You’ve probably taken a bite of George before.

George is our sourdough starter, and he’s been with us for 26 years !!! In fact, he was around before Bourke Street Bakery even existed. He was started in the home of one of our owners, David, and all these years later, he’s still very much alive and well.

Made from just flour and water, a sourdough starter is a mixture that has been fermented by natural yeasts. With regular feeding and a little care, it can be kept alive indefinitely — which is exactly what we’ve been doing with George all these years.

But in the beginning, at some time around the turn of the century, there was a struggle to get it going. For weeks, not much seemed to happen.

David kept feeding it, discarding some, feeding it again and hoping that one day this flour and water goop might actually become a starter. It sat on the kitchen bench for a month or two like this, quietly being looked after.

Then one day, a warm day sprang up out of the blue. David’s partner called him to say that the jar of floury mixture had bubbled up, overflowed and spilled all over the bench. She was going to throw it away.

“Do not throw it away! I’ve been waiting months for this to happen!”

And that was the moment George came to life. “It was quite a difficult birth,” David reflects.

David was so excited that he started feeding the new starter three times a day to build up its strength. Soon after, he baked his first loaf of bread. He remembers going to a specialty flour shop to buy Italian bread flour especially for the occasion, because making your first loaf of sourdough from a starter you created is pretty special. And, as he remembers, the loaf was a very good one.

For his first few years, our starter didn’t have a name. It wasn’t until around 2012 that Bourke Street Bakery gave him the name George, and he’s been George ever since!

Sometime around 2010-2012, George almost died. A baker had made the bread for the day and, without realising, threw the rest of George in the bin instead of keeping it to feed the following day. It wasn’t discovered until someone went to feed George.

All that was left of poor George sat in a stainless steel bowl and it was just a spoonful! But that was enough. The starter was gradually built back up, and more than a decade later, he’s still kicking.

That’s what makes George so special. The starter is the heart of the bakery, and George has an extra bit of history behind him. He wasn’t given to us by another bakery or passed down from somewhere else. He was started from scratch, by us, with nothing more than flour, water, and a whole lot of patience.

George was part of the story before the first Bourke Street Bakery bakery even opened its doors.

George currently resides in a big tub at our Banksmeadow headquarters and has been busy helping us make bread at BSB over the years. Not bad for a jar of flour and water that nearly ended up in the bin.

Did you know you can also take a little piece of him home? We sell our sourdough starter here so you can use George to bake your own sourdough bread. With a little bit of extra care, you can keep your bit of George going and give it a life of its own right in your kitchen.

Or if you’d like some extra guidance, our Banksmeadow bakery hosts a Sourdough Masterclass on Saturdays. Find out more and book here!