Sourdough books with reliable metric

before making a recipe.  That tells me more than the write up itself.

First I add up all the flour,  all the water and divide the water by the flour, that gives me the hydration of the dough.  Then run a quick check how that compares with the flours in the recipe.  While I'm at it, I quickly find out 2% of the dough flour in grams.  That tells me where the salt and any added yeast lies.  My calculator is just as important as my mixing bowl.

Cup recipes can drive you crazy but if you carefully read the book's intro, you can find out how a cup is measured and what standards are used for the book.   Always good to put an index marker on that kind of info.  I write some conversions as I run into them right on the recipes or at the back of the book in the blank pages.  I sort of enjoy converting recipes.  Makes me think thru it carefully.  I also have 3x5 cards with conversions stuck in my cook books (book markers.)  Also oven temps.  Some even taped inside my cupboards near to my baking area.  I do prefer metric recipes.  

There are a lot of Book reviews here at TFL and by typing the title and author in the search box, you can find discussions on the various books.  Also can type in:  metric cookbook    and see what shows up.

Hamelman's "Bread" Lists every recipe 4 different ways, Pounds for bulk recipe, Metric for bulk, Home recipe in oz. and  Baker's %.  It is easy enough to just move a few decimals over in the bulk recipe for a home size loaf.  There are wide spaced between the columns and plenty of room to write in your own preferred loaf size.   Cook books get published rather quickly and do check all books for error corrections.  TFL has also discussions finding and listing problems with certain recipes, so it never hurts to run a search here on any recipe and see what problems folks have run into.  Also tips.

Hamelman's book is excellent for its full discussion of all the variables.  Although his metric measurements are primarily for the commercial baker, you can divide most of them by 10 to get a more scalable amount for home use (this corresponds pretty well to his home amounts which are in ounces).  Also do not neglect the wonderful resource here on TFL where lots of folks have documented their successes with various sourdough recipes.  I would urge you to take a look at David Snyder's discussion of the development of San Joaquin sourdough and its evolution.  He does provide metric measurements.

Personally I keep a spreadsheet with all of my favorite recipes with metric measurements.  This allows me to scale things up or down quite easily.

As Mini notes, the formulae measurements are given in several different forms.  It is also one of the most reliable books I've come across in terms of accuracy, both for quantities and process descriptions.

Leader's Local Breads has some wonderful breads.  I would recommend it on that basis alone but the recommendation has to be tempered by the knowledge that it has a number of errors.  There's an errata thread here on TFL which is well worth the time it will take to read all of it, should you acquire the book.  There's an official errata page, too, although it is quite limited.  If you spend some time googling, you'll find even more.

Rose Levy Berenbaum's The Bread Bible is another excellent baking book, albeit light on sourdough.  If I recall correctly, it contains measurements in ounces as well as in cups but not grams.  I think.

The King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book also features weight measurements in ounces but not in grams.  It covers a lot more than just breads.

Those last two may not be readily available to you in the UK.

Paul

thousands of great SD recipes in metric right here on the TFL.  The cheapest and best collection of SD recipes on the planet by a wide margin.  Just use the search box

Welcome and Happy Baking 

It's not hard to find lots of bread books - some (sadly) are published for the US market though - e.g. I have a copy of Bertiniets original "Dough" book and it's got measurements in cups and ounces - I guess my wife bought it from a dodgy importer via Amazon. fortunately ounces are fine.

However, try "Bread Matters" by Andrew Whitley:

http://breadmatters.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=68

he sells his starter via that site too.

Or just go on a course - if you're ever in Devon... :-)

-Gordon

Dan,  I am a huge fan of Hamelman's book, and have read it several times, but if you are only making sourdough breads, you may be disappointed,  that is not the focus of his book.  I too am starting to spend more time on sourdough breads, and have not found a book that I can recommend, though I have used many of the resources here.  If you check the sourdough board, it is probably the most active, though admittedly, it is not broken down into chapters and set up like a book.  

Mike has a pretty good website, and offers sourdough books, though I have never purchased them, so can't say if you would like them, the one sample recipe is in cups, not weight.   http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.php?content=breadshoppe

It used to annoy me to have to translate a recipe from cups to grams, but as I think about it, the only quantities that are really variable when measured by volume are the measurements of flour and salt. I do bake by weight, because it gives me consistency from bake to bake, if I use the same flour. I believe that flour varies so widely that a precise amount from a recipe doesn't mean too much unless I use the same flour the author used. If you ever get bored baking the same thing all the time, try a different flour, and see how it behaves. Different absorption, different strength, different autolyse, not to mention different taste. I still follow recipes for the most part, converting them to grams when necessary, but I analyze the recipe based on my calculated hydration level to see if it makes sense with my experience. Likewise, I know how much salt I use, so I make my own calculation of 1.8% and ignore the recipe. Where I put the most effort is in understanding and adapting the technique in the recipe, and documenting my own process so I can improve on the original.

As to your question about Ed Wood's book, he uses volume measurements in the 2001 edition I have. I haven't baked much from the book. Nancy Silverton's 'Breads from the La Brea Bakery' is almost exclusively based on sourdough breads. Yes the measurements are volumetric, and she has some peculiar ideas about creating and refreshing a starter, but the breads are interesting and varied. I go back to Hamelman's 'Bread' the most often, though. 

For the last several years I have baked almost exclusively with sourdough, and I believe that the advice and recipes from this site are my best resource, and by far the most dynamic. Where else will you find extensive discussions of how much starter to discard and how often? Happy baking, in cups or grams.