Notes

Eat sourdough and yeast breads within 2–3 days. Keep the loaf at room temperature, wrapped or in a bread bag. The counter is better than the refrigerator. Cold air dries a loaf out and makes it stale faster.

To reheat a whole loaf, sprinkle the crust with a little water and warm it in a 350°F oven for 8–12 minutes. Slices toast well.

Bagels and English muffins are best split and toasted. Cinnamon rolls need only a few minutes in a warm oven until they are soft again.

You can freeze it. Slice the loaf first so you can take out what you need. Bagels, muffins, cookies, and scones freeze well in a tight bag. Thaw at room temperature, or toast from frozen.

Do not freeze cream cheese or cultured butter. Keep those in the refrigerator and use them within about a week of pickup. Jams, dips, mixes, oil, and extracts stay in the pantry. After you mix a dip with water and oil, refrigerate it.

A sourdough starter is flour and water kept alive with wild yeast and lactic acid bacteria. That is what raises the dough. The sourdough loaves do not use a packet of commercial yeast. The yeast breads, such as milk bread and cinnamon rolls, are a different dough.

The long ferment is where the flavor comes from. The bacteria make acids. That is the tang. A longer, cooler rise tastes milder or sharper depending on the day and the flour.

The crust gets its color in a hot oven. Steam at the start helps the loaf open. Once it is baked, that crust is the wrapper. Leave it on until you slice.

A fresh loaf is best the day you pick it up and the day after. Day three is still good toasted. If you will not finish it, slice and freeze it.

Fermentation is how flour, milk, fruit, and herbs change when helpful microbes and time do the work. In this kitchen that shows up as sourdough, cultured butter, and jams cooked in small batches. It is the same interest behind the extracts that age for at least a year.

Cultured butter is cream that has been allowed to culture before it is churned, so it tastes a little tangy. It is not the same as sweet cream butter from the store. Keep it cold.

People have used fermentation and preservation for generations. Some people also ask about gut health. This site does not give medical advice, and the bread is not a treatment. What we can tell you is how the food is made, what is in it, and how to store it. Questions about your own health belong with your clinician.