Bristol library offers free sourdough workshop for families and beginners

F.N. Manross Memorial Library turned sourdough into an easy first step for families with a free one-hour workshop in Bristol, Connecticut, on Wednesday, June 24, 2026. The evening class, set for 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., invited children ages 10 and up and asked registrants to include a phone number so the library could make one confirmation call.

The program was built as a starter lesson, not a deep dive. Bristol Public Library described it as an introduction to sourdough cultures that would let participants bring home some starter and get ready to bake after the session ended. That matters for first-time bakers because the whole point of a one-hour class is to remove the usual guessing around when sourdough becomes manageable and what the dough is supposed to look like before it is shaped.

The library paired the session with Wild Rise Workshops, the baking program associated with Isabelle Laufer. Laufer’s Connecticut Library Consortium profile says Wild Rise began as a way to bring together animal care, community connection and baking, and the same directory lists the workshops as serving public libraries and other institutions. The setup fits the scale of the event: a small local class, a library calendar slot, and a hands-on format that is built for beginners rather than customers in a commercial baking school.

Bristol’s own sourdough event description shows how practical that instruction can be. A related Wild Rise demonstration included mixing dough, stretch-and-folds, shaping and scoring, along with Belle’s Classic Sourdough Recipe Card and 20g of sourdough starter. That is the kind of exact, low-pressure workflow that helps families avoid the classic rookie mistakes, like trying to shape dough before it has enough strength or treating sourdough like a one-step mix-and-bake bread.

The library setting also gives the class a larger civic feel. Reviews on the Connecticut Library Consortium site said one prior program left participants inspired and ready to start their own sourdough journey with the starter dough they received, and another library called the program a success and wanted Laufer back. That track record helps explain why a one-hour workshop at Manross Memorial Library lands as more than a novelty: it is a simple, public way to get bread knowledge into hands that might never walk into a specialty baking class.