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Special equipment: Straight-sided vessel for the bulk fermentation, Dutch oven, flour-sack towel
Here's my list of essentials for sourdough bread baking.
Digital Scale: Do not attempt this recipe without a scale. This one costs $9. Troubleshooting what goes wrong with sourdough bread is impossible if you've measured with cups. They're simply not accurate.
Troubleshooting: If you have issues with your dough being too sticky, please read this post: Why is my sourdough so sticky? The 4 common mistakes.
Flour:

I prefer making this bread with 350g bread flour and 50g of freshly milled, stone-milled flour, which provides both flavor and color. (Read the post above for more details and why I suggest stone-milled flour as opposed to commercial whole wheat flour.) I've been using a mix of Anson Mills graham flour and rye flour, but there are many great stone-milled flours out there, and you may have a local source, which is even better.
50g may seem like a tiny amount of stone-milled flour for this recipe, but I am constantly amazed by how much flavor this small amount of freshly milled flour adds. If you are new to sourdough baking, I recommend starting with 100% bread flour (King Arthur Flour is my preference) because it's so forgiving and easy to work with. Once you get the hang of it, start incorporating stone-milled flour a little bit at a time. I don't like using more than 100g (25%) of stone-milled flour in this recipe.
If you cannot find bread flour — I know supplies are limited at the moment — you can use all-purpose flour. If you live in a humid climate, consider reducing the water by 20 g. You can add the 20 g of water in slowly while you mix until the dough resembles that in the video/photos. 

Salt:
I like breads to be a little bit saltier than standard. If you are sensitive to salt, start with 8g. Next time, adjust salt as you wish.

Easy Sourdough Bread (Whole Wheat-ish)

400 g bread flour, see notes above

kosher salt

water

g sourdough starter

rice flour,

Mix the dough

In a large bowl, combine the water, starter, and salt. Stir with a rubber spatula to loosely combine. Add the flour, and stir with a spatula to combine — it will be a wet, sticky dough ball. Transfer to a straight-sided vessel and cover with a tea towel or bowl cover for 30 minutes.

Stretch and fold

. After 30 minutes, grab a corner of the dough and pull it up and into the center. Repeat until you&#8217;ve performed this series of folds 4 to 5 times with the dough. Let dough rest for another 30 minutes and repeat the stretching and folding action. If you have the time: do this twice more for a total of 4 times in 2 hours. [Video guidance here.] Note: Even if you can only perform one series of stretches and folds, your dough will benefit. So don&#8217;t worry if you have to run off shortly after you mix the dough.

Bulk fermentation

Cover the vessel with a tea towel or bowl cover and let rise at room temperature  (70ºF/21ºC) for 4 to 18 hours (times will vary based on the time of year, the humidity, and the temperature of your kitchen). The bulk fermentation will end when the dough has nearly doubled in volume and you can see bubbles throughout the dough and on the surface. (Note: Do not use your oven with the light on for the bulk fermentation — it is too warm for the dough.  To determine when the bulk fermentation is done, it is best to rely on visual cues (doubling in volume) as opposed to time. A straight-sided vessel makes monitoring the bulk fermentation especially easy because it allows you to see when your dough has truly doubled.)

Shape

Gently transfer the dough to clean work surface. I prefer to use no flour and a bench scraper at this step, but if you find an un-floured work surface to be difficult, feel free to lightly flour it. [Video guidance is especially helpful for this step.] Fold the dough, envelope style: top third over to the center; bottom third up and over to the center. Then repeat from right to left. Turn the dough over and use your bench scraper to push the dough up, then back towards you to create a tight ball. Repeat this pushing and pulling till you feel you have some tension in your ball. Place the dough ball top side down and let rest 30 to 40 minutes. (FYI: This is called the bench rest.)

Proof

Line a shallow 2-qt bowl (or something similar) with a tea towel or flour sack towel. Flour sack towels are amazing because the dough doesn&#8217;t stick to them, and therefore you need very little rice flour, but if you only have a tea towel, you will be fine. If you are using a tea towel, sprinkle it generously with rice flour. If you are using a flour sack towel, you can use a lighter hand with the rice flour. After the 30-to 40-minute bench rest, repeat the envelope-style folding and the bench scraper pushing and pulling till you have a tight ball. [Video guidance here.] Place the ball top side down in your prepared towel-lined bowl. Cover bowl with overhanging towel. Transfer bowl to the fridge for 12 to 24 hours. (Note: When you remove your dough from the fridge, visually it will likely look unchanged. This is OK. You do not need to let it then proof at room temperature before baking.)

