I highly recommend the following items:
– Heat resistant gloves (can withstand up to 500 degrees)  http://amzn.to/2l1mRMm
– Heavy Duty Baking stone  http://amzn.to/2kF6eql
– Lodge Cast Iron Dutch Oven (this is critical in my opinion) http://amzn.to/2kHuxDQ

Making Sourdough Starter

Makes 4 cups
What You Need
Ingredients
Whole wheat flour
Water, preferably filtered
Equipment
2-quart glass or plastic container (not metal)
Scale
Mixing spoon
Clean kitchen towel
Instructions
Making sourdough starter takes about 5 days. Each day you “feed” the starter with equal amounts of fresh flour and water. As the wild yeast grows stronger, the starter will become more frothy and sour-smelling. On average, this process takes about 5 days, but it can take longer depending on the conditions in your kitchen. As long as you see bubbles and sings of yeast activity, continue feeding it regularly. If you see zero signs of bubbles after three days, take a look at the Troubleshooting section below.
Day 1: Make the Initial Starter
4 ounces (3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) flour
4 ounces (1/2 cup) water
Weigh the flour and water, and combine them in the container. Stir vigorously until combined into a smooth batter. It will look like a sticky, thick dough. Scrape down the sides and loosely cover the container with a clean kitchen towel secured with a rubber band
Put the container somewhere with a consistent room temperature of 70°F to 75°F (like the top of the refrigerator) and let sit for 24 hours.
Day 2: Feed the Starter
4 ounces (3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) flour
4 ounces (1/2 cup) water
Take down your starter and give it a look. You may see a few small bubbles here and there. This is good! The bubbles mean that wild yeast have started making themselves at home in your starter. They will eat the sugars in the the flour and release carbon dioxide (the bubbles) and alcohol. They will also increase the acidity of the mixture, which helps fend off any bad bacterias. At this point, the starter should smell fresh, mildly sweet, and yeasty.
If you don’t see any bubbles yet, don’t panic — depending on the conditions in your kitchen, the average room temperature, and other factors, your starter might just be slow to get going.
Weigh the flour and water for today, and combine them in the container. Stir vigorously until combined into a smooth batter. It will look like a sticky, thick dough. Scrape down the sides and loosely cover the container with plastic wrap or with a clean kitchen towel secured with a rubber band. Put the container somewhere with a consistent room temperature of 70°F to 75°F (like the top of the refrigerator) and let sit for 24 hours.
Day 3: Feed the Starter
4 ounces (3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) flour
4 ounces (1/2 cup) water
Check your starter. By now, the surface of your starter should look dotted with bubbles and your starter should look visibly larger in volume. If you stir the starter, it will still feel thick and batter-like, but you’ll hear bubbles popping. It should also start smelling a little sour and musty.
Weigh the flour and water for today, and combine them in the container. Stir vigorously until combined into a smooth batter. It will look like a sticky, thick dough. Scrape down the sides and loosely cover the container with a clean kitchen towel secured with a rubber band. Put the container somewhere with a consistent room temperature of 70°F to 75°F (like the top of the refrigerator) and let sit for 24 hours.
Day 4: Feed the Starter
4 ounces (3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) flour
4 ounces (1/2 cup) water
Check your starter. By now, the starter should be looking very bubbly with large and small bubbles, and it will have doubled in volume. If you stir the starter, it will feel looser than yesterday and honeycombed with bubbles. It should also be smelling quite sour and pungent. You can taste a little too! It should taste sour and somewhat vinegary.
Weigh the flour and water for today, and combine them in the container. Stir vigorously until combined into a smooth batter. It will look like a sticky, thick dough. Scrape down the sides and loosely cover the container with a clean kitchen towel secured with a rubber band. Put the container somewhere with a consistent room temperature of 70°F to 75°F (like the top of the refrigerator) and let sit for 24 hours.
Day 5: Starter is Ready to Use
Check your starter. It should have doubled in bulk since yesterday. By now, the starter should also be looking very bubbly — even frothy. If you stir the starter, it will feel looser than yesterday and be completely webbed with bubbles. It should also be smelling quite sour and pungent. You can taste a little too! It should taste even more sour and vinegary.
If everything is looking, smelling, and tasting good, you can consider your starter ripe and ready to use! If your starter is lagging behind a bit, continue on with the Day 5 and Beyond instructions.
Day 5 and Beyond: Maintaining Your Starter
Once your starter is ripe (or even if it’s not quite ripe yet), you no longer need to bulk it up. To maintain the starter, you can discard (or preferably use) about half of the starter and then “feed” it with new flour and water: weigh the flour and water, and combine them in the container with the starter. Stir vigorously until combined into a smooth batter.  If you would like to make bread less often like I do (e.g. once a week), keep the starter in a mason jar in the fridge covered with a cloth and elastic band.  Three days before you are ready to bake bread, remove the starter from the fridge and make the leaven (see steps below).
How to Take a Long Break from Your Starter:
If you’re taking a break from baking, but want to keep your starter, you can do two things:
  1. Make a Thick Starter: Feed your starter double the amount of flour to make a thicker dough-like starter. This thicker batter will maintain the yeast better over long periods of inactivity in the fridge.
  2. Dry the Starter: Smear your starter on a Silpat and let it dry. Once completely dry, break it into flakes and store it in an airtight container. Dried sourdough can be stored for months. To re-start it, dissolve a 1/4 cup of the flakes in 4 ounces of water, and stir in 4 ounces of flour. Continue feeding the starter until it is active again.

