Puratos opens sourdough library

Puratos has opened a Sourdough Library at the Puratos Center for Bread Flavour in Belgium. The library contains a world-first collection of authentic sourdoughs from around the world. It aims to preserve sourdough biodiversity and sourdough baking knowledge, as well as maintain sourdough heritage.

The different sourdoughs are kept and grown under controlled conditions, which the company says will ensure the viability of the sourdough strains for years. Puratos’s scientists are working with universities from around the world and, thus far, have identified more than 700 different yeasts in their samples and more than 1500 lactic acid bacteria.

The collection contains 37 Italian sourdoughs, two from Greece, three from Hungary and one from San Francisco. Works in progress include: steam bun sourdough from China; traditional ‘levains’ from France; and ‘Masa madre’ (‘mother dough’) from Spain.

The library has the ability to preserve “hundreds, if not thousands of sourdoughs”, Puratos says. “This library is the showroom of a whole scientific approach and back-up. We don’t have a limit.”

“Consumers are increasingly looking for traditional recipes and authentic flavours,” said Eddy Van Belle, chairman of the board of directors at Puratos. “Sourdough has been used for thousands of years as an active agent in the baking process, but also as a key ingredient to give flavour. It is important to preserve this heritage, and what better place for it than at our Center for Bread Flavour?”

The Puratos Center for Bread Flavour in Sankt-Vith, Belgium, was established in 2009 as a centre of excellence specialising in sourdough fermentation and bread flavour development.