Page 56 - Phonebox Magazine September 2016

Sourdough September
Certainly not leaving a sour taste in your mouth
Every September The Real Bread Campaign raises awareness about the advantages of sourdough. Bakers worldwide are encouraged to
get involved and promote the wonders of this bread dating back thousands of years. Phonebox went to see Gareth Roberts, a local baker who helped us understand the facts.
What is sourdough?
Quite simply, sourdough is a loaf of bread. However, this bread goes back to basics, containing just flour, water and salt. Sourdough makes use of the naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria that are already in the our which means no extra yeast is added. To take full advantage of these naturally occurring yeasts, bakers need to use a sourdough starter.
There are yeasts and bacteria all around us and those suitable for bread making are found on cereal grains like wheat. One of the main yeasts is called Saccharomyces and the bacteria are lactobacilli. This wheat is ground into flour and then added to water. By controlling the temperature, an ideal environment is created for the micro- organisms to thrive, feeding off the starch in the flour. Adding more flour will keep these cells fed and the amount of yeast and bacteria cells will increase in quantity and size and eventually there will be enough cells
to start giving off carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide producing, our and water mixture is the sourdough starter. A sourdough starter will take about a week to make, however more avour will develop if it’s left longer because the yeast and bacteria will continue to develop. Gareth’s sourdough starter is ve years old.
History of sourdough
Sourdough dates back to the ancient Egyptians and was probably discovered by accident when some surplus dough was left
out and bubbles started appearing in it.
It was the conventional way of baking bread up until commercial yeast was introduced in the 19th Century.
Advantages of sourdough
In a well known white loaf of bread available at most supermarkets the ingredient list is wheat our (with added calcium, iron, niacin, thiamin), water, yeast, soya our, salt, wheat protein, preservative: E282, emulsifiers: E471, E472e, and a our treatment agent called acorbic acid.
All these added chemicals allow breads to be baked at speed and make them last longer but don’t do anything good for our health. Due to the slow fermentation process of sourdough, the important nutrients present in the bread become easier for our body to digest. The good bacteria created in this slow fermentation process breaks down the gluten strands in the bread, this means there is a lot less gluten making it more ideal for coeliac patients. It also creates a lower surge in blood sugar which is ideal for diabetics.
Making sourdough
So you’ve read all about sourdough, where it’s come from and the advantages
56 Phonebox Magazine | September 2016