It’s a shame sourdough has become synonymous with Instagram influencing in recent years. It feels like if you bake and share sourdough on your SM feeds you’ve sold your soul and fallen into a sort of embarrassing trend, and like-seeking hole. The reason it’s a shame is because sourdough is just the way bread was always made before commercial yeast hit the scenes. It really is very basic – the best things often are.
It’s made using a natural fermentation process that involves a live culture of yeast and bacteria, which gives it a distinct sour taste and smell – this can vary according to how long you leave it to ferment at certain stages in its making. This fermentation process also breaks down the gluten and other complex carbohydrates in the bread, making it easier to digest and less likely to cause digestive discomfort than something like pap sliced stuff. Essentially a lot of the rumbly digesting stuff is done by yeasts, before it hits your gut. Sourdough bread also has a lower glycemic index than other breads, which means it is less likely to cause blood sugar spikes and crashes.
Some people think it’s a faff, and that’s fine. Nothing is for everyone and other homemade breads are nice too. I would point out though that I’m one of the most impatient, attention-deficient people ever and I fit in 3-4 loaves a week without turning a hair. It’s like learning to drive, you think you’ll never master all the pedals and knobs and now you do it without thinking.
Even though a loaf takes nearly a day from start to finish, the actual hands-on time is only about 20 mins. It’s just you have to attend it a bit in spits and spurts throughout.
To make a good sourdough my opinion, after making it for the last nine years, is that the non-negotiables are:
An oven that gets super hot
Decent flour
A baking dome or cloche
A genuine desire to make and eat it
I’ll be publishing regular sourdough-related stuff here, so if you love it too, do keep an eye-out. I’m probably gong to bring our online sourdough workshops (for beginners) over here too.
