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So this is the time of year I start getting back into making bread. Too hot in the summer to run the oven every day, so I wait until it gets a little cooler.
If you want to have an amazing winter of the finest bread you've ever had, join me in a very rewarding (and not nearly as much work as you might think) venture.
The goal is to be as natural as possible. As an example, you won't be using store bought yeast. You'll be making your own as part of the process.
Before you consider this, make sure you have a kitchen scale. I'm betting most of you already have a suitable device
The bread will consist of only three ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt. That's it. Baking it old-school, as it were.
First step is making a starter. To get this going will take a few minutes each day, and the investment of time is well worth it. It will take a little time to get your starter going, but that's really the longest step - and once it's made, you can keep it alive for years. I have in my personal inventory strains that were originally made over a century ago. The starter is a living thing. Keep it fed and it will serve you well for a long long time. More on that also later.
Get a 1 quart very clean mason jar and add exactly 70 grams of water (same water you feed your plants with) and 70 grams of flour. You can grind your own if you have the right equipment, but that will require another step. I'll address that later.
Mix them very well, cover but do not seal the jar. You want to allow for CO2 to escape. Put it on a shelf and wait 24 hours.
The next day: You might already see some bubbling. This is good. Add another 70 grams of the same flour and water, mix well, cover and stash it until the next day.
What is happening here is that naturally occurring bacteria from both the air and the flour are breaking down the starch into sugars, feeding on it, and reproducing. The byproducts are CO2 and ethanol, primarily. It also produces lactic acid, which gives sourdough its distinct flavor.
The rest of the week, every day: Mix well, discard 140 grams of starter, and add another 70g of water and flour and mix well. Stash on shelf. Repeat this every day for about a week. If you don't discard half before each feeding, you'll wind up with a hell of a mess.
Do this for at least another 7 days, and until you see the starter doubling in size within a few hours after feeding. Congratulations, you now have a living culture that will make you some awesome bread all year round. Some people name their starter. I confess to doing the same. I think this years starter will go by "doobie." Yeah, I am strange like that.
Once it gets to this point, your starter is alive and well. If you aren't going to use it right away, put it in the fridge. When refrigerated, it only requires a feeding every few weeks. Try not to neglect it too long, or the lactic acid will build up to the point where it is inhibiting further growth. If neglected long enough, the culture could die.
Somewhere along the process you will notice a layer of liquid on the top of your starter when you go to feed it. This is a mixture of alcohols and acids that are a product of the fermentation. This is not only normal, it is a good sign that your culture is healthy. If it smells off for the first few days, don't worry. This is just the process where the desired bacteria overwhelm and starve out the undesired bacteria. This is why we age it for a week or so before initial use. Remember: It's Mix, Discard, Feed. Never skip any of those steps.
Not gonna lie to ya.... while this does take some time to do, it's really mostly just waiting. Same for the process of making the bread itself. It really is not much effort, but for the impatient you might want to just throw out the starter and get your bread from the store. There are many recipes for making bread with commercial yeast that will get you a loaf in a few hours, but for me that kind of defeats the purpose. That said, if you do this right, you can have a fresh loaf of the best bread you've ever had every day.
Now I want to touch on the use of home-ground flour. I am not sure why this is the case, but you might not get the same texture as you will with commercial flour unless you take an additional step. It involves letting the flour and water co-mingle for awhile before adding the starter and salt. You can skip this step if your home ground stuff doesn't have this problem, but it doesn't hurt and just adds a little more waiting time.
Ok, so let's make some bread.
If you genuinely detest kneading dough, you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that you won't be doing any of that, at least not in the way you might think. The fermentation/proofing part of this is so long that the gluten forms just fine on it's own. Kneading dough only accelerates what is otherwise a natural process.
You'll need a mid sized dutch oven. If you don't already have one, just get one. They are an amazing tool for cooking all kinds of things. They are cheap, and they last forever.
Also a good sized bowl for mixing the ingredients. Get some parchment (baking) paper also.
To the aforementioned "good sized bowl" add 450 grams of flour and 405 grams of water (for a 90% saturation). 405 is not a typo.
Stir well with a good wooden spoon.
If you are using home-ground flour, cover and refrigerate overnight. The refrigeration will reduce any fermentation while allowing the flour to get well hydrated and start the formation of enzymes and the breakdown of the starches.
Add 130 grams of the starter to the bowl. While you don't have to do this right away, you'll want to add 65 grams of flour and water to the remaining starter, mix well, and store in a room temperature environment for 24 hours before making more bread, or putting the starter in the fridge. This will make sure your current culture lives on for the next loaf.
Also add 9 grams of salt. Kosher salt, or that pink Himalayan stuff is fine. Avoid iodized salt. It's not natural anyway.
Mix this well with a wooden spoon. Now while I said that no kneading was required, and that is still technically true, you might find that dumping the dough onto a floured surface and mixing it by hand to be more effective. Basically you want to make sure the starter and salt are well distributed.
