This book was really good and my bread turned out well.
A little confusing in some areas but overall a great resource to have in the kitchen

The fundamental premise of this book is that the uniqueness of sourdough rests primarily, not on wild yeasts, but on bacteria. Consequently, if the hydration and temperature are controlled (and the dough kept warmer than the typical room temperature), the desired bacteria can be fostered within a 24-hour period, with no need for a starter. This, of course, eliminates both the hassle and waste of constantly feeding and discarding starter. The principles are much the same as for ferments such as sauerkraut.

Unfortunately, this relies on such careful control of the environment that it seems it would be too much hassle for my taste to use this method for anything other than the basic sandwich bread a household makes on a routine basis. It doesn't adjust easily to different quantities, etc.

On the plus side, there's a good deal of information in this book about the nature of sourdough, how the environmental conditions affect it, etc. that can be applied to a more traditional sourdough preparation even if you should choose not to use this method. This information also provides some background for why (and how) different regions have different traditional breads and preparation methods.

All in all, this is worth the read even if you have no intention of using Shepard's no-starter method -- and it's a fairly quick read.

Well this book is a very in-depth guide to baking bread in your instant pot. It cover everything in this book and is more intensive then some that want you to bake the more traditional method. I think this is great for those with instant cookers who want to take a crack at breadmaking.

I think this book will be a hit with a a lot of people, like me, who worry about the time and quantity of waste from normal sourdough starters. Shepherd walks bakers through the logic and method to achieve the best results with his new starter and honestly, I appreciated it all. I can't wait to get started.

I have always loved to bake and wanted to make bread with sourdough, but like others, was intimidated by it. I am so glad that I was able to get this book and read it. Not only am I looking forward to making some of the breads in this recipe book, but I can't want to experiment. Such a great book to learning about how to start sourdough and the different things that can be made with it.

I am a long-time sourdough dough bread maker and was curious to see what this book was about. I was very confused. This book is really about a mixture of sourdough and commercial yeast, as the writer thinks he finds this method the best. He also advocates for a sous-vide, an instapot and a Broad and Talylor warmer to help get a desired loaf.
As most books and sites use metrics, he is using cups. Alot of what he does is a total new method and counter to what seems the new standard. You must be patient with all his methods and reasons.
I must say that I have not tried baking his method, so can not say if it yields a superior bread.

Make sourdough in 24 hours without starter? Sign me up! I had no idea that sourdough bread was so technical, so after reading this cookbook, I decided it’s just way out of my comfort zone and I’ll leave it to the experts, people who have time and skills and continue to purchase my sourdough loaves. This author is highly educated in the science of sourdough, so if you are inclined, this is your book! There is a ton of information on the entire process, equipment needed, and thorough explanation of ingredients. Also, there are lots of yummy sounding recipes to try!

Thank you Netgalley, Shepard Publications and the author for this eARC in e change for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Shepard Publishing for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

Making bread is always an interesting endeavor, and sourdough has a reputation for being the most difficult. Since Sourdough is one of my partner’s favorite types of bread, if not his actual favorite, it only made sense to try out a sourdough cookbook where we didn’t need to worry about a starter and there is not supposed to be any waste. We busted out his mom’s trusty instant pot, threw together some makeshift radiant heating tools as described by the book, and got to work on the 18-hour process. End result? We had bread! Was it sourdough? I mean I guess technically yes, we made it from the sourdough book, and it had some tang to it. Did it taste like what I thought it would and be a somewhat sour squishy bread? Nope. It was a very dense loaf with a tight crumb, but it was very squishy & soft still – a good bread overall! This book was not incredibly difficult to use but it also wasn’t the most user friendly of all cookbooks. I like cookbooks where I can open to a recipe and find exactly what I need to know there on that page, with maybe a glance here or there for notes on something that was referenced previously, or tips/tricks on how to make something better. This is not one of those books. The first part of this book is just explaining the myths behind sourdough bread (super cool!), all the right tools of the trade, and some baseline info about using his book. Basically, the majority of the beginning of the book is very technical information that almost made me feel like if I wasn’t following this to a T then I would mess it up, and I just don’t like cooking that way. My partner’s mom is a pretty good baker and even she was struggling with the format of the book. But to be clear, the bread turned out good and we fully intend to try other recipes/versions of this, but this is not for the beginner baker, that’s for sure. This is more of a technical book about bread, for those advanced beadmakers, but I still enjoyed getting to read this book (and eat the bread we made!). 3.5/5

This is a very useful guide to Sourdough.

