – a colander and a well floured tea towel will achieve the same result
Lame blade - or double-sided shaving blade, from the supermarket
Spatula
Curved dough scraper
Tea towel or muslin
Rubber band
Dutch oven (a heavy pot with lid), or a heavy baking tray also works. Some recipes use a pizza stone
Baking paper or silicon mat
Cooling rack
A decent bread knife
A bread bag, pillowcase or a large tea towel to store your baked bread – allows the bread to breathe and keeps the crust crusty for longer.

Brunswick Bakers Bread Baking Accessories Kit is a great starter pack and can be found online for about $30-$40. Brunswick Bakers also have a deluxe kit that includes a dough wisk, lame and dough cutter for $60. Also check out Temu, Amazon and eBay.

There’s a number of Dutch ovens on the market with different price points. Kmart sells a 4 litre cast iron pot for $30. Aldi sells their Crofton brand from time to time. Then there is Wolstead’s Endure range, Lodge Cookware, Brunswick Bakers bread baking pan and Le Creuset at the top end of the market.

Flour

Starter flour

Mojo Risin (my starter) is fed with Australian rye flour as it’s easier to maintain, more robust and forgiving than one fed on white flour.

When buying flour, check the protein content. The higher the protein, the more active your starter will be. I recommend a flour with at least 12 percent protein. Always check the label or website before purchase. Anything lower than 10 percent, including organic may not be strong enough.

Where to find it

Rye flour can be purchased at bulk food stores and most health food stores.

Gram Sustainable sells rye flour for $6.50 per kg. This is my preferred flour and what I use in my starter (and the starter I sold to you). It has 12.3 percent protein. The store is located in Carrum Downs. Can purchase online also.
The Source Bulk Foods sell rye flour for $9.00 per kg and contains 13 percent protein. The highest I’ve seen so far. Multiple store locations and online shop.
Leaf - I use their rye flour sometimes. $7.50 per kg. Another flour that is consistently good at 11 percent protein. They have stores in Elwood, Hawthorn and Armadale.
Some Woolworth stores sell Aussie brand, Kialla Pure Organics, organic wholegrain rye flour for $8.00 per kg. It is only around 10 percent protein but performs well.
Terra Madre in Brunswick and Northcote - 5 kg for $19.95 and 12.5 kg for $40.95. A lot of my customers buy their flour here and recommend it. I have not tried it and their website doesn’t list the ingredients or protein content.

Some markets sell rye flour but I haven’t had a lot of success using cheap rye flour. Often, they don’t contain an ingredients list which provides the protein count. If the ingredients list isn’t provided, don’t buy it.

Bread dough

When looking for bakers flour, choose one that contains at least 12% protein. The higher protein can handle longer fermentation times and helps the bread rise.

For beginner bakers, I recommend starting with the white bakers flour as most recipes use it. As you perfect your baking technique, you can experiment with other flour.

I’m currently using Defiance white bakers flour with 12.3% available at Woollies and Coles. Another good quality and value white bakers flour is Gem of the West protein enriched flour with 13.5% protein. It comes in 12.5kg bags on Amazon for $27.15.

Water

Always use room temperature filtered, distilled or spring water. Do not use water straight from the tap. The chlorine in our tap water will kill your starter overtime.

If you only have access to tap water, boil it and allow it to cool to room temperature before use. This method works for me.

Salt

Sea salt is an essential ingredient in sourdough. It primarily adds flavour, colours the crust and strengthens the gluten network resulting in a stronger more stable dough.

I use Maldon sea salt but any ground sea salt will work.

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