What is it that Sour Flour actually does? When I started Sour Flour, the idea was that I was going to learn as much as possible about baking bread, and that would be the business. To make sure a business could be viable, I ran some numbers and came up with the fact that if I could sell 1000 loaves a day, for 250 days out of the year, at $4 a loaf, we’d have a million dollars in revenue in each year. As I began baking 1000 loaves, and giving them away, I saw another aspect of the operation: connecting with people.
From the beginning, people have always been able to come over and help make bread. Even when the operation moved into La Victoria, and we were producing bread to sell, people who had never baked a loaf before came in to help shape or mix the dough for our production. I also will talk to people about bread for just about however long they want to, trying to explain pieces of what I’ve learned. There has been so much interest, and I see that a huge amount of people seem to want to learn about bread. But I’m beginning to move away from trying to serve the massive community of aspiring amateur bakers. I want to serve aspiring master bakers.
Through Sour Flour, I’ve learned a ton about baking, but I am far from being a master baker. It’s been about a year and a half now, and although I could have done certain things to improve my skills faster, there has been a steady pace of improvement throughout. And it’s still continuing. I’ve been the test case for a Sour Flour Baker, and now I’m looking for other people who would like to become Sour Flour Bakers.
What is a Sour Flour Baker?
- A Sour Flour Baker knows how to combine flour and water to make bread.
- A Sour Flour Baker knows how to feed their starter, and gauge how active it is.
- A Sour Flour Baker gives away bread to their community.
- A Sour Flour Baker is always trying to improve their bread.
Want to become a Sour Flour Baker? Anyone one can do it, but it does take time, and persistence, and patience. If you’d like to learn more about bread, keep reading, start writing, and practice baking on a regular basis. Then email danny@sourflour.org, or call the Sour Flour Hotline at (415) 509 – 3380.