Health benefits

Did you know that sourdough is simply the best bread you can eat? And at Irrewarra we only make sourdough
bread, we don’t make “quick” yeasted breads, so our starter culture remains pure and wild.

The reason sourdough bread is so good for you is that it is made from fermented dough! A totally natural culture of wild yeasts and lactobacilli (from the grain and air) is added to the flour, water and salt that is mixed to form the dough. Before commercial yeast was invented, this was how all bread was made. This living culture feeds on the wheat’s proteins and starches making the bread more digestible, more nutritious with lower gluten and lower GI.

Irrewarra’s fermentation process that leads to the final loaf being baked involves 36 hours of fermentation of the culture and the dough. The “sour” in sourdough is, simply,the lactic acid produced by the microorganisms, the same way that yoghurt is sour. Commercially yeasted “quick” breads use a virulent strain of yeast that works so fast that there’s no fermentation, and as a result no flavour, no breaking down of the gluten, and not easy to digest. That’s why it’s said that the 5th ingredient in sourdough is TIME!  Time, now days is money, and that’s why our bread is a little more expensive than quick yeasted breads, but the health benefits and taste is worth it …  it’s real natural bread.