Sourdough Quality

Once you've entered the wonderous world of sourdough tasting and baking, you start to notice some loaves are superior to others. Of course, in many instances, when you read the ingredients in a loaf from bakery A vs bakery B, they might show the same ingredients (Wheat and rye flours, maybe an ancient grain like spelt or emmer, salt and water). But why does one taste vastly better than the other?

I began to learn more about flour and grain when I first read Christophe Vasseur's book, From the Farm to the Table. He devotes a large section of his book talking about grain agriculture and milled flour used in the French bread supply chain. He talks about industrialized farming, and how store-bought AP or bread flour comes from highly homogenized crops; this makes for little to no flavor variation between types of flours. He also suggests that the processes used to mill these flours extracts many of the nutrients we would want in our home-baked breads.

This inspired me invest in a home stone mill. This way I could control where my flour came from, the amount of bran I wanted to extract, and be able to experiment with different types of grains.

I also realized that the difference between bakery A and bakery B's bread was the flour they use!

And then there's sourfaux, aka, fake sourdough. This term is widely referenced in the Real Bread Campaign in Great Britain, which aims to confront supermarkets and other processed bread producers that peddle "sourdough" made with additives and preservatives. Sourfaux is most often found in supermarkets and often marketed as "artisan", "sourdough", and even "whole grain". But far from containing the 4 fundamental ingredients (water salt, water & yeast), these breads contain emulsifiers, additives and preservatives. 

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