There really isn’t anything bad about sourdough bread. I love it period.

And working smarter not harder is a plus too.
A must buy for sourdough lovers.

This was a nice cookbook. I liked the variety of recipes and found them to be easy to follow. I will check out more from this author.

A good reference for both beginners, as well as, those seeking new inputs and perspectives. Also recommend this for people seeking to cook health yet satisfying bread.

Great book to learn how to make sourdough bread with a starter. Really enjoyed reading it and was very happy with how my bread turned out!

I don't know much about sourdough outside of what my co worker has mentioned to me. I was excited to read Smart Sourdough and I learned so much from the book. I'm not sure I would make my own.
ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

During the pandemic, many home bakers experimented with making sourdough bread. From there, an obsession with the care and feeding of sourdough starter was born. In his book, Smart Sourdough, Mark Shepard explains a streamlined approach to making a sourdough starter using an instant pot or sous vide together with some yeast to maintain a controlled temperature to cultivate and encourage lactobacillus growth quickly. While purists may protest this shortcut method to making the sourdough starter, apparently, this is the same method used by many commercial bakeries.

Whether or not you use Shepard's method to make a sourdough loaf, the book provides a lot of technical information to help you understand and appreciate the science behind the bread making process. The recipes are easy to follow, with pictures and clear instructions and they increase in complexity as you proceed through the book. Shepard has provided a clear and useful method for bakers to experience successful sourdough culture and baking.


Thank you NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thank you NetGalley and Mark Shepard for the ARC of Smart Sourdough. I have wasted so many sourdough starters over the years because I just didn’t have time to feed them. Finding a book on how to have delicious sourdough without a starter seemed a miracle. I learned so much about sourdough, the different types, flours used, equipment, and other ingredients with recipes. I now realize that sourdough is not something that can be made quickly, but is well worth the effort.

Whoa seriously no way!! Sourdough is my favorite bread (and as a bread lover that’s saying something!) but it’s super complicated. I’m sure there are people that will disagree but it always has been to me. This book takes all the scary parts out of the process and ends up with the same yumminess at the end. Brilliant!

I love good sourdough! And I have been making it from scratch for over a year now. So, I was super curious to pick up Smart Sourdough. But I was disappointed that they use baker's yeast with the sourdough. I am sensitive to baker's yeast and so this just doesn't work for me. Pretty bummed...I figured it would have been true sourdough.

Understandable and inspiring! Loved the recipes and different ways of using sour dough starter. Anyone who reads and wants to make sourdough will be able to after reading this book!
Recommend.

Smart Sourdough, by Mark Shepard, is a great next step for anyone who has been wanting to get into sourdough and has the equipment.

If you don't have the equipment that he describes exactly, you can still make these work, but you might find yourself getting just a tish frustrated.

The recipes themselves are well detailed and provide you step-by-step guidance through the process of making sourdough with an instapot or a contraption (whose name I can't remember) similar to a smart breadbox, that after reading and trying some of these recipes I really want to go buy.

Overall, this is an excellent choice for an experienced baker to shorten down their sourdough time, or for someone who is trying to get into sourdough, has some appliances, and want an easier approach than the traditional method.

I did recieve a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Smart Sourdough is everything you need to get started on your sourdough making journey. "A new approach to an ancient bread". If you're anything like me, you've been putting off making sourdough on the fear it's too complicated. This book caters to this type of reader and provides a new "No-Starter" "No-Fail." Way. This Smart Sourdough method is perfect for beginners who find the traditional process tedious, time consuming and complicated. The author identifies and answers some of the most common sourdough bread making myths. I felt the author could empathize with the reader's intimidation of making sourdough. This empathy makes the reader comfortable and confident in their ability to create a perfect loaf start to finish in less than a day, I am very visual so I like that there are lots of photos throughout the book. This book goes beyond making a loaf of plain sourdough. It includes recipes to spice up your loaf and use the dough in other ways - like pizza and pancakes.

Thank you Netgalley and Shepard Publications for letting me check out this book!


