Our Process

the Natural process

The natural process involves 3 simple ingredients… Flour, Water and Salt. No preservatives and no additives. The breads are leavened naturally through a Sourdough culture, and the culture provides stability and shelf-life, flavor and aromas.

the sourdough process

Evergreen Bread & Cocktail Lounge manages a sourdough starter for leavening its breads. The general process involves starting a culture of microorganisms (mainly yeast and beneficial bacteria that occur naturally in flour and the surrounding environment), cultivating them to increase their quantity, and using them to ferment the dough. The process is very simple, and the method can be traced back thousands of years.

The yeasts within sourdough culture are more varied and less concentrated than using a commercially-developed baker’s yeast, so the dough rises more slowly and requires much longer fermentation times; sometimes up to 24 hours or more. This long fermentation transforms the main ingredient – flour – and imparts a depth of flavor and aromas that cannot be found with breads baked using commercially-produced baker’s yeast. Beyond just tasting and smelling great, sourdough breads provide additional health benefits for the consumer. Here are some of the benefits:

The sourdough has more time to work on the bran of the grain, breaking it down to make it more digestible for people with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. The lactic acid bacteria found in the sourdough culture produce beneficial compounds: antioxidants, the cancer-preventive peptide lunasin, and anti-allergenic substances, some of which may help in the treatment of auto-immune diseases.

The lactic acids, under the heat of baking, reduce the availability of starch, therefore producing the lowest glycaemic index breads, and healthiest breads for weight loss. Bread, if made with unrefined flour, is a significant source of dietary minerals such as iron, calcium, and magnesium and zinc.

Ancient Sprouted Grains

The Bread Lounge will use the freshest and most flavorful flours from some of the world’s oldest varieties of wheat (i.e., spelt, Kamut™, millet, quinoa, amaranth and teff).  We select our grains from local millers specializing in the head cultivation of heritage grains.  Ancient and sprouted grains provide enhanced flavor profiles and more variety of healthier breads for our consumers.

Our flours will be stone-ground.  We believe the natural granite millstones contribute to the quality, taste and nutritional integrity of whole grain flour.  Grain flowing into the stones becomes very thin, flat flakes which integrates all parts of the wheat immediately into the flour, allowing the flour to have more flavor.  The cooler temperatures that occur during milling with stones allows important enzyme activity and protein levels to be maintained, retaining the nutritional value of the flour.