sourdough

Dive Into Our Sourdough Goodness!

There are many different ways of making Sourdough bread. However, in bread making, yeast is normally used to ferment the ingredients. With sourdough, the ingredients (usually just flour and water) are mixed together without yeast and allowed to stand for several days or weeks.

The fermentation happens due to the friendly bacteria and natural enzymes in the flour and the air. For example, in San Francisco, USA, the atmosphere is thought to harbour natural bacteria and natural yeasts giving a distinct flavour to the bread.

Every day, the baker uses some of the fermenting sourdough to make bread by adding more ingredients. It is essential that the leftover sourdough mixture is remixed with fresh ingredients from one day to the next. In some bakeries this process has been repeated for years and even centuries - from the same dough.

There are even companies that specialise in making “starter cultures” to help bakers make their sourdough bread. Sourdough bread has a distinctive “richer” flavour and a firmer chewier texture compared with regular bread.

At Fosters Bakery we have many different sourdoughs perpetually fermenting in large insulated fermentation vats. Every hour we stir the vat and every day we use some of the sourdough and then replenish it for the next day. We make 100% sourdough bread and also breads where we add sourdough to conventional bread.

We have recently installed two new sourdough tanks. These can double our sourdough capacity. Previously, we kept our tub of sourdough starter in the fridge, but we have since invested in a computer-controlled sourdough system. Our integrated system stirs the dough, warms or chills it as required, and automatically doses the ingredients into the mixing bowl. These mixer tanks are capable of producing an additional 2,000 sourdough loaves per day.