First sourdough bread made from Northern Irish Flour

Sourdough bread has been created by Northern Ireland food entrepreneurs using flour from wheat provided by a local farmer in an innovative partnership.

Behind the project is Mark Douglas, better known as the award-winning Krazibaker, an artisan specialist in traditional Irish breads such as soda cakes and potato bread, and Danish food historian Lady Vibse Dunleath of Ballywalter House in county Down.

What they have achieved is sourdough bread from wheat sourced from Richard Kane, an arable farmer from Myroe, near Derry. Wheat grown in Northern Ireland is generally not suitable for milling into flour for baking yeast bread. This is because Irish grown wheat has a high protein climate and is also adversely affected by the damp Irish climate.

Most flour for baking conventional bread, as well as sourdough, is imported. The climate hindered the growth of hard wheat used most frequently in bread production.

Mark Douglas, who recently launched his own sourdough loaves in response to a high-level of demand from shoppers, says: "We've been working to develop a flour from indigenous wheat that could be used in the production of conventional loaves. It seems, however, that the flour we've produced is best suited to sourdough.

"Lady Dunleath has come up with a unique milling process that produces flour that's particularly suitable for baking sourdough bread. It gives us an option of being able to produce artisan bread from locally milled flour using wheat grown here. It's a distinctively tasty bread that's been well-received in initial trials.

"It's an artisan bread with the sort of heritage and provenance that shoppers are increasingly seeking," he adds.

Douglas also operates a very successful bakery school specialising in traditional griddle baking of soda and potato breads. He has also won awards for his Irish wheaten breads.

"It's another 'field to fork' breakthrough. The wheat used is the Edgar variety grown on the Kane farm which has been in the family for more than 100 years. The farm also produces oil seed rape used to make the award winning Broighter Gold Rapeseed Oil."