Made by a baker,
for home bakers.
We started The Sourdough Hub because we couldn't find a sourdough kit we'd be proud to give as a gift. So we spent two years making one — and we still pack every single box ourselves, by hand, in Somerset.
A kitchen in Somerset,
fifteen years ago.
I started baking sourdough in 2010, when my youngest was two and I needed something slow to do on Sunday mornings. I wasn't a professional. I'd never worked in a bakery. I just wanted bread that tasted like something — bread that didn't require a confession of guilt about its provenance every time I cut into it.
It took months to get it right. I killed three starters. I baked more than a few bricks. I read every book I could find — Jeffrey Hamelman, Chad Robertson, Vanessa Kimbell, Emmanuel Hadjiandreou — and tested everything in them, because most baking writing is so confidently authoritative that you don't realise the writers disagree until you compare. What I wished, more than any single piece of advice, was that someone had handed me the right things in one beautiful box and said: here, this is all you need. You'll be fine.
I made several thousand loaves between then and now. I started teaching, in a small way, at a bakery in Bath. I noticed the same beginner questions every single time. The same worries. The same point at which someone almost gave up — usually around day five of trying to raise a starter, when the smell goes from yeasty to faintly chemical and feels like a sign of failure when in fact it is a sign of progress.
Fifteen years after that first sticky Sunday, I finally made the box. Every component was chosen by hand — not because it was cheapest, not because it was easiest to source, but because it was the right thing for a first-time baker. The live starter culture has been continuously fed in our Somerset kitchen since 2014. The stoneware crock was designed for us by a ceramicist in Bridport, after a year of prototypes — most kits don't include a fermentation vessel at all, but a glass jar makes it harder to read the rise and the wrong shape gives the wrong rhythm. The 28-day booklet was rewritten three times and tested with 300 home bakers before we sent it to print.
This will never be a big business. We pack every kit by hand at our small unit in Frome. We know every supplier, by first name and by phone number. We taste every flour batch before it goes out. We read every review. None of that scales — and that is precisely the point.
Three things we'll never compromise on.
Honestly small batch
We make about forty kits a week. We're not going to start making four hundred. Small means every detail stays right — the crock fits the kit, the flour is fresh, the starter is alive and healthy when it leaves us. The day we have to choose between scale and care, we will choose care every time.
Only what's needed
We're not interested in padding the box with photogenic objects that don't help you bake. If it's in the kit, it earns its place. We've removed more things than we've added — including, in early prototypes, a digital thermometer (the right approach is to feel the dough), a silicone mat (it gets in the way), and a branded apron (we're not in the apron business).
Suppliers we actually know
The flour comes from a stone mill in Shropshire we've visited three times. The crock is made in Bridport. The linen cloth is sourced from a family-run mill in Northern Ireland. The booklet is printed by a small press in Frome. We could source most of these things cheaper. We won't, because we know who's at the other end and we'd like to keep them in business.
From supplier to your doorstep.
We source the ingredients
Every flour batch is opened and tasted before it goes into the kits. Our starter culture is fed in our Somerset kitchen on a Friday morning, every Friday morning.
We gather the tools
The crock, linen, lame and scraper are checked individually. Anything that doesn't meet standard goes back. We have never shipped a chipped crock and we don't intend to start.
We pack by hand
Every kit is packed by a person. We fold the linen ourselves. We sign the guidebook. We add the handwritten card. We check every box before it closes.
It arrives with you
Shipped within two working days. Everything inside is protected to arrive in perfect condition — including the live starter, packed in a cool-safe paper liner, alive and ready to wake up.
A small team with a lot of flour on their hands.
Fifteen years of sourdough, two decades of cooking, one twelve-year-old starter culture called Marguerite, and a strongly-held opinion about the correct angle to score a batard.
Clara's husband. Quietly responsible for everything that actually makes things happen — spreadsheets, logistics, supplier calls, very good at lifting boxes. Was a project manager in another life.
Has packed more than a thousand kits and still checks every one of them with the same care as the first. Bakes her own loaves at home most weekends. Pet starter named Dennis.
Answers every customer message personally. Knows the most common sourdough problems better than almost anyone we've spoken to. Patient, kind, and unfailingly excellent at calming people down on day five.
Ready to bake
your first loaf?
Everything you need is in one beautiful box, packed by hand in Somerset and delivered free anywhere in the UK. We'd love to be part of your first loaf — and every loaf after that.
Get the Starter Kit — £78