Sourdough bread near me: the loaf, the starter and the book
Bread was our fourth-biggest seller last week. Not coffee, not cake. Bread.
If you’ve been searching “sourdough bread near me” from Milford or anywhere in the Poconos, you can walk into 322 Broad Street and buy a loaf today. But that’s only a third of what we keep. We also sell the starter culture to make your own, and the books that teach you how. Which is a slightly unusual thing for a shop to do, and the reason is worth explaining.
What’s actually on the shelf
Two families of sourdough, and they’re not interchangeable.
The wheat sourdough is the one most people come in for. Real long-fermented sourdough, sold by the loaf from the bakehouse counter. High-hydration loaves, made the slow way.
Eight wheat versions are available: original, organic, rye, whole wheat, olive & za’atar, cranberry & walnut, seeded multigrain, garlic & asiago, and cheddar & jalapeño. The seeded is the one staff fight over. $8.99 for most. $9.99 for organic and rye.
The gluten-free sourdough is a different animal entirely. The starter is water and brown rice flour, and the loaves are built on sorghum, millet and cassava flour with psyllium husk holding them together. Made especially to have a crust, which is rare in a gluten-free bread. A 26oz loaf, $11.99, two weeks in the fridge, six months frozen, and it comes in compostable packaging.
When do we have it?
Almost every day. Peter from Forkin Good Cookin’ in Shohola bakes loaves fresh each morning by 11am and delivers to us every day except Tuesday and Thursday. He does bake more for us on Mondays and Wednesdays to make up for his days off though. And yes, they’re still fresh the next day (if they don’t sell out) and will last you the week.
Monday: Original and organic
Wednesday: Gluten-Free, Original and assorted flavors above (call a few days ahead if you’d like a specific flavor)
Friday: Original, organic and rye
Saturday: Original and assorted flavors above (call a few days ahead if you’d like a specific flavor)
Sunday: Original and organic
The honest bit about gluten
Long fermentation breaks down some gluten. You’ll read that a lot, usually with the implication that sourdough is therefore fine for people who react to wheat.
It isn’t. Not if you have coeliac disease.
Wheat sourdough is still wheat. The fermentation makes it easier on plenty of people with a mild sensitivity, and that’s a genuine difference. But it does not make it safe if gluten is a medical problem for you. If that’s you, the gluten-free loaves in the fridge are what you want, and they’re a properly separate product, not found on the shelf with the other sourdoughs.
Why we sell the starter as well as the loaf
Here’s the part that makes us a strange bakery.
Sitting on the shelf a few feet from the bread is a shelf-stable gluten-free sourdough starter, cultured with organic brown rice flour, $18.99. There’s a Breadtopia starter jar, straight-walled glass with a lid that keeps contaminants out but lets air in, and a rubber o-ring so you can mark where your starter sat before its last feed, for $12. And in the bookstore section, Emilie Raffa’s Artisan Sourdough Made Simple and Elaine Boddy’s Easy Everyday Sourdough Bread.
Buy those three and you never need to buy a loaf from us again.
That’s deliberate. The self-sufficiency side of this shop exists because Liam’s view, argued at length in his own book, is that knowing how to make the thing matters more than being able to buy it. Selling you the skill undercuts selling you the product. We do it anyway.
Sourdough in a Pike County kitchen
Practical note for anyone starting a culture here: our houses are cold from October, and a sluggish starter in a Milford kitchen in January is almost always a temperature problem, not a flour problem. Find the warmest spot you have. On top of the fridge works. So does an oven with just the light on.
Late August is a good moment to begin. The kitchen’s still warm enough to get a starter established in four or five days, and by the time the first properly cold weekend hits you’ll have something stable to feed.
One warning: the loaves sell out regularly - sometimes within the hour. They’re baked in limited numbers. If you’re driving in from Honesdale or Port Jervis specifically for one, ring ahead.
Come in and have a look
Bread, coffee, and a wall of books about growing and making your own food, all in the same building.
The BetterWorld Store is at 320-322 Broad Street, Milford PA 18337, open 8am to 6pm every day. Call 570-832-8555 to check what came out of the bakehouse this morning, or just come in. The loaves are near the counter and someone will tell you honestly which one to take home.