I’ve spent years vetting the following equipment. This list is has my favorite bread-making tools to help you make the best sourdough bread at home.
Also, check out my Amazon storefront, where I have all my favorite tools (and baking books!) on one page.
Jump to a section:
Sourdough Starter Tools
These are the best tools to help create and maintain your sourdough starter.
Beginning Baker Tools
A list of a few tools to help you get started baking sourdough bread at home.
More Tools For Better Results
Use these baking tools to help you increase your baking consistency in your home kitchen.
Keeps my starter, levain, and dough at the perfect temperature.
(See my guide.)
The perfect rectangular tub (14″x15″x5″) for 4kg+ batches of dough when you make more dough.
Some recipes here call for “high extraction flour,” this helps sift out some bran/germ.
Flour and Grain
The list below are my most-used flours here at home, but look local first! There are many great farmers and millers scattered all over with incredible flour options.
A custom flour blend I created for any sourdough recipe (here’s mine)!
CM has some incredible flour; this is a workhorse flour for any bread.
Pans and Storage
These tools will help you bake pan loaves and are a collection of excellent storage options for flour and grain.
Grain Mills
Below is a list of my favorite grain mills used to mill fresh flour in my home kitchen regularly. They are all built extremely well and are capable of producing excellent flour.
Mixers and Larger Equipment
Other useful tools when baking sourdough bread at home.
An incredibly well-made oven for larger bakes. My current oven.
(See my guide.)
This sealed oven lets me bake 4 or more loaves at a time from home.
(See my guide.)
Didn't Find What You're Looking For?
Check out my deep dive into the best baking tools with a look at why I’ve picked each one (and how they’ve helped with my baking).
Or, check out my Amazon storefront, where I have all my favorite tools (and baking books!) on one page.
734 Comments
Hey thanks, Paulo! It’s not something I’ve really considered much, perhaps sometime in the future 🙂
Thanks again and happy baking!
Maurizio… It is time for a book! I live by your site and I know everything there is to know about self-publishing. Let’s team up!
Ciao!
Paulo
That’s a good question, and one I don’t really have an answer for. Those bulk bins can be almost any flour and any age, depending on where your store sources and how much of a turnaround they have. Usually they’ll have the mill written there somewhere, and if it’s one you’re interested in trying out I’d give that a shot. King Arthur actually has really nice flour, though! They’re certainly always a great choice. You could do both: use some KA flour and try the bulk here and there and see if you like what you have access to. KA flour is usually sourced from various mills across the country and they do a great job of keeping it consistent and good quality. Time to experiment, I’d say!
Question about flour. I have a Luckys by me, basically a Whole Foods type grocery store. They have a lot of bulk flours that I can scoop out myself, bread, AP, rye, whole wheat. Question is, would these be better or worse than buying a bag of King Arthur? I really have no idea how old the bulk flour is and such.
Yes, it’s the 3.2qt version. It may seem small but believe me, it’s plenty big!
Is your lodge combo cooker only 3.2 qt? Is that large enough for a 900g loaf? It just looks so tiny.
Glad to hear that, Lauren! I haven’t used flour from Stone Buhr, I’m not familiar with them. I’ll have to do some investigating, I’m always on the lookout for more flour sources. Thanks for the comments and happy baking!
I’m new to all of this, but I’m loving it. I just made some sourdough loaves from your high(er) moisture sourdough recipe. It was maybe the most satisfying thing I’ve ever baked. I used Stone Buhr bread and whole wheat flours and I thought they were great, but I’m curious if you’ve used any flour from them?
is it a good idea to leave the dough reach room temperature after the overnight fridge period before baking it?
It’s not necessary. However, if you find in the morning your dough is a little under fermented and could use more room temperature proof time, letting it sit out for a bit can be a handy last minute adjustment!
Thanks Maurizio for your reply. Good tip. 450 is high enough anyways, nothing a slightly longer bake can’t fix.
Hey, Daniel! I typically don’t push the heat that high with my Pullman pan — I don’t think the USA Pan I use is rated to go that high. When I use it I typically max out at 450°F, but I would say check the specs for the pan you’re using and make sure it can handle even that high of a heat! When I use other pans I have I preheat the oven to 500°F but drop the temp right when I load.
Hope that helps!
H Maurizio. Have you baked at 500 F with that pan Pullman? If so, with what results? Thanks.
