Organic Colorado Brown Sourdough Starter

Organic Colorado Brown Sourdough Starter

Sourdough is made from the naturally occurring yeast and lactic acid bacteria in flour. It is often also used to name bread made using the culture. Yeasts and bacteria suitable for bread production are found in relatively high amounts on the surface of cereal grains, such as wheat. By grinding the grains into flour and allowing these micro-organisms to thrive – by adding water, keeping the mix at an appropriate temperature, and providing food in the form of more flour to create what is known as a ‘starter’ – they can be increased in size and concentration.

Our Sourdough comes sourced from starter cultures that have been in use for over a century. A mature, well-aged sourdough starter has a much stronger and distinctive sourdough flavour than one recently started from scratch. We have worked hard to obtain the very best sourdough from across the world. We feed our starter cultures twice a day; ensuring that what you purchase from us is a very active, starter culture.

A good wholemeal sourdough is hard to find. When it comes to sourdough bread, white flour seems to be the firm favourite. We recently got sent a sample of this fantastic wholemeal starter direct from the USA, where it had found its way from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to a small bakery in San Francisco. We have been making brown sourdough bread with it every weekend since.

It makes a very firm dough, with a tart, almost vinegar-like flavouring that follows it into any bread baked with it. It has an explosive nature and we often find it has bubbled out of its container when left unattended. It produces a fairly heavy wholemeal bread. It comes with a unique flavour that some of here love and some of us just don’t get along with at all. The after taste can have a real twang to it, as the acidic bacteria in this starter really seem to favour whole grain flour. If you are new to sourdough you may want to try one of our more traditional starters. For those wanting to try something a little different, it is very interesting to work with.