Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Pic: Stella (left) and Bertha (right.). My two starters have names.. Lol. (Someone will get the reference.) I am an established home cook. I've dabbled in all kinds of cuisine. Besides cookies, my baking skills are barely adequate. I have failed at bread on enough occasions that I haven't tried in 10 years. I finally decided to go for it again and bought this starter. The instructional video was clear and informative. Everything went exactly how I expected. And it tasted like REAL sourdough like the stuff you get on the wharf in San Francisco. My loaf needs work but its usually gone in a few hours. Its that good. What I didn't expect was a relatively perfect loaf on my first try. YouTube has so many videos on how to bake bread in a dutch oven. It seemed so ludacris to use a dutch ovem that I wouldn't have believed without seeing people do it. The dutch oven holds the humidity in the same way a bread oven with steam injection does. It forms a beautiful crust and helps it rise. But to truly get that SF style round loaf, you have to proof your dough in the fridge overnight. Take your starter out of the fridge and feed. Let it sit for 8 hours at room temp first. With your starter happy and active, mix ~3 cups of bread flour, 1.5 cups of starter, 2 cups cold water and 1.5 tablespoons of sea salt. Mix with mixer then proof it in a greased bowl covered with a damp cloth. After 3 hours, stretch, fold, shape and place in a bowl lined with a clean and flour dusted towel (covered with towel also.) After 12 hours, you're ready to bake. This product is awesome! And they probably don't advertise how easy it is to keep starting new starters to share with friends. (Sorry.. Lol)