It’s easy to read and one that you’d definitely refer to again and again.

I’ve recently become an avid sour dough baker. I’m a work in progress. This book was a good read. Anyone interested in trying different methods will find this book captivating. Thanks 😊

I’ve been trying to get the perfect sourdough for awhile and became so frustrated with feeding the darned starter that I eventually just tossed it out. I hate being wasteful and feeding the starter was just that. Feed it, though out some of the good stuff and repeat until you make a loaf. Sure, there are things you can do with that excess, but I really didn’t want those things, so I passed.

Enter Smart Sourdough and it’s a game changer. No, I haven’t tried the recipes yet, but the history and science of sourdough are covered really well in this book and I believe this is going to be a great way to move forward and not waste flour and starter. I have both an Instant Pot and a sous vide, so I’m ready to give this a try after the holidays.

If you’ve ever wanted to try making your own sourdough, but the though of a starter turns you off, this book is for you!

Interesting and I learnt a lot and have been using Mark's recipes for the last few months and they have worked. Not too complicated and easy to use.

I was given a free copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

This was a great cookbook and I really enjoyed reading through the recipes. I've never made sourdough before and I definitely found some recipes that I will be making.

At first glance, I thought this book would give me some kind of short cut to making sourdough bread. I’m not sure what kind of short cut I was thinking of but this book definitely was not going to provide that. Not that the book is not worthy of reading but short cuts, there are none. As a matter of fact, there are a great deal of minute details. If you have the time, you will learn a great deal and if you have more time, you might try using the methods discussed herein to actually bake the bread herein. The author talks about the temperature of sourdough and heating methods….at great length. There are recipes for a variety of flours used to make sourdough bread. He discusses the variety of bakeware used, grinding your own flour, as well as making sourdough pizza. One can have a great deal of fun reading through this book. Just make sure, one has a great deal of time.

If you are looking to join the Sourdough craze, but don't want to have to have a starter sitting around, then you should pick this book up. It gives you easy to follow directions and "normal" ingredients to make sourdough. This is a great starting point for those that want a faster version of sourdough and still get the great and unique tatse that is sourdough bread.

This is the perfect book for learning about sourdough. I've had an interest in making my own bread for awhile but never really knew where to start. A friend gave me a sourdough starter and that was that. I started looking for good information on how to use sourdough and what all you could use it in. One day while looking for new reads on Netgalley, I came across Smart Sourdough. Problem solved! All the information I was looking for in one place.

I love sourdough bread but too often sourdough isn't true sourdough at all and you can really tell the difference in taste between homemade and store bought. I do try to buy them at farmers markets and organic stores when I can. I've aspired to try to make my own for a while now but procrastinated as the process seems daunting to me and prone to failure. This book provides lots of information on the ingredients, equipment, conditions and method of making sourdough and there's plenty sourdough variation recipes including tomato basil, middle eastern and chocolate cherry sourdough. This book is helpful and provides lots of detail, but I do feel it's more directed at people who are experienced bread makers that are looking for a new and improved/efficient way of making sourdough. I haven't tried to make any yet (I will update this review after I've tried it) but it looks to be a good reference guide, even though I'm expecting to make many trial and error sourdoughs along the way due to my own limitations as a beginner. Thanks to NetGalley and Shepard Publications for an advance copy of this book.

When I started reading this book I was very eager to get to the actual method for making sour dough bread without a starter. The build up was great but when I did get to the method it is not quite as simple as I believed it was going to be. The gadgets required to maintain temperature and the feeding every few hours means that it is still a very involved process, I mean I do like making bread from scratch but sadly I have too much going on to babysit this every time my family needs a loaf. A little disappointed.

I love this book! I have always been afraid of baking bread, as It just seemed too tedious to me. This method seems a little technical to me but I will definitely try it. Life will be so much simpler and smell like sourdough bread.
Many thanks to Shepard Publications and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I requested this because I wanted to try something different. Well I got that in page fulls.

I did not realise sourdough was so technical. If you want to experiment and try these recipes I'd say go for it. But for me this is way out of my comfort zone.

It's a good book with some wonderful recipes.

Enjoy!