Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie...

Without a doubt, this bread is some of the best homemade bread I've ever had.

Sourdough bread takes a long time from start to finish and it is in part the slow rise that gives it some of the wonderful flavour. The amount of time required for actively messing about with the dough is very slow, though, since most of the time the bread is just getting on with it by itself. Don't forget to feed your starter, too, so that you have enough to make some the next time.

Basic sourdough bread

Step 1
½ cup starter
½ cup wholewheat flour
slightly less than ¼ cup water

Mix the starter with the flour and water until it turns into a sticky dough and all the flour is moistened. If you think you need more flour or water, add some (it's quite sticky but shouldn't be actually soggy...) Cover and leave to rise for about 6 hours.

Step 2
½ cup wholewheat flour
slightly less than ¼ cup water

Take your dough and again mix it with flour and water to produce a sticky dough, with all the flour mixed in and moistened, again, adding a little more flour or water if necessary. Cover and leave to rise again for another 6 hours.

Step 3
1 ¾ cups bread flour
½ cup water
1 tsp salt (or just under if you prefer)

Mix the sticky dough in with the flour, water and salt, and stir it quite vigorously with a wooden spoon. If the flour isn't all moistened and mixed in, add a little extra water, but don't add any extra flour if it's very sticky. Once it's been mixed up, leave it for 15-20 minutes, covered.
After sitting for this time, the dough should be easier to work with and slightly less sticky. Liberally cover the worksurface with flour and scrape the dough out of the bowl with a spatula. Then put some flour on top of the dough as well. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, adding more flour if it needs it (quite likely) but ensuring that it remains reasonably soft and sticky enough to stick to the table occasionally (the dough doesn't want to be too dry).
Cover and leave for an hour, then tip the dough out (with a spatula if necessary) and squash down, folding over on itself a couple of times. Then leave it for about 6 hours again.

Step 4
Tip out the dough and shape it. I use a banneton, a basket lined with cloth that you rub flour into, but you can improvise with a tea-towel and some other container (a colander is good). The dough needs support while it rises since otherwise it would collapse, and the banneton provides this support. So shape the dough into the shape of your rising container, whatever that is, and put it in there. Remember to rub flour into the cloth or the dough will stick horribly. Then leave the shaped dough until it's ready - this will take somewhere between 4 and 5 hours usually. It's ready when you poke it gently with a finger and the impression fills in slowly (rather than quickly). It's not too picky if it's a bit over- or bit underrisen, but my experience is that underrisen is better than overrisen. (It will rise more in the oven and very quickly if it's underrisen, so will be slightly more dense, but if it overrises too much it will collapse and that's not great, although not terminal.)

Step 5
Preheat the oven to 220C.
Once the dough has risen, it needs to come out of the shaping container. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. If the top of the dough is somewhere less than an inch away from the top of the container, simply put the tray on the container and flip the whole lot upside down (carefully!). If the dough is further down in the container, take a piece of cardboard cut so that it will fit further into the container, cover that with parchment, and flip the dough on to the cardboard-parchment contraption. then place this on the baking tray and carefully slide the cardboard out from underneath.
Put the tray in the oven and if you wish, spray some water in to create steam (or put a tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven). Bake the bread for about 15 minutes, then take it out, turn it round, and remove the baking parchment so that the bread sits directly on the hot tray. Turn the oven down to 200C and bake for another 10-15 minutes. The bread is ready when you knock on the bottom and it sounds hollow.
Leave it to cool for at least 45 minutes before cutting it.

I have discovered two good ways to incorporate this into real life (since if you're not a professional baker then the long rising times can be a little awkward), which result in the bread being ready either for lunch or for dinner. Either way, you need to start the dough the day before you want the bread.

Schedule 1: Start the dough first thing in the morning and do the first rising period until lunchtime ish. Second rising period from lunchtime until the evening. Final rise overnight (the dough isn't too picky about the time so if it goes a bit longer than its six hours, that will be fine). Shape the dough first thing the next morning, and you can bake it before lunch (although you'll have to get up early to do this).

Schedule 2: Start the dough at about lunchtime and the first rising period runs from lunchtime to evening. Second rising period overnight. Third rising period morning to lunchtime ish and the final rise and baking in the afternoon.

The alternative to these is that you can refrigerate the dough after it's risen at any stage, but it will need an hour or so to come back to room temperature before you do anything with it again.