For Sean Kelly, owner of Counter Culture Bakery, the process of breadmaking is vital. “Sourdough isn’t a bread — sourdough’s a process,” he says. “It’s not the actual product itself.
I try not to refer to things as sourdough; I try to refer to them as being real bread. “Something that’s real bread doesn’t have to be a sourdough product, even though 99% of the products I make are sourdough products. “The definition of something being real bread is that it doesn’t have any preservatives and it doesn’t have any other any additives added into the actual dough itself.
“If you want to call a product sourdough, the basis of it can only be flour, water and salt.” What Sean and his team classify as sourdough is something naturally leavened — creating the fermentation between flour and water. “Then we add the salt,” he continues.
“Salt gives us a bit of strength in our dough and it also sort of seasons the bread as well. “But it has another effect: salt helps with the structure and stuff of the bread as well. It gives the bread a wee bit of strength whenever you’re mixing it.
” Everything is fermented in the bakery and originates from the starter, which was given to Sean not long after he began working in kitchens. He estimates ‘Janis’ (the starter) is in its twenties and gets fed every day. He’s also introduced a wholemeal starter, ‘Rocky’, from which he makes loaves exclusively.
“We’re trying to do more down the line of creatin.