Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Any home baker will only be able to imitate making the classic loaf. Duplicating would entail opening a bakery dedicated to sourdough baking. The master starter uses yogurt to quickly get you baking. If you want to bake a loaf in 3 days this will get you there. Continue to feed the starter and you will not have to add the instant yeast when baking. After 3 days there is not a natural levin that will be ready to raise a loaf. Many production bakeries will still add instant yeast to their sourdough to guarantee a predictable production schedule. On to the book. It is not loaded with bread recipes. I'm thankful for that. It does give you a bunch of recipes to use bread in though. The pictures are nice. I made the basic loaf and you can see from the picture it came out very nice. Focus on simplicity. Bake the basic loaf many times. As you continue to feed the starter it will grow stronger as the microbial colony increases. Then you don't need to add the instant yeast. Adding the yogurt is a great idea to inoculate the dough with live cultures cutting weeks off the time it would take to grow them in a traditional method of making sourdough starter. I have done it and if feeding a starter everyday for a month is manageable in your life, go for it. If you just want to bake a loaf here and there then this will work great for you. If your looking for a book loaded with bread recipes I suggest Bread by Jeffery Hammelman. His book is by far probably to much for the average home baker. It is really geared for Professional and serious home bakers. Update: I have been maintaining the starter. I just baked the loafs in the second picture. No instant yeast needed. Ignore the negative reviews. How many bread recipes do you really need? Just one!