Egypt (Giza) Sourdough Culture

The Egyptian Giza culture is one of Sourdough International's collection of more than 16 authentic sourdough cultures from around the world. It is our oldest culture with a history dating back over 5,000 years. According to Ed it will do almost anything. It was collected by Ed and Jean while on a trip for the National Geographic Society to discover how the Egyptians baked in 4500 B.C. Refrigerated sourdough cultures become dormant but stay viable for many months requiring feeding only to reactivate them before use. The included instructions describe in detail how to activate, reactivate and use our cultures. Ed Wood's most recent book "Classic Sourdoughs, Revised" contains detailed information for using, maintaining and being successful with sourdough cultures. It also contains a wide range of recipes for our sourdough cultures [except the most recent Polish]. None of our cultures ever use commercial yeast in any form. All of our cultures can be used with any of the available home bread machines if used as Ed does for mixing and kneading only. Most bread machines are unsuitable for baking authentic sourdoughs since they do not have "bake only" cycles and thus do not permit the long fermentation cycles required to produce the sourdough flavor.