King Arthur wants to automate your sourdough starter

The Sourdough Sidekick volition enactment with different flour brands, but the King Arthur logo isn’t going anywhere.

Baking sourdough breadstuff whitethorn look pointedly old-fashioned, but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to the allure of a novelty gadget. That’s wherever the Sourdough Sidekick comes in: a caller countertop appliance that automatically feeds your sourdough starter truthful it’s acceptable to cook the infinitesimal you request it.

The Sidekick is simply a associated task by FirstBuild — the GE Appliances “innovation hub” liable for the viral Opal crystal maker — and King Arthur Baking Company. Currently raising funds connected Indiegogo, and good past its archetypal backing goal, the Sidekick is fundamentally an automated flour and h2o dispenser that tin assistance support your starter live erstwhile you don’t person time, and instrumentality the guesswork retired of the timing to provender it to marque definite it’s progressive capable to cook with.

There’s a small much to it than that though. You tin plug successful the day and clip of the adjacent clip you program to cook — to the hr — and the Sidekick’s Auto mode volition provender the starter appropriately to marque definite it’s astatine a highest of enactment close erstwhile you request it, adjacent factoring successful the somesthesia of your kitchen. It uses a microfeeding docket which lone generates discard erstwhile each 7 days, truthful it should trim discarded too. If you’re a much precocious baker with your ain circumstantial feeding schedules and flour-to-water ratios, you tin load those into the Custom mode. You’ve besides ever got the enactment to adhd other flour and h2o connected the fly.

The Sidekick is disposable to backmost connected Indiegogo for $129, oregon arsenic a brace for $249. For the infinitesimal it lone ships to the US, but transportation isn’t estimated until January 2026 — it’s inactive successful a prototype stage, with accumulation models not yet finalized. If you privation thing a small simpler that’s disposable now, the $50 Breadwinner measures your starter’s measurement truthful you cognize erstwhile it needs feeding and erstwhile it’s acceptable to bake.