Sourdough Starter

A sourdough starter is a living, natural culture for baking bread, created by mixing only flour and water and letting this mixture ferment over several days. In it settles and multiplies a symbiotic community of wild yeast and lactic-acid bacteria.

It is precisely this community that does all the work: the wild yeast releases carbon dioxide, which makes the bread rise, while the bacteria produce lactic and acetic acids, which give the bread its inimitable pleasantly-sour taste, aroma, and longer shelf life. Sourdough bread is prized not only for its taste but for its benefits: the long natural fermentation makes it easier to digest. A starter must be regularly “fed” with fresh flour, so for the baker it becomes almost a living creature, cared for over years and even passed on as an inheritance. The return to sourdough baking is a symbol of the revival of old, healthful traditions of bread-making.