At Irrewarra we have been mastering the ancient art of sourdough breadmaking for more than 20 years.
Irrewarra sourdough bread is created by hand from Australian flour, filtered water, sourdough culture and sea salt. These simple ingredients combine across a traditional 30-hour fermentation and proofing process, and each loaf is shaped by hand before being baked on the stone floor of the oven. Every loaf is an individual expression of the baker’s hands: no two loaves are ever the same.
Where can you find our tasty traditional sourdough?
A traditional sourdough baguette inspired by our travels to France. Perfect with cheese, antipasto, pasta or soup, find it in plain, mixed seed and sesame seed varieties.
A daily bread worth waking up for. This wholewheat loaf is full of the goodness provided by sunflower seeds, linseeds, pumpkin seeds, LSA (ground linseeds, sunflower seeds and almonds) and sesame seeds.
One of our most popular loaves. Proved in Belgian linen and baked on the stone floor of the oven, the Casalinga loaf has a thick crust and open, holey texture.
These rustic, Italian-style rolls are excellent filled with fresh salad, hot roast meat and mustard, or toasted with cheese and cured meats.
A crusty baguette filled with juicy Australian olives. This traditional baguette is delicious dipped in olive oil or served with fresh goat cheese.
Moist and full of both flavour and goodness, this loaf is made from 100% organic stoneground wholewheat flour from New South Wales.
The Irrewarra Rustica loaf is crafted from very ripe fermented 100% sourdough dough, which is unmoulded – simply cut into a rectangular slab and baked on the stone floor of the oven. It has an open and moist internal texture with a crusty, chewy exterior.
Superfoods abound in this loaf which is perfect for toast and sandwiches. Find kibbled soy, linseeds, quinoa, chia seeds, oat bran and sesame seeds throughout this versatile and delicious loaf.
A delicious and generously filled sourdough fruit and nut loaf. Raisins, currants, sultanas, walnuts, citrus peel and spice create this award-winning loaf.
An Irrewarra classic – our much-loved sourdough white tin loaf is in a league of its own. Light, airy and utterly delicious, it’s a contender for Australia's best sandwich loaf!
Before baker’s yeast was created to use in bread baking in the early 1900s, the traditional fermentation (sourdough) method of bread-making using a wild culture was how all bread was made. The resulting bread is called ‘sourdough’ because the other by-product of fermentation is acid, making the dough, and baked bread, taste a little sour.
To create our sourdough bread, a living culture of lactobacilli and wild yeasts, originating from spores on the wheat grain and in the air, is added to the flour, water and salt which then is mixed to form the dough. Over a period of 30 hours, wild microbes feast on the dough, breaking it down and aerating it by releasing carbon dioxide. This fermentation process ultimately makes the bread more digestible, more nutritious with lower gluten content and a lower GI (glycaemic index). Our sourdough is also fermented at ambient temperatures rather than in refrigeration, so the resulting sourness is very mild.
Commercially yeasted (non-sourdough) bread uses a concentrated single strain of yeast which aerates the dough with carbon dioxide but does not ferment it. Baker’s yeast ‘puffs up’ the dough very quickly, whereas aeration by fermentation takes much longer. That’s why the gluten in bread made with commercial yeast can cause gut irritation for many people.
Recommended by leading nutritionists – and verified by many happy customers – long-fermented sourdough is the healthiest bread to eat!