I am simply a beginner sourdough baker. I love the whole process, from the mixing to the folding, to smell of fresh bread cooling on your counter. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the necessity of discarding some starter to help keep my little Gigi (My starter) healthy and happy, however I wish I could do so with less waste. In comes Mark Shepard's book comes in!

This is a pretty interesting read. I'm in a handful of sourdough groups on Facebook, so his theory of using an Instant Pot or Sous Vide cooker to make bread wasn't a truly original idea, however he explains it clearly and simply. While it is simple, it feels a little bit like a "cheat" and is definitely not for the sourdough purist. I have come to love the habit of feeding my sourdough in prep of baking, so for me this process seemed unnecessary. The use of this "method" is more in lines of what commercial bakeries use to make their loaves and boules more reliably.

The most important part of sourdough making is that it's a loaf that tastes good that you enjoy to eat. I recommend you try out this technique for yourself if you want to rid yourself of a starter, and then decide for yourself if this is the direction you want to head with your baking.

This is a helpful cookbook that shows the reader shortcuts to making sourdough which do not involve keeping a supply of starter. Using an Instant Pot or Sous Vide cooker, you can make great sourdough bread without having to keep a starter fed for months.

The recipes are helpful and well explained.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley.

Great book for beginner sourdough bakers as it uses a shortcut that helps out a lot with this very intimidating process. I purchased it for my library!

This is a pretty amazing book and I think Sourdough aficionados who love to make their own products will be happy to read and perhaps give the method described a try. Mark Shepard is clearly more than an aficionado; he is akin to a savant on the subject. I was excited to find the book since I love sourdough, but I really hate the time I need to invest and the waste involved in chucking out the unused portions of my Starter before feeding. Being one of the “gimme immediate gratification” generation (in spirit if not in years), I found that the time involved in mucking around in the kitchen was no improvement on the standard preparation, while the method does in fact cut out waste. That being said, my time is a commodity I am unwilling to squander and is far dearer to me than tossing out a bit of water and flour every day, so the former is a deal breaker for me. Standard feeding of a Starter only takes a few minutes, and when I get tired of eating the rather unimpressive sourdough breads from the bakery down the street, I am not averse to starting my day by fiddling with the dough, letting it rest, fiddling again, waiting and then baking after work. Of course, my office is wherever I set up my computer, so this is a luxury I can afford.

I literally devoured the early pages of the book, gleaning a lot of helpful information, but when it got down to methodology my interest waned. I do think this might become a treatise for some, it clearly is for Shepard, and I recommend for serious fans of Sourdough preparation at home.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Shepard Publications, and Mark Shepard for an ARC of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

As far as I can see, this book covers every possible aspect of making what the author calls “smart” sourdough. I had been toying with the idea of making sourdough bread, but when I looked into it, it just seemed like too much work. I was attracted to the idea of using something like an instant pot to produce sourdough without all the fuss of feeding a starter for days and all the waste and mess that come with making it in the usual way. What I got was much more than just some recipes for baking good sourdough bread. The author has done an incredible amount of work and research to perfect his techniques, and he explains this in a way that incorporates science, is easy to understand, and seems achievable. I’m looking forward to trying his method for making sourdough.

While this book claims that "smart sourdough" is a lot simpler than "regular" sourdough, it appears that you need a lot of equipment for "smart sourdough" which isnt quite the stanard euqipment for a kitchen. I will way rather stick to letting my dough proof over night and spend more time waiting on the dough than spending all that money on fancy kitchen machines. Except for that the book has much interesting information about sourdough and great tips on different steps of the production, and the recipes do sound good.

Obviously a LOT of research went into this book. It is detailed to the point of obsession and is more of a text book on a different way to make sour dough than a cookery book! The result of my reading it is that I will not be bothering! I enjoy making bread and am a keen cook and baker but this book is not one I will be having on my shelf. Sorry!

I have been baking sourdough for more than 3 years so I was excited to learn other ways to do it. While this book is definitely a good resource for the beginner baker (especially with no techniques), it wasn't as extensive as I would have liked. I am really excited to try baking in my instant pot though!