What Size Dutch Oven Should You Be Using For Sourdough?

Cutting into a perfect loaf of homemade sourdough after laboring at it for hours can feel more rewarding than the time you graduated summa cum laude and gave that valedictorian speech. The countless hours of prepping your sourdough starter, carefully measuring the water and yeast, whispering sweet nothings to the nonexistent bread gods in the hope that your loaf will actually rise — it's an act of love, sweat, and tears. The last thing you want to do after all that work is screw up the baking process, so listen to the sourdough professionals and grab a Dutch oven. But, what size Dutch oven is best for sourdough?

For a standard loaf of sourdough bread, you'll want to select a Dutch oven that's between five to seven quarts. The tall walls mean there's minimal risk of anything spilling over the edge and plenty of surface area for the bread to cook evenly. A five to seven-quart Dutch oven, like a Lodge 6-quart or a Crock Pot Artisan 5-quart, won't take up too much space in the oven or your cabinets. It's just big enough to fit comfortably on the kitchen table without being too cumbersome — a handy tool for chefs in a hurry. When it comes to sourdough, a five to seven-quart Dutch oven is big enough for dough expansion, but not so big that the bread will lose its shape.

Baking sourdough requires patience and room for growth, both in terms of the dough and your skills as a baker. First, you wait for the starter to come alive and expand then combine the ingredients and leave the dough to bulk (grow some more). Next, you stick your dough in the Dutch oven and wait for it to bake (and grow even larger). During the baking process, the sourdough will expand to roughly four times its original size. A five to seven-quart Dutch oven is perfect for baking a standard loaf of sourdough, which is typically about one kilogram. You want your sourdough to rise upward, giving it that signature loaf shape, so it needs the tall walls of a Dutch oven to provide structure.

The tight seal of a Dutch oven lid creates the ideal environment for sourdough to bake, allowing the chamber to fill with steam and humidity that'll give your loaf its iconic flaky crust and soft interior. The sturdy pot walls also help the loaf bake more evenly than a standard bread pan as heat is more consistently distributed inside. Who wants to bite into a chunk of raw dough after all that effort? Stick with a Dutch oven between five to seven quarts to turn that next sourdough failure into sourdough success.