Quest for Sourdough Workshop – Pt 1- Library

quest

What a wonderful two days spent in St. Vith Belgium at the Puratos Center for Bread Flavour! A year ago Karl De Smedt asked me if I would like to visit the sourdough library in Belgium. I answered that I would love to visit someday. His reply was intriguing, “Well, we’ll have to see if we can make that happen.”

He made it happen.

teresakarl

On September 27 & 28 14 out of 17 bakers from around the world, that were invited, attended the sourdough workshop at Puratos. The bakers that attended :
Carol Lee
Guy Frenkel
Vanessa Kimbell
Teresa L Greenway
Ineke Berentschot
Yohan Ferrant
Patrick Willaert
Beesham Soogrim
Ralph Nieboer
Anita Sumer
Manfred Enoksson
William Woo
Olivier Penet
Jarkko Laine

We had so much fun that I think we all regret not buying real estate and moving over to St. Vith’s! We bonded in a wonderful way as we got to know bakers that were before then, virtual online Facebook friends.

Puratos seemed to spare no expense to make us feel like celebrities. There were several highlights of the workshop including visiting the sourdough library and viewing the collection of sourdough starters maintained and analyzed from around the world, baking and bonding with fellow bakers and the secret reveal at the end of the workshop, the “Quest for Sourdough,” which was the reason for the workshop.

dinner

The sourdough library is almost like a shrine. The starters are kept in a separate room in climate controlled display units. There are almost 100 starters that are maintained with the flour of origin which must be sent to them once a year. They are tested and scientifically analyzed. It’s quite an accomplishment!

library1

Here are the videos I taped of the tour of the Sourdough Library. They may be a bit long, but if you are a sourdough fanatic, you will enjoy every minute:

The Sourdough Library Part 1: