Introduction to Sourdough Bread

***NEXT DATE AND LOCATION TBA***

Ready to bake your own bread at home? Join Betsy Gonzalez of Osono Bread and Brennan Johnson of Gentle Rhythms for the Introduction to Sourdough Bread workshop! We will provide lessons on maintaining a sourdough starter, mixing, shaping, scoring and baking a bread recipe. This course relies primarily on demonstrations with brief hands-on elements to teach basic principles. Students will, however, be able to use their senses (touch, smell, taste, sight) throughout the lesson.

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

Designed for beginner and intermediate bakers, this class will dive into the world of fermentation, grain, and milling to help you better understand both the basic science and the hands-on technique for crafting your own loaf of bread.

Students will score their own loaves of bread that we will bake together in class, and Betsy and Brennan will lead demonstrations on feeding starter, mixing dough, and shaping bread.

Participants will take home a jar of starter, a loaf of bread, a proofing basket, a comprehensive guide to making bread at home, and 1lb. of locally-milled flour. Light snacks will be provided and there will be ample time to answer questions.

location

***NEXT DATE AND LOCATION TBA***

 
 

Our class discussions

  • Starters: overview of creating and maintaining sourdough starters

  • Fermentation: demystifying the various stages of fermentation and understanding how it can play a role in flavoring and enhancing bread

  • Regional, stone ground and freshly-milled flours: learning the role of various types of flour in bread-making; how to maximize flour’s flavor; how to source regional grains, and baking with freshly-milled flours

  • Baking techniques: exploring the fundamental basics of proper mixing, shaping and baking by utilizing your senses 

  • Equipment: creating your bread baking toolkit to replicate the provided recipes at home

  • History and modernization: discover what sourdough baking looked in older times and how it has been modernized and re-popularized today.

Tickets can be purchases through Gentle Rhythm’s store. Please refer to our policy page for our workshop terms and conditions. Our workshops are nonrefundable.

 

Your baking instructors

 
 

Brennan Johnson

Brennan’s fascination with food culture and history was catalyzed by a trip to Western Europe in 2009 to study communal brick ovens. He began baking bread soon after, baking out of his father’s own brick oven and selling at local farmers markets during his high school summers. He has a degree from Whitman College in Environmental Humanities — which, for him, meant exploring our culture’s relationship to food — an herbalism certificate from Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine, and has worked in restaurants and bakeries in San Francisco, Portland, Asheville, Minneapolis, and Europe. Gentle Rhythms is, for him, a way to piece together those disparate experiences, combining his curiosity in food studies with his love of hands-on cooking. These days, he is usually found on the road, learning about foodways wherever he is.

Betsy Gonzalez

After cultivating a baking career both regionally and abroad, Betsy Gonzalez established Osono Bread in Atlanta, Georgia in late 2018. Their old-world approach to baking emphasizes an investment in regional millers, local farmers, and the nourishment of the community through the tangible form of bread. Over the years, Osono Bread has grown to provide naturally leavened bread and pastry at weekly farmers markets throughout Atlanta.

Beyond a dedication to wholesome baking, Betsy strives to use their platform to share the beauty of creating community through food and the power of the people's labor behind it.