Thank you Maurizio. Great recommendations!
If you’re looking for an electric one, it’s hard to beat the Mockmill 100 in terms of price and flour output. I also really like the KoMo line of mills and if you’re into milling by hand, the GrainMaker 116 is fantastic.
Do you have a flour mill that you would recommend?
Thank you and will do! I’ll be sure to keep those factors in mind!
Hey, Kristin! Sure, a baking pan would work well enough. I haven’t tried this personally but I don’t see why it would be an issue. You won’t have quite as much heat retention with the pan, so you might have to adjust the bake times and temps to suit your oven — this is something we all have to do, though! Keep me posted on how it goes and happy baking 🙂
Hey Maurizio, so happy to have found your blog! I’ve been following your sourdough starter guide and I’m approaching day 8. Going to let it get even a bit stronger, to bake this weekend on day 9/10. I’m new to all of this and still do not own baking stones, a dutch oven or baking steel (due to a temporary budget constraint). So my question is: would it be ok to use a baking pan (good quality and a bit thicker than usual) and still create the steam set-up you also described? Any tips to reduce the risk of overbaking the bottom too quickly? Would appreciate any thoughts you might have…excited to get going! 🙂
Thank you again Maurizio. I will share pictures from the bake. Best, Joe
it helps a lot. Thank you Maurizio. I’m currently working on country boule style that is 100% bread flour (900 g) and 100g of the hard red spring wheat. I think I will try to mix the BF with AP as you have suggested so that my 900g of white is more a combination of BF (300 g) and AF (600 g). What would you think about adding Einkorn AP to the mix, maybe as 300 g of the total 600 g AP?
Adding Einkorn would bring a lot of flavor but it can be challenging to work with as it doesn’t have the same gluten properties modern wheat has. That said, it’s a wonderful grain and I love it, you just have to work with it a little to get the feel for its effect on a dough.
Hey Maurizio, just found your site. What a wealth of information. Thank you for doing what you do to help all us bake better bread. I’m new to bread baking and have been using KAF bread flour to make my boule. My current bake is 900g KAF bread flour and 100g Wild hive hard red spring wheat. Would you recommend using KAF AP or a mix of AP and the bread flour?
You’re welcome, thanks for stopping by! I do like to mix Bread Flour and AP — I find 100% BF to be a little strong for most of my baking and I like to cut the higher gluten flour down to yield a less “gummy” result (in my experience). I try not to use over 50% high gluten flour, and rarely even this much, but it depends on the application at hand. Really the end percentage is up to you, but I usually start around 20% – 30% bread flour and then work down.
Hope that helps!
Thanks, Mark! I’m a huge fan of the Baking Steel (for pizza, also!). Here’s the Baking Steel I have and it’s still a workhorse here in my kitchen.
Happy baking!
Hello Maurizio. I’m a big fan of your site. Nice work. I’m switching from terra cotta to a stone of some sort to try and get a better bake on my bread. Would you get a steel or a stone if you had to choose, understanding that I would probably use a stone above either during the bake? Baking steel has a 1/2″, 32 lb steel.
Hey, Matthew! I use the plastic pizza dough trays from Breadtopia.com — not sure if those are the ones you’ve seen but they’re the ones I have and I really like them!
Hey Maurizio!
I had a question about where you got your pizza dough proofing box or which one you use. They seem oddly expensive for what they are and was just curious what you use!
That’s interesting. I use the MyWeigh scale I have listed up there every time I bake and I haven’t run into this issue. That scale will turn itself off after some period of time (which is incredibly annoying) but it usually doesn’t happen to me. I measure things rather quickly and typically get things off the scale before it turns off. I’ve heard of this happening to other people as well but it just hasn’t been an issue for me!
I have not noticed it happening more with liquid than solids — I’m not sure why it would make a difference. I always measure my liquids on top of the scale and pour in small amounts to get to my desired amount.
I’d say your issue is definitely more annoying than mine, though! Sorry I don’t have any suggestions except perhaps a new scale… Ugh!
Happy baking, Zach!