Making the Bread

DAY 1 – Make the Leaven
50 G     SOURDOUGH STARTER
200 G WATER
200 G FLOUR
Use a scale for accurate measurements and mix together the purified water, sourdough starter and flour and let sit on the counter with a tea towel on top for about 12 -24 hours.
This will make more leaven than you need for two loaves. Once you use the leaven to start your bread, the remainder is now your starter.  Refrigerate it and discard your old starter.
DAY 2 – Form the dough
Makes two loaves.
700 GWATER 
200 GLEAVEN
1000 GWHOLE WHEAT FLOUR
The freshness of the flour has a big impact on the flavor of the bread—buy the best you can find.
  1. Mix water and leaven together in a large bowl.
  2. Add flour and mix completely.
  3. Let sit for 30min to let the flour absorb the water.
Meanwhile, in a separate small bowl, mix together;
20 GSALT
50 GWATER 
  1. After the 30 mins. rest period, add salt and additional water.
  2. Squish dough with your fingers to thoroughly mix in the salt.
  3. Set stove timer for 3 hours and turn the dough every 1/2 hour using the 1/4 fold method (*see below)  for the three hours, leaving at least 30 minutes after the last turn.
* 1/4 fold method – To turn, wet your hand and slide it between the bowl and the dough, then lift and stretch a side of the dough and fold it over. Going around the bowl and repeating three or four times constitutes one “turn”. The little air pockets form the basis of the crumb which will fill with gas during the bulk fermentation. During the third hour, notice how the dough starts to get billowy, soft, and aerated with gas. At this later stage, you should turn the dough more gently to avoid pressing gas out of the dough.
  1. Dump out dough onto a clean bench.
  2. Lightly dust with flour and use your bench scraper to flip the dough onto the floured side.
  3. Divide in half.
  4. Fold in half so the outside is now mostly floured.
  5. Gently form a ball.
  6. Bench rest covered for 30min.
  7. Heavily dust proofing baskets with rice flour (or any other flour).
  8. Dust, flip, stretch, fold and form.
  9. Dust top of dough ball with flour then place in proofing basket seam up. To make really pretty loaves, I recommend these bannetons http://amzn.to/2ByxwsF
  10.  Cover with a tea towel or the cover that comes with the banneton and put it in the fridge for 10–24 hours.
DAY 3 – Baking the Bread
  1. Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees and then place baking stone Lodgedutch oven (with lid on) in oven for 15 minutes to get everything nice and hot. Remove from oven with heat resistant gloves and remove lid.
  2. Turn dough into dutch oven, seam side down, and score with razor.
  3. Replace lid, put back in oven and reduce temperature to 450°f
  4. Bake for 20min then remove lid.
  5. Bake for additional 20min without lid or until very dark .
  6. Let cool on baking rack for as long as you can.  Then, enjoy!
  7. For the 2nd loaf, preheat the dutch oven again with the lid in place and prior to baking.