Who: John and Bronwynne Calvert, Irrewarra Sourdough
Where: Irrewarra, Colac Otway Shire, Gulidjan and Gadubanud Country
Here’s Bronwynne on how they do it.
Bronwynne, is it right to say you and John were sourdough pioneers in our part of the world?
We started baking back in 2000 in the stables of John’s great-grandfather’s farm. We followed in the footsteps of Natural Tucker and Firebrand, kneading and proving our bread with a mother made from the previous day’s ferment. We started small but now employ 65 local people, baking 30,000 loaves a week and thousands of biscuits.
How do you balance scale with your bread’s handmade taste and texture?
Time. Our sourdough mother dates to 1995. We don’t retard our baking with cold ferment; we let our doughs ferment for 36 hours, with five hours proving after being shaped. We say we only use five ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, water and, most importantly, time. Our wheat comes from the Wimmera and Mallee and we source the best ingredients we can.
Your granola is incredibly popular.
It’s very simple. We use oats, coconut, sesame, pumpkin seeds, nuts, dried fruit and honey and bake it. John and I loved granola when we were at uni and in 2003 when we had a café in Geelong people just loved it. When we closed the café, we kept making the granola and now we make six tonnes a week.
Where do we get it?
We are lucky to have many great retailers around the state, like Leo’s Fine Food, M&G Caiafa at the Queen Vic Market, Jo’s Pantry in Colac, Wilsons in Ballarat and Aireys Inlet General Store, who have been selling our bread since our first bake. For a full list of stockists go to our website at irrewarra.com.au.