Sourdough: how it's fed and kept
How our sourdough culture lives, why we keep it going continuously, and what tells you it's truly ready.
Every piece of sourdough bread at Pan Pan starts from the same living culture — a mix of flour and water where wild yeast and bacteria live. Unlike packaged yeast, used once and done, a sourdough culture is a living ingredient that has to be kept up continuously, much like a plant that needs regular feeding to stay alive.
What “feeding” the culture means
Feeding the culture means adding fresh flour and water, which serve as food for the living community inside it to keep growing. Without that, the activity inside slowly fades and the culture would lose the strength to raise dough. With regular feeding, the microorganisms stay active and balanced with one another, and that balance is exactly what gives the bread its characteristic flavour and rising power.
What it looks and smells like when it’s ready
A ready, healthy culture has visible bubbles on the surface and a mild, tangy, almost wine-like smell — fresh, not unpleasant. At its best, the culture visibly grows in volume once fed, a sign that it’s active and ready to go into a new dough. If a culture looks flat, dull and still, or the smell turns sharp and unpleasant instead of mildly tangy, that’s a sign something in the maintenance routine isn’t right.
Why one continuous culture, not a new one each time
At Pan Pan we keep one continuous culture rather than starting fresh each time. With every feeding, the culture carries forward a character built up over time — the community of microorganisms inside becomes more settled and stable the longer it exists. A culture started from zero has to build that balance first, which takes time we’ve already invested in the one we keep.
What happens to a neglected culture
A culture that goes too long without feeding grows steadily weaker. The activity inside drops, and a sharp-smelling liquid can appear on the surface — a sign that the food inside has run out and the community is waiting for a fresh supply of flour and water. Neglected but not entirely lost, a culture can usually be brought back to life with a few regular feedings, though it’s never ideal to wait that long.
That’s exactly why keeping our culture alive is part of the daily routine, not an occasional task. If you’d like to know more about what a healthy culture looks and smells like, ask us in our shops on Aerodrom or at Kapistec Petit.