Catch your own sourdough culture.
Keep it in a large crock, open so it can breathe.
Good sourdough needs a real tangy culture.
Feed it once a week, or every six months if you keep it in the fridge.
Let your starter/sponge get real sour.
Lots of different stuff in the dough makes more interesting bread.
A little rye flour makes it rise better. Should add barley malt in any =
case.
Mix your dough very lightly, if at all (because sourdough is =
self-kneading).
(or use a bread machine).
Use only distilled or deionized water.
Sourdough bread has big holes, and you'll need a really loose dough for =
those.
Never let dough, starter, or preferments come in contact with metal.
You will need some way to measure pH (acidity)
and to weigh constituents to the nearest gram.
You'll need to use lined bannetons, and to have some peels on hand
(or a Dutch oven if you are baking in the boonies).
Otherwise special baskets, Pullman forms, etc., and special flours
to prevent sticking if you use linen linings.
Let your dough rise in the refrigerator.
Punch it down several times as it rises.
Bake on a masonry slab, at least a pizza stone.
You may wish to preheat your stone -- it makes better crust.
Start with a very hot oven, and adjust the temperature as the bake =
proceeds.
Flop your risen loaves onto a peel, and shove them onto your stone/slab.
Use olive-pit grindings, or finely cracked grain, to make them roll off =
of the peel.
You need to get steam into your oven to start the bake.
(If you cannot get enough steam in with an external generator, as may be
made by plumbing a pressure cooker, you may need to buy a commercial
deck oven, or build a masonry oven out back into which water can be
thrown in copious quantities when the time comes. Otherwise, you can
throw a few ice cubes into your oven as the dough goes in.)
Let you bread cool until the crust gets crackly, and then store it in
a paper sack
Test it out on your wife and kids. Publish their commentary at r.f.s.

Those are some of the things that I do not do, nor believe. But frankly =

I am not making Poil=E2ne loaves, nor Boudin nor Acme, nor anything =
close=20
to what is shown in picture books about baking.

But it is not too bad. And it is done in an old Kenmore gas oven.

For instance, see=20
http://www.prettycolors.com/bread%5F...e%5F3-9-04.jpg
which is scan of a center slice through a 1-3/4 lb. sourdough boule.

Email me for details (special advice on what advice not to take).

--=20
Dick Adams
<firstname> dot <lastname>at bigfoot dot com