Bake

Heat oven to 500ºF. You do not have to preheat your Dutch oven. Because my Dutch oven essentially lives in my oven, I always preheat it these days, but know that you do not have to. Remove your sourdough from the fridge. Open the towel. Place a sheet of parchment over the bowl. Place a plate over the parchment. With a hand firmly on the plate and one on the bowl, turn the dough out onto the parchment-paper lined plate. [Video guidance here.] Carefully remove the bowl and towel. Carefully remove the plate. Brush off any excess rice flour. Use a razor blade to score the dough as you wish. I always do a simple X. Grab the ends of the parchment paper and transfer to the Dutch oven. [Video guidance here.] Cover it. Lower oven temperature to 450ºF, bake covered for 30 minutes. Uncover. Lower temperature to 400ºF. Bake for 10 minutes more or until the loaf has darkened to your liking. Transfer loaf to a cooling rack.

Cool

Let loaf cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting.

Hi Alexandra :)

I really wanted to take the time to write you a comment but you truly deserve it! I really loved your explanation in dept on what works and why it works, why it doesn’t, how you explain your preferences.

I’m in Canada, more precisely in Montreal and the weather has been the most hectic the past weeks, which made my loaves inconsistant. I then stumbled on this recipe and it just changed everything. The first time I made the recipe, I started off with 250g of water, as per your recommandation because it was a very humid day, but ended up adding 10 more g because it was really tough and it ended up being a 65% hydration. Then, I did the folds and went in for bulk ferment, and exclusively relied on visual cue to know when it would be ready to shape. All that said, it went perfectly well until I went to transfer it onto my work surface. I didn’t take in account that my room temp was way too hot and my dough ended up being too wet and became a litteral unworkable pancake haha. That being said, I still managed to put the blob into a batard shape and cold proof it for 14 hrs. I baked the loaf and... it was a flop... it sunk it the middle and it really was the funniest loaf I had make thus far, but by far the one where I learned and understood the most the process.

You taught me that my sourdough bread didn’t have to be a 75%+ hydration to be great bread loaf, that temperature had everything to do with the process, that visual cue just tells you everything you needed to know and that taking notes was the most important tool in the process to keep improving. That being said, I tried again, same recipe, slightly different process and controlled room temp. Here’s how it went in case anybody else wanted to know : 
350g of bread flour 
50g of rye flour
260g of water
100g of mature sourdough starter
8g of salt

I did some slaps and folds before going into a fold process because I felt like it gave more strenght to my dough. My house was at a 22C and 34% humidity. I knew today was going to be quite a long day of bulk ferment (including the folds) it took me a total of 6,5hrs to reach a decent rise. I then transfered the dough to my work surface, preshaped it and let it rest for 20mins. It kept a nice height while resting which gave me and indicator that it would be a great loaf. I then turned the dough, used the shoelace method to shape it in a shape that would fit my batard and cold proofed for 14 hours. I preheated my oven at 500F with the DO in, at the 13 hours mark (which I think I could play with and maybe preheat at 475F because tasted fairly bitter and burnt), took the loaf out, scorr it, put the DO back to the oven, covered, lower the temp at 450F and baked it for 20mins before removing the cover and keep the bake at the same temp for 20mins. The result was incredible! The loaf was a decent dark color, it has a great rise, a great ear, the inside was soft and chewy just like I’ve always dreamed of and for this, a thousand thank you for teaching me the basic instinct of baking sourdough!

How can I adjust this recipe to accommodate high altitude? I recently moved from Arizona to colorado and am now loving at nearly 8000 ft. I use King Arthur Flours. 
In Arizona your recipe worked out perfectly every time. Thank you for your great instructions, troubleshooting, and videos!

Yay, success with the recipe as written even at 8000 ft elevation.
Thank you again for such a great, foolproof recipe!