At this point, we need to let the dough ferment for awhile. If you can keep an eye on it, you can do this at room temperature and keep an eye on it until it has pretty much doubled in size and has a bubbly surface. Ideally, you'll want to do this over a long period of time at reduced temperatures. The refrigerator is a little too cold for this, so my suggestion is to put in a cooler with an ice-pack for 12 hours. This is to make sure it does not over-ferment if you are not checking it every few hours. This is especially important in environments over 70F, since a higher heat will fuel the fermentation process to be much more aggressive than we want.
Once that's done, you can optionally spend the next hour stretching/folding the dough every 15 minutes over 4 iterations. The dough will be sticky, so make sure your hands are wet so the dough will not stick to them. It is important to wait 15 minutes between sessions to give the dough a chance to "relax" and settle into it's internal structure before stretching/folding it about some more. Stop when the dough starts to feel like it's resisting the stretch. Wait 15 minutes before you stretch/fold it again.
Four times might be excessive, and personally I think you can skip this part entirely, but not skipping it will make the final product even better. Or at the very least, it won't make it worse. If you are using commercial flour, you can probably skip this. You're choice.
So now we start the part where we turn this blob of dough into a loaf of bread, and this wonderful you-tube baker has not only repeated a lot of what I've said here, it has the benefit of being in video form, and hopefully helps bring this all together for you:
Now let's touch on how to preserve your starter for future use.
If you think you'll be making bread once a week, just keep it in the fridge and feed it at least once a month. Once every two weeks would be ideal.
If you want to take a break from making bread, but want to preserve your culture for future use, there are a few approaches you can take.
In the fridge, the culture will be alive, but (and this is the official term) it's growth is being retarded by the lower temperature. This affords longer periods of time between feedings. From one day to a few weeks.
However, when dried and frozen, the culture can stay viable for decades, if not centuries.
Take a portion of the starter and spread it thinly on some parchment paper and let it dry completely. Take the dried results and store it in a jar and put it in the freezer. The bacteria aren't dead, rather they are in a state of "suspended animation" and will remain viable for a very long time. To "revive" it, just add it to 70g water and flour and it will spring back to life in a day or so.
I currently have a sample of a centuries old culture from Giza. Allegedly the first example of leavened bread made in human history. I can say that there is nothing special about it. It tastes like bread. But the idea that it is so old is nonetheless interesting.
If you want to go down this path, know that I am happy to give advice/suggestions on the subject, and please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Hope this makes your winter a bit more tolerable!
Peace.
If you want to have an amazing winter of the finest bread you've ever had, join me in a very rewarding (and not nearly as much work as you might think) venture.
The goal is to be as natural as possible. As an example, you won't be using store bought yeast. You'll be making your own as part of the process.
Before you consider this, make sure you have a kitchen scale. I'm betting most of you already have a suitable device
The bread will consist of only three ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt. That's it. Baking it old-school, as it were.
First step is making a starter. To get this going will take a few minutes each day, and the investment of time is well worth it. It will take a little time to get your starter going, but that's really the longest step - and once it's made, you can keep it alive for years. I have in my personal inventory strains that were originally made over a century ago. The starter is a living thing. Keep it fed and it will serve you well for a long long time. More on that also later.
Get a 1 quart very clean mason jar and add exactly 70 grams of water (same water you feed your plants with) and 70 grams of flour. You can grind your own if you have the right equipment, but that will require another step. I'll address that later.
Mix them very well, cover but do not seal the jar. You want to allow for CO2 to escape. Put it on a shelf and wait 24 hours.
The next day: You might already see some bubbling. This is good. Add another 70 grams of the same flour and water, mix well, cover and stash it until the next day.
What is happening here is that naturally occurring bacteria from both the air and the flour are breaking down the starch into sugars, feeding on it, and reproducing. The byproducts are CO2 and ethanol, primarily. It also produces lactic acid, which gives sourdough its distinct flavor.
The rest of the week, every day: Mix well, discard 140 grams of starter, and add another 70g of water and flour and mix well. Stash on shelf. Repeat this every day for about a week. If you don't discard half before each feeding, you'll wind up with a hell of a mess.
Do this for at least another 7 days, and until you see the starter doubling in size within a few hours after feeding. Congratulations, you now have a living culture that will make you some awesome bread all year round. Some people name their starter. I confess to doing the same. I think this years starter will go by "doobie." Yeah, I am strange like that.
Once it gets to this point, your starter is alive and well. If you aren't going to use it right away, put it in the fridge. When refrigerated, it only requires a feeding every few weeks. Try not to neglect it too long, or the lactic acid will build up to the point where it is inhibiting further growth. If neglected long enough, the culture could die.
Somewhere along the process you will notice a layer of liquid on the top of your starter when you go to feed it. This is a mixture of alcohols and acids that are a product of the