What Is A Sourdough Starter?
A sourdough starter is nothing more than a mixture of water and flour that contains natural occurring yeast. Back before the advent of Active Dry Yeast and Instant Dry Yeast, this is how bakers, even at home, made their fresh breads, often daily. Bread baking as a whole has really lost popularity, with people being resigned to purchasing mediocre bread at their local supermarket if they’re not lucky enough to have a neighborhood bake shop. And even then, the mark-up is incredible. Just to put the price into perspective, I purchased a 50# bag of bread flour at Costco the other day for a total of $12.95. If you buy four or five loaves of artisan sourdough from your local baker, chances are that you’ve already paid for that 50# sack. What Gives Sourdough Its Unique Flavor? The unique sour flavor comes from the bacteria that love to live in sourdough starters. Much like yeast, these bacteria will consume the sugars present in the flour, and in turn give off carbon dioxide (which helps your
