Food & DrinkExplain Like I'm 5Beginner
Everyday Sourdough Baking, a free food & drink course on Tomo

Everyday Sourdough Baking

Bake crusty, bakery-quality sourdough loaves around your actual work schedule. Master simple starter maintenance, read dough readiness by touch and sight, and harness your home oven for an incredible rise.

Like Duolingo, but for Everyday Sourdough Baking. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Working with Living Dough and Shaping, Steaming, and Baking. It starts from scratch.

12 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Barnaby the Bear, the guide who teaches the Everyday Sourdough Baking course
Everyday Sourdough Baking
with Barnaby the Bear
12
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Everyday Sourdough Baking

  • A starter left at room temperature quickly consumes its food and needs daily feedings to stay healthy
  • Cold temperatures in the refrigerator slow yeast and bacteria activity, pausing fermentation safely for weeks
  • Bringing a chilled starter back to room temperature and feeding it revives it in time for weekend baking
  • A starter at peak yeast activity expands to double or triple its original volume
  • Gas bubbles evenly distributed throughout the jar and a domed surface show the yeast is actively expanding dough
  • A flat or sunken top with pooled liquid indicates the starter has peaked and begun collapsing
  • A classic sourdough feeding uses equal weights of starter, flour, and water
  • Equal weights of water and flour produce 100% hydration, giving the starter a thick, spoonable paste consistency
  • Measuring by weight rather than volume ensures the flour-to-water balance stays consistent
  • Warm or lukewarm water speeds up yeast fermentation, making the starter peak in fewer hours
  • Cool water slows fermentation down, buying extra hours before the starter reaches its peak
  • Refrigeration halts active growth almost completely for long-term storage
  • Feeding without discarding requires doubling the amount of flour and water every single feeding, quickly creating gallons of starter
  • Discarding keeps the total volume manageable while providing enough fresh food to refresh the yeast and dilute built-up acidity
  • Discard can be baked into recipes like pancakes and crackers rather than wasted
  • Wild yeast and bacteria in sourdough ferment much slower in cold rooms and faster in warm ones
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Everyday Sourdough Baking the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

Keeping Your Starter Happy

What happens when you put your sourdough starter in the fridge?

Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.

Course map

How to learn Everyday Sourdough Baking, step by step

Go in order. 12 short levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes in all, five minutes a day.

  1. 1

    Working with Living Dough

    • Managing Your Starter on a Busy Schedule
    • Reading Fermentation by Sight and Touch
  2. 2

    Shaping, Steaming, and Baking

    • Building Surface Tension and Scoring
    • Mastering Steam and the Oven Spring

2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

Questions

Questions about Everyday Sourdough Baking

  1. How do I learn Everyday Sourdough Baking?

    Go in order: start with Working with Living Dough, then Shaping, Steaming, and Baking. On Tomo that's 12 short levels, about 24 minutes in all, played five minutes a day. Start free and play the first level in under a minute.

  2. Is there a Duolingo-style app for Everyday Sourdough Baking?

    Yes. Tomo works like Duolingo: short daily lessons, streaks and quick quizzes. Everyday Sourdough Baking is one of its free courses, and you can type any other topic to get a course of your own.

  3. Is the Everyday Sourdough Baking course free?

    Yes. Everyday Sourdough Baking is playable on Tomo's free plan, which doesn't expire. No credit card, no waitlist. Download the app and start your first lesson.

  4. How long does it take to learn Everyday Sourdough Baking?

    12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes of play in total. It's built for five minutes a day, so you finish it a little at a time instead of all at once.

  5. Do I need any background to start Everyday Sourdough Baking?

    No. It's pitched at a beginner level, so it starts where you are and builds up. If you can tap a phone, you can start.

New

Tomo is in ChatGPT

Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.

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How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
Explain Like I'm 5

Everyday Sourdough Baking is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Start free

Start Everyday Sourdough Baking today.

Download Tomo, search Everyday Sourdough Baking, and play your first lesson in under a minute.