The Sourdough Experiment
Even though sourdough has been around for at least 5000 years, we are still learning and uncovering new secrets about it. We asked seven professional and eight hobby bakers to help us find out what happens to various sourdough profiles when they are refreshed with the same flour. In essence, would using the same flour standardize the sourdoughs and make them all alike, or would they keep their initial character?
The Sourdough Experiment
Each participating baker received the same bag of new flour. This was of course a different flour to the ‘usual’ starter-refreshment flour they used ordinarily. Over a period of ten days, each baker was asked to refresh his or her own sourdough every day with the flour provided. Once refreshed ten times, the bakers were invited to the Puratos Center in Sankt Vith (Belgium) to bake loaves using the same ingredients, materials and recipe as each other. In effect the only possible difference between the breads would be the source sourdough starter.
Each participating baker received the same bag of new flour. This was of course a different flour to the ‘usual’ starter-refreshment flour they used ordinarily. Over a period of ten days, each baker was asked to refresh his or her own sourdough every day with the flour provided. Once refreshed ten times, the bakers were invited to the Puratos Center in Sankt Vith (Belgium) to bake loaves using the same ingredients, materials and recipe as each other. In effect the only possible difference between the breads would be the source sourdough starter.
The breads were then “sensorially analyzed” by the participants themselves. This isn’t always an easy task, but you didn’t have to be a taste expert to spot the differences in the breads. A clear first indication that despite being refreshed with the same flour over a period of ten days, all the sourdoughs remained very much unique.
We are well aware that the introduction of bakers yeast about 150 years ago essentially lost much of the world’s sourdough heritage. But fortunately today, sourdough is rightfully back on the map. And with this Quest for Sourdough, we are trying to answer sourdough-related questions, one at a time.