Starting the Sweet Starter

An interview with Ian Lowe

Ian Lowe is the former owner of the bakery Apiece, in Ravenswood, Tasmania. He’s between bakeries at the moment, but keeps himself very busy consulting others in Australia and beyond on optimizing their production processes, and on sharing his wealth of knowledge on his Instagram account, @apieceofbread.

Ian is the inventor of the “sweet starter” sourdough process, a method for creating a sourdough culture that yields a product with virtually no sourness to it and an extended shelf-life, not unlike the grandi lievitati products such as panettone that inspired it. It involves building a starter with a very low hydration and a precise amount of granulated sugar added to it, which basically decimates the lactic acid bacteria in it, so that the final fermentation is almost exclusively yeast-raised.

I discovered the sweet starter process online, and have made some beautiful breads with it since then, but I noticed that many of the methods recommended by others did not adhere to his original formulation. Wanting to know more, and to hear more about how he came up with the idea and how it works, I reached out to Ian to ask if he’d be willing to discuss it with me here…

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