Tools Needed to Make Sourdough Bread

 

There are a few tools that help making sourdough bread easier to do, although they aren’t required. I like using a Stand Mixer because it saves me a lot of time. You can mix by hand; I just like giving my arms a break. If you don’t have a stand mixer and still want to make bread without hand kneading, I’m going to share a method called stretching and folding that eliminates the need to knead.

Other things that I use all the time when making sourdough bread are banneton baskets, a bench scraper, a lame, and a thermometer. You could just use baskets you have around your house if they hold roughly the same volume of dough. I also have stainless bowls when I must make a lot of loaves at once.

A bench scraper comes in handy for scraping dough out of bowls, dividing dough into multiple loaves, and scraping the counter when shaping.

A candy or meat thermometer has become a must for me. I would sometimes find that my bread wasn’t baked all the way in the middle for whatever reason.

A Lame (pronounced LAHM, meaning “blade” in French) is typically a long thin stick made to hold a metal razor used to cut, or score, bread dough to help control the expansion of the loaf as it bakes.

Bannetons and Brotforms are European proofing baskets meant for artisan-style bread-baking, and they can be used interchangeably. (The terms are sometimes used interchangeably too.) “Banneton” is the French name for such baskets, while “Brotform” is German.