The Sourdough Sidekick automates the boring bit of baking

Baking sourdough breadstuff is inherently old-fashioned, relying connected earthy fermentation and chaotic yeast alternatively of the simple, predictable commercialized stuff. So it mightiness sound anathema to bring a gadget into the mix.

The instrumentality to the Sourdough Sidekick — backed and branded by King Arthur flour — is that it promises to automate the boring spot of sourdough baking: starter management. It feeds your starter flour and h2o connected a group schedule, fresh for precisely erstwhile you want to bake, leaving you to attraction connected kneading, shaping, and the existent baking.

Like immoderate single-purpose room gadget, you’ll person to beryllium assured you’ll get capable usage to warrant some the costs and the antagonistic space. That’s doubly existent present acknowledgment to a fewer creation quirks that make the Sourdough Sidekick frustrating to usage if you don’t cook aggregate times a week.

The Sourdough Sidekick is simply a associated task by FirstBuild — the GE Appliances “innovation hub” responsible for the viral Opal crystal maker — and King Arthur Baking Company, which is why you’ll spot the latter’s logo connected the front. It launched pinch a crowdfunding campaign successful March 2025, but it’s now disposable to bargain straight from King Arthur for $179.99 — though it’s US-only.

The basal cognition is beautiful simple. You driblet a mini magnitude of existing starter into the crock — 15g, aliases a tablespoon’s worthy — and capable the 2 dispensers pinch flour and water. On Auto mode, you past show the Sidekick erstwhile you want to make bread, and really overmuch starter you’ll request for your recipe, and it will drip-feed flour and h2o connected a move schedule that takes into relationship the section temperature, mixing arsenic it goes, truthful that you extremity up pinch the correct magnitude of starter, astatine its highest of activity, correct erstwhile you request it.

Using a elemental achromatic breadstuff flour, this worked a treat. I told the Sidekick I wanted to cook successful a fewer days’ time, near it alone, and came backmost to find my starter strong, healthy, and fresh to cook a beautiful decent achromatic loaf. If thing my breadstuff came retired overproofed, suggesting the Sidekick produced a much progressive starter than I usually negociate by myself.

You don’t person to usage achromatic flour, though immoderate clip you move flours, you’ll person to walk a fewer minutes recalibrating the Sidekick to relationship for the different densities. It handled astir full wheat and rye flours conscionable fine, though erstwhile I tried an particularly coarse-milled rye flour from British miller Landrace for a dense Danish-style rye loaf, the resulting starter proved excessively heavy for the Sidekick to operation properly, leaving maine pinch barren clumps and bladed patches. The starter needed much h2o to scope the correct texture, but for that I needed to time off the pointedly elemental Auto mode.

Auto mode has a fewer different limitations. It’s designed to activity pinch precisely 15g of starter to statesman with, truthful you’ll person to measurement that retired each clip to get the proportions right. More annoyingly, it has overseas limits to the minimum magnitude of starter it’s consenting to make. Set a cook time a fewer days retired and it’ll fto you nutrient arsenic small arsenic 150g, but purpose for 4 days aliases longer and it insists connected making astatine slightest 400g. That’s acold much than I usually usage successful a azygous loaf, resulting successful overmuch much discard (excess starter you won’t usage to bake) than my manual feeding ever creates.

There’s nary action to group the Sidekick into an Auto attraction mode. You have to group a cook day, and that has to beryllium wrong the adjacent week. That’s awesome if you cognize you’ll beryllium baking soon and when. But sometimes I conscionable want to support my starter live and don’t cognize for judge erstwhile I’ll adjacent request a loaf of bread. In that case, you either person to group an arbitrary target day and fto it create immoderate discard, aliases propulsion the main crock retired of the machine, popular the lid on, and instrumentality the full point successful the fridge for a fewer days.

The Sidekick has 2 different modes, Ratio and Custom, which are a small much flexible. While Auto feeds your starter pinch flour and h2o astatine a 1:1:1 ratio, Ratio mode gives you a fewer preset ratios to prime from and lets you group the starter seed magnitude and the feeding frequency. The overseas limitation is that the group ratios only alteration the proportionality of starter comparative to the different ingredients. Ratio mode doesn’t fto you adhd unequal amounts of flour and h2o to make a starter that’s either thicker aliases thinner than normal — precisely what I needed for my coarse rye flour.

For that you request Custom mode. This lets you group the seed amount, the feeding frequency, and the nonstop quantities of flour and h2o you want astatine each feed. I was capable to usage it to make a somewhat looser starter for my rye, bladed capable for the Sidekick to happily mix, and it should beryllium imaginable to usage it to create a civilization attraction mode pinch micro-feeds. FirstBuild besides provides instructions for utilizing Custom to make a starter from scratch — I managed to get a patient caller starter up and moving successful 4 days — aliases rehab 1 that’s connected its past legs. Just statement that neither Ratio nor Custom mode return into relationship the ambient temperature, dissimilar Auto, truthful won’t set the feeding schedule if it’s particularly lukewarm aliases cool, and you’ll person to show really progressive your starter is yourself.

The Sidekick isn’t really a smart location gadget. There is simply a Wi-Fi action and an app, but they’re easy to ignore. The app will nonstop notifications erstwhile your starter is fresh to usage aliases discard needs to beryllium removed, but the built-in surface does that too. Otherwise the app lets you cheque the Sidekick’s existent settings, but not alteration them. There’s small compelling logic to usage it.

FirstBuild recommends that you cleanable the solid crock, lid, and paddle betwixt each feeding rhythm to forestall unwelcome buildup. It makes sense, but the crock and lid aren’t dishwasher-safe, truthful you’ll person to lavation those by hand. Less frequently, you’re recommended to lavation the h2o vessel and flour hopper, but those astatine slightest tin beryllium popped into the dishwasher.

The Sidekick is besides oddly noisy. By default, it stirs the starter erstwhile each 2 hours, which involves 30 seconds of large whirring each time. Since it’ll apt beryllium successful your kitchen, that’s astir apt fine, but successful a mini abstraction for illustration a workplace apartment, it mightiness get connected your nerves.

I can’t spot myself buying the Sourdough Sidekick, but that’s mostly me. My room is excessively mini to warrant single-purpose appliances (coffee instrumentality excepted), and my fiancée is counting down the days until she tin reclaim the antagonistic abstraction and get free of the mixing sounds each 2 hours.

I besides don’t cook capable to get the astir retired of it. I make 1 loaf a week astatine astir and usually less. I’d beryllium taking my starter successful and retired of the Sidekick connected the regular, astir apt manually feeding it betwixt weeks successful the fridge, losing half the use of having it successful the first place.

But if I had a bigger room and baked doubly a week? I fishy I’d beryllium happy to ain a instrumentality that takes attraction of the 1 spot of baking I don’t really attraction for. And I suppose my partner would conscionable person to make her bid pinch the noise.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge