SourTube: Sourdough Baguettes From Scratch (feat. Baker Bry)

📺 SourTube pick: This is a curated video — we didn't make it, we just love it and think you will too. All credit belongs to the creator below. Watch it, learn from it, then go show them some love.

Today's pick: Sourdough Baguettes From Scratch | Every Step Explained

Creator: Bry of Baked with Bry — a sourdough baking instructor who teaches approachable, science-backed tutorials: techniques, recipes, experiments, and Q&A, all with a dry wit and zero intimidation factor. Baguettes are one of her favorite bakes, and it shows.
Watch on YouTube: Sourdough Baguettes From Scratch | Every Step Explained
More from Bry: find more of her sourdough tutorials on her YouTube channel via Baked with Bry — hearth loaves, starter science, and plenty more baking deep-dives.

If the embed doesn't load, watch it directly on YouTube here.

Why we picked this one

Let's be honest: baguettes are the bake most home sourdough people are secretly scared of. 🥖 A boule forgives you. A baguette... stares back with its long skinny judgment face. The shaping looks like wizardry, the scoring has to be just-so, and "open bake with steam" sounds like something that requires a commercial oven and a fire extinguisher. Bry dismantles all of that in about half an hour.

What makes this one stand out is the structure. She walks a full two-day bake — Day 1: autolyse, salt, a stiff starter mixed in, three rounds of coil folds, then into the fridge; Day 2: divide, rest, shape, couche proof, score, bake. It's a real schedule with real clock times, not the hand-wavy "bulk ferment until ready-ish" that leaves beginners refreshing their phone every twenty minutes. If you've ever wanted a baguette bake you could plan around an actual life, this is the video.

Then there's the shaping segment, which is the money part of any baguette tutorial. Most videos gloss over it in 45 seconds. Bry doesn't. She shows the pre-shape rest, the degassing, the long roll, the seam seal — the whole choreography, at a pace you can actually follow along with. And for the dreaded open-bake steam situation, she shows her actual oven setup and workarounds if you don't own the gear. Crunchy on the outside, airy inside, no panic attacks required.

This one's perfect for you if you've nailed your basic boule and want a bake that'll make your kitchen smell like a Parisian bakery at 7am. Press play, grab your bench knife, and stop being scared of the long skinny loaves.

What you'll learn

• The 82% hydration stiff-starter formula: why Bry uses a stiff starter (not a soupy one) for baguettes — it adds strength and flavor to a dough that has to hold its skinny shape.
• Coil folds + couche proofing: how gentle coil folds build structure without kneading, and why a floured couche (proofing cloth) is the secret to baguettes that don't weld themselves to the counter.
• Shaping and scoring, demystified: the full pre-shape and final-shape routine at watch-along pace, plus razor scoring for that classic crust and open crumb.
• Open-bake steam without fancy gear: how to set up real steam in a home oven, and simple workarounds if you don't have the "official" equipment.

Our two cents to go with it

Two things worth knowing before you press play:

1. Watch the shaping segment twice. Everything else in this video is familiar sourdough territory — folds, fridge, bake. The shaping is the one genuinely new skill, and it's all in the rhythm: degas gently, fold, roll with the heels of your hands, seal the seam tight. Run it back, mirror it with a towel, then do it for real with dough.

2. Steam matters more than gadgets. That shatteringly crisp crust only happens when the baguette hits a blast of steam in a screaming-hot oven. Lava rocks in a tray, a pan of boiling water, a soaked towel — whatever setup you've got, commit to it and keep that oven door shut. Your crust will thank you.

And if watching this makes you want to crackle into a fresh baguette — but the "stiff starter" chapter has you side-eyeing the sad jar in your fridge — that's the exact headache ours was built to solve. Ours arrives dehydrated, wakes up in days with dead-simple instructions, and settles into the kind of reliable rhythm that makes videos like this actually doable. Grab your Squirrelly Girl Starter here 🐿️

Loved this video? Go tell Bry — like and subscribe on YouTube so she keeps making them.

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