Haha! In my work I’m almost literally drowning in acronyms. Yeah, best to avoid them when you’re working with a diverse audience 🙂 I was just looking at a document with three pages of acronym descriptions at the beginning. Not sure that saves any space in the end…
Hey, I have a question on kitchen scales. My scale has an issue, and looking around online, others seem to have the same issue. It works great, EXCEPT it will often shut off while I’m adding weight. So 95% of the time, if I just set something on it, it weighs it just fine. But set a cup on there then pour water in? It will shut off, most of the time, while I’m pouring. Adding flour while it sits on the scale very very rarely has this effect. But it will sometimes happen. Is this just a cheap scale, or have you found a way to avoid it?
I think some people assume the scale is “timing out” and shutting off, but it seems to me it’s the addition of liquid (and sometimes solid), while the container is sitting on the scale, that causes it to shut off. Somehow water pouring in is different than adding a solid like flour. I don’t want to take the cup off, add some water, check the weight, take it back off etc. But you can imagine, if you’re slowly pouring water into your starter, and the scale shuts off halfway through…pretty annoying.
Have you run into this?
Oops! I’ll have to stop with all that 🙂 Here’s a key:
KAF = King Arthur Flour
FWSY = Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast — a book by Ken Forkish
BF = Bread flour (higher protein flour, around 13% protein)
AP = All purpose flour
CM = Central Milling flour from Utah
Hope that helps 🙂
what with all the abbreviations people ? what is KAF and FWSY, BF & CM ( AP ? all purpose – I do try ! )
So I currently have an easy supply of KAF and I was wondering if you recommend using their bread flour or their AP flour. So farm I have made all of the straight and preferment doughs by FWSY with AP flour since that’s what he called for. I now switched over to practicing levain doughs and I find a mixture of people asking for bread flour vs. AP flour. Which is recommended and why do you seem to use bread flour and not AP flour.
Hey! I tend to use less “bread” flour than traditional AP, especially with KAF. Their flour is quite strong in my experience and usually will either blend the two (80% AP to 20% BF, or similar) or just go straight AP. This all depends on what type of bread you’re making, of course! Hope that helps.
Hey Maurizio, thanks for running such a great resource. The shipping economics seem to make more sense on CM flours. At times you mention T70 as your go to, at other times it looks like Bakers Craft Plus. This is my first big order (going for the 50 lber) of flour, which of the two would you recommend to try first? I’ve been sticking to variations of your sourdough recipes.
You bet! Lately I’ve stopped ordering the T70 — it’s great flour but I’ve been working in a different direction. I’m currently using their Artisan Baker’s Craft Plus (ABC) and it’s great flour, kind of a staple bread flour if you will. I also really, really like their T85 which has more bran/germ in it and it’s somewhere in the middle between white flour and whole wheat. Either of those are solid choices but to start, I’d say go with a bag of ABC.
Happy baking, Jimmy!
Hi Maurizio, Is it necessary to have a mixer like the kitchenaid mixer? Best, Jerry
Jerry — nope, not necessary at all. I usually only use my KitchenAid mixer when making brioche dough, but even then it is possible to do it all by hand!
You’re very welcome, thank you! My flour selection depends on the bread I’m looking to make. If I’m after a mostly white loaf of bread then I’ll choose a flour that is lower extraction, meaning there’s not as much bran/germ left in the flour. I usually like to do a blend, though, and base my bread on some portion of white flour and some portion of whole grain. However, if I’m looking to do a more heartier loaf with a large percentage of whole grain I might just used whole wheat flour at 100%.
I will almost always choose the malted version if the option exists — malt helps add color to the crust, sometimes increases fermentation activity, and also helps with long rising dough (as is the case almost always here).
I hope that helps!
hello , Maurizo ! Always admire your wonderful breads also thank you for your wonderful baking tips !!
I have some questions about flour 🙂
I’ve been used “great river white bread flour & central milling ARTisan craft flour. (not malted)
Today when I try buy again central milling flours , there are few options about bread flours.
For example , ARTisan flour or malted ARTisan flour or type 85 and the others
Do you prefer to germ and bran removed flour ?(I mean just white flour) Or contain few germ and bran flour ?
Do you used malted flour ?
I’m usually put whole wheat flour 15~20% to my sourdough.
Very confused now 🙁 please help me thank you so much !!
Yes, absolutely. A pan loaf will work very well. You could lightly mist the top of the dough when you place your pan in the oven with a handheld spray bottle to help keep it a little moist and encourage maximal rise. Even that isn’t 100% necessary, though.
Happy baking!
Thank you Maurizio……