Thank you for sharing your sourdough wisdom! I tried the recipe (well sort of, I doubled it so I would have enough bread for my husband and I for the week). Overall, the flavour of this recipe was the best ive made so far! Ive always been scared of a long bulk/proof worried I would over do it and the bread would start to deflate, but I had no such problems. The sourdough had a beautiful crust, chewy and not so crunchy that you tear off the roof of your mouth. 

I still have some improvements to make, I struggled with such a high hydration dough and should have followed your recommendation to cut back on the water. I didn’t get a good oven spring, but I think I may not be developing enough gluten in the fold and stretch phase. I’ll try the window pane test next time and maybe just stick to a half batch :) 

Thanks again for sharing!

This is a wonderful easy to follow recipe! The bread is awesome!  It’s was the first SD bread I tried.  I have since tried one other but this is the best and easiest for me! Thank you!

Thank you for sharing the recipe. Its my first attempt with sourdough stater and your instructions are very useful. May I have a question. After I take the dough out of fridge and make a X cut, how long should it rest before I can put it in the oven? 
Thank you! 

Hi Alexandra,
I’m wondering if there is a way to speed up the refrigerator proofing if one does not have quite the 18 hour proofing time. I’ve had great success with your recipe but have not tried shorter times, and have had occasionally been short on time and then needed to alter my schedules due to waiting for 18 hours..  
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. My kids and I love this bread!
Toma

I’ve been making sourdough and other breads for a few years with a mix of success and failure. This is an EXCELLENT recipe. My loaf (made with 350g of white bread flour and 50g of rye) turned out light and lovely. I will be using this technique from now on. Thank you!!!

Many thx. Instructions very clear. Going to give it a try soon.

Thank you so much for your recipes! I hardly ever write reviews but I've made 3 of your sourdough bread recipes and they've all come out amazing thank you 😊

Hi Ali, sourdough beginner here with 10 loaves baked so far, and I'm about to start on your recipe tomorrow (from strict covid lockdown here in Sydney, Australia). 

When you talk about the first fermentation "doubling in size" and then you mention it increasing by 50% in volume. I am taking it that doubling in size actually means growing in volume by 100%?

Here's my math, 50% growth would mean that a clump of dough in your straight-sided canister (great idea!) that grows from 5cm tall initially to 7.5cm tall has grown by 50%, while a 5cm dough that has grown to 10cm has grown by 100%. 

Sorry about the metrics, but that's how we measure stuff in Australia these days.
So is that right, am I aiming for 100% actual growth?

(And by the way, my local wholefoods supplier has some lovely stone-milled wholegrain flour grown from heritage wheat varieties which had gone out of circulation for many years, but which artisan bakeries in South Australia have revived by growing and stone-milling their own flours).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uwnasygzLk

Simple Sourdough Bread: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

This is as simple as they come as far as sourdough bread recipes go — there's no pre-ferment or autolyse, no fancy scoring, no banneton. It's a 75% hydration dough, and with a bench scraper and minimal handling, it's easy to shape into a beautiful boule.

Simple Sourdough Bread: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Slow-cooked beef cheek

Beef stock

Tbsp Rice bran oil

Carrots, diced

Onions, diced

Celery, diced

Garlic cloves,

Tbsp Tomato paste

Red wine

Bay leaf

thyme

⅕ kgs Beef cheeks, 1 cheek per serve (Main)

Salt

Heat the oven to 140C. Bring the beef stock to the boil. Heat the oil and fry the vegetables, garlic and tomato paste for 10 minutes to lightly caramelise. Turn the heat up to high, add the red wine and reduce by half.

Season the beef cheeks with salt and pepper then place them in an ovenproof casserole (or use a slow cooker). Add in the reduced wine and vegetables. Add the herbs and cover with beef stock.

Cover with a tight-fitting lid and cook in the oven for 3 hours.

To make the glazing sauce, strain off half the cooking juices into a saucepan, bring this to the boil and reduce until thick and syrupy.

To serve, gently reheat the cheeks in the remaining cooking juices. When hot, carefully lift them out and place them into the glazing sauce. Smother with sauce and serve with creamy potato mash and a warm salad of greens (I have steamed brussels sprout leaves, peas, and broad beans, then tossed them with a little olive oil and sea salt flakes).

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