What is sourdough? Everyone has heard of sourdough. However, not everyone understands exactly what sourdough is. Here we will break down the science of sourdough into digestible steps…(no pun intended). So you can walk away grasping the concept and hopefully gaining the confidence to dive into the wonderful world of baking with sourdough.
In your great-great grandmother’s day, it was not called a sourdough starter. It was just yeast. If you went to visit a neighbor, it was likely you would ask her for some of her yeast. It was the only kind of yeast. Some starters are said to have been in existence since the gold rush!
I was at the Oyster Ridge Music Festival in Wyoming about 7 years ago. And, for breakfast, they served 100-year-old sourdough pancakes! As you can imagine, I was blissed out!
Sourdough is yeast. It’s simple. Unfortunately, we’ve over-complicated it to the point of intimidation and confusion. However, baking bread with sourdough was never meant to make life harder. It was a simple and economical way to nourish your loved ones. The bread that one purchases in a grocery store is made with factory-replicated yeasts that cannot compete with the fierce nature of sourdough.
So let’s dig in, shall we?
What is a Sourdough Starter?
Sourdough is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and fungal yeast. I know, I know, it doesn’t sound appetizing but stick with me here. The same is true if you’ve ever made, or know anyone who has made Kombucha. They will talk about their “SCOBY.” This stands for a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. With this culture, one can ferment tea to make Kombucha, ferment milk to make yogurt, and cream to make sour cream. Thus, when we ferment flour and water we get Sourdough.
What is yeast?
A single-celled organism or fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae (there are many strains of this yeast). Yeast spores are living all around us.
Imagine, you were to take a San Francisco Sourdough Starter out of San Francisco and bring it home. It would no longer be San Francisco Sourdough because new yeast spores in the new environment begin to inhabit and multiply.
There are different kinds of yeasts for baking and each yeast works a little differently. The four main yeasts are:
- Compressed cake yeast– collected from breweries and factories. The yeast is recycled and compressed into soap-like cakes and used for bread production.
- Granulated Active Dry Yeast– highly manufactured and made from recycled materials. It needs to be rehydrated in warm water to reactivate or wake the yeast up this stage is called proofing, because it’s proving that it’s still alive by releasing bubbles on top of the water.
- Instant Yeast- added directly to a dough mixture without a need for proofing.
- Sourdough Starter– This is made by leaving a mixture of flour and water at room temperature for several days to collect and multiply the yeasts naturally occurring in the environment.
Why do we need yeast in bread?
Yeast is a leaven. It’s the alchemy of the bread world.
Leav•en (verb)
- “Cause dough to rise by adding yeast or another leavening agent.”
- “Permeate and modify to transform for the better .”
What are the benefits of eating sourdough bread?
- It’s a natural starter cultivated from wild yeasts as opposed to manufactured yeasts.
- The lactobacillus bacteria (the same as in yogurt) are found in sourdough and are well known for their gut-healthy probiotics.
- It takes longer and works slower to rise, compared to manufactured yeasts, this causes a long fermentation. This fermentation process has its unique benefits including:
- The breakdown of antinutrients found in the grains of flour. There is a thick shell-like coating on the outside of the grains of flour, this shell (antinutrient) is extremely difficult for our systems to digest. It’s like an assault on the digestive system to try and process unfermented grains. Sourdough works to eat away at these antinutrients making it easier for you to digest.
- When that shell-like coating is no longer present, the nutrients found in the grain, are now readily available for your body to absorb and use to feed every cell in your body.
- The dough develops a unique sour character and a thicker more artisanal-like crust.
Is baking sourdough worth it?
In all my experience, YES!
In combination with other whole foods, each member of my family has a robust digestive system when we stick with long-fermented breads.
The spirit of your starter is reflected in the flavors and textures that it creates. Do you know what this means? No one can recreate the loaves of bread that you make in your kitchen with your starter. And, no matter where it originated, in the flora of your home, it takes on a new life. These concepts will forever fascinate me.
Go back and read this post a few times if you need to. I promise it becomes second nature. When working with sourdough all you need is a little time and a little patience.
What to make with sourdough starter:
A sourdough starter is a wonderful and useful tool in the kitchen not just for making bread. I use this gut-healthy starter to make pancakes, Dutch Babies, crepes, One Pot Skillet Dinners, and more.
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