Beginners and bread amateurs alike learned about the process of making sourdough bread, from making a “starter” to shaping loaves, during a Sourdough 101 class Sunday at the Rockwell Brewery Riverside.
About a dozen people, some from Frederick County and some from other parts of Maryland, listened intently as instructors Kelly D’Atri and Jamie Freysz, who work at The Garden at Creep Hill and BlueTruck Homestead, respectively.
D’Atri and Freysz led the class through the steps of making sourdough bread, including how to make, shape and ultimately bake the bread dough, as well as the health benefits of sourdough bread, such as aiding digestion.
Freysz said she started making sourdough bread in 2019. D’Atri has been making it since 2022 and said Freysz taught her.
Freysz said people would ask them both how to make the bread, and those questions led to the two eventually teaching classes and teaching others.
One of the benefits of making sourdough bread, Freysz says, is that it can be healthier than store-bought bread, because homemade sourdough bread can contain as little as salt, flour and water.
Making the bread can also be a great way to reconnect people with food making, she said.
For D’Atri, making sourdough bread “is kind of a form of self-care.
“You take the time to tend and care for the bread, and then you in turn take care of yourself, [learning] new skills, pride and the ability to say, ‘Look, this is what I created,'” she said.
D’Atri and Freysz said the foundation for a good sourdough bread is a healthy sourdough starter made with flour, water and wild yeast.
Wild yeast, a microorganism that occurs naturally on plants, animals and even the skin, has been used in bread making for thousands of years. D’Atri said the use of wild yeast dates back more than 5,000 years to ancient Egypt.
This ingredient in a sourdough starter makes the dough rise by releasing gas produced when eating flour.
A starter is a living organism because of the yeast within it, and to maintain a starter it must be “fed” every day so that the yeast remains alive and active.
To feed a starter, the baker should add 50 grams of filtered water and 50 grams of flour, cover the container loosely and let it rise at room temperature for eight to twelve hours.
A starter only needs to be fed once a day if kept at room temperature.
Once a starter is fed, it goes through a cycle of rising – reaching a peak once the yeast has eaten all the added flour – and then deflating.
A starter that has been fed is ready to use when it has doubled in size and there are bubbles on the surface. Freysz said bread can be made with a starter at this stage until the starter deflates again, indicating it needs to be fed.
D’Atri and Freysz recommend setting aside some of the starter that is not being fed in another container and storing it in the refrigerator. This unfed starter can be used as a backup starter, which after a few feedings can be reactivated at room temperature and ready to become bread.
Once a sourdough starter is ready, it can be removed from the package and the baker can add flour, salt and water to form a dough.
The discussion about sourdough starters made up most of the class. The instructors also described other steps in the process, such as when to let the dough rest, how to stretch and fold it, and the importance of “scoring” the dough.
Scoring is the act of making shallow cuts in the surface of the dough to control where it expands during baking into bread.
Some attendees had never baked bread before, while others had studied bread making, but never specifically the sourdough bread process.
Arlinda Sothoron and her daughter Olivia Sothoron have both baked bread before and decided to come to class on Sunday out of curiosity.
Arlinda Sothoron said the class made the idea of making sourdough bread, especially a sourdough starter every day, less intimidating. Her daughter agreed.
“It’s definitely an intimidating process, but they were very thorough in their explanations,” Olivia Sothoron said. “I feel much more confident going home with all the information they have given us, and I am very excited to start my sourdough journey.”
