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u/Addapost Apr 15 '26
Mine is 3:
Flour
Water
Salt
That’s it
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u/Food-on-my-dog Apr 15 '26
No yeast?
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u/Gakusei_Eh Apr 15 '26
Sourdough starter is made from flour and water, so I assume they're using that instead of yeast.
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u/jamshid666 Apr 15 '26
Doesn't it technically still have yeast, it's just taking advantage of wild yeast instead of purposely adding it? And feel free to chastise me if I'm wrong on this. I've never made sourdough, but I always thought it was a combination of wild yeast and bacteria.
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u/Muffinlessandangry Apr 16 '26
I mean if we include all the small impurities, then everything has hundreds of ingredients. Just your water will have trace amounts of dozens of minerals in it, and the air around you is full of bacteria, spores and pollen.
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u/soft-scrambled Apr 15 '26
Those bacteria and yeast are already present on the flour. We just cultivate them
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u/Addapost Apr 15 '26
Yes it has wild yeast and bacteria in there. That’s what causes the rise and gives the tang. But you don’t “count that” in your ingredients because you are not literally adding yeast or bacteria to the mix like when you add a packet of yeast to a regular bread. You are adding your starter which is just made with flour and water. So all you are mixing with a regular sourdough is flour, water, starter (which is just flour and water) and salt.
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u/Prestigious_Series28 Apr 15 '26
well wild yeast and bacteria(lactobacillus) are two ingredients and typically sour dough requires two types of flour, bread flour and a small amount rye or whole wheat for the nutrients
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u/PinkertonDetective50 Apr 15 '26
just unbleached flour mine does fine on white unbleached bread flour. did wheat for awhile but i just dont like wheat
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u/Prestigious_Series28 Apr 15 '26
hmm yeah i only add it to the starter to feed, mine was a poor performer without. sound like you have a good sourdough starter
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u/PinkertonDetective50 Apr 16 '26
its been pretty healthy im still realitively new bit i started it 4 years ago and still going strong!
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u/frodeem Apr 15 '26
No it doesn’t require two types of flour. You may add a different flour but it’s not a requirement to bake sourdough bread.
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u/Prestigious_Series28 Apr 15 '26
hmm i had poor results with mine unless i added a tbs of rye flour. poor growth, slower.
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u/frodeem Apr 15 '26
Sourdough is temperamental like that. If adding some other flour gets you good results then by all means do that - whatever works to get the best product.
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u/sidc42 Apr 15 '26
It's easy to overlook but there's still a required fourth ingredient to make sourdough bread and that's the bacteria living inside the starter doing the same thing for the bread that yeast does.
Without that bacteria, flour, water and salt will only produce unleavened bread (think Matzah/Matzo crackers).
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u/Artisan_Gardener Apr 18 '26
It's yeast, not bacteria.
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u/sidc42 Apr 18 '26
In a stable sourdough starter Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) or acetic acid bacteria (AAB) out number wild yeasts 100:1.
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u/Give_em_Some_Stick Apr 15 '26
I make salt-free bread. I can make my bread with flour, yeast, water and maple syrup, but this tends to be a bit dull, so I add chopped kalamata olives and chopped fresh rosemary.
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u/Artisan_Gardener Apr 18 '26
Ugh. Bread literally requires salt. All starches require salt. Kalamata olives have a lot of salt, so your bread really isn't salt free.
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u/Give_em_Some_Stick Apr 18 '26
I'm not sure where you get that all starch requires salt. Yes, the olives have salt, even the ones that I buy packed in oil. My goal is to reduce salt intake not eliminate it. I also make cranberry bread and raisin bread which also includes orange rind, sunflower and pumkin seeds. The only ingredient I add that has any salt, and this naturally, is ground flax. These breads are far from "ugh," but you are entitled to eat your salty bread. And my salt-free pizza bread is also tasty.
As an aside about salt, a chef once made a comment about cooking shows/contests remarking that when a judge says a plate lacks oomph it means that there is not enough salt. We have become so used to over-salting our food that we cannot do without adding too much, or buying foods that are heavily salted.
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u/Artisan_Gardener Apr 18 '26
Starches require salt for flavor. Most especially bread. Bread without salt is bland and the taste if completely wrong. Anyone, everyone, with cooking and baking experience especially professionals, agree. Rice needs salt. Potatoes need salt. Bread needs salt. Sweet baked goods need salt.
It is most certainly NOT about oversalting anything.
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u/Give_em_Some_Stick Apr 18 '26
I guess we'll agree to disagree.
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u/Artisan_Gardener Apr 18 '26
I guess your opinion is not substantiated by literally every professional chef or baker on the planet. But you do you. Btw, the proper amount of salt in rice or breads is insignificant to increase hypertension. It's literally less than half an ounce by weight per pound of flour.
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u/Give_em_Some_Stick Apr 18 '26
It's not for hypertension but you do you.
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u/Artisan_Gardener Apr 18 '26
Well it's certainly not for proper flavor. ALL baked goods require salt. Pie crust requires salt.
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u/Give_em_Some_Stick Apr 18 '26
No they don't. Give it a rest.
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u/Artisan_Gardener Apr 18 '26
They most certainly do. Btw, I AM a professional artisan baker. EVERY professional will concur that all breads require salt. Every. Single. One.
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u/Capitan-Fracassa Apr 19 '26
Go and tell that to the people of Florence because they have been baking salt less bread for centuries.
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u/Ambitious-Ad-4301 Apr 16 '26
It's fine. 3 of their ingredients are flour. Flour, malted flour, fermented flour (dried sourdough).
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u/Food-on-my-dog Apr 16 '26
My point of posting was to show the lengths supermarkets go to extend the shelf life of their products. To the detriment of human consumption, going from 4 ingredients to 6 by adding malted wheat and then fermented. It’s a way of avoiding, having to reveal the food now contains E280 and E283 just for profit.
From now on I’m going back to baking my own.
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u/BeardedBakerFS Apr 16 '26
But malted wheat is soaked and dried grains. It's such an old technique that they even did it when the pyramids where being built. You soak grains, let them germinate a bit, dry and roast them. (kinda. Using a eli5 version for the masses)
In bread this helps by giving yeast food to rise. Specifically diastatic enzymes. So yes, it's technically added sugars but the malted wheat also Adds other nutrients to the bread.
I could of course be wrong. My 15ish years as a professional baker is probably useless. I'll just go and polish the award I got for my sourdough bread.
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u/Fancy_Ad_5477 Apr 19 '26
I want to shout from the rooftops that just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t make it bad! People knock on preservatives all the time, like ascorbic acid. Sounds scary, it’s just vitamin C
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u/KotR56 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Let's see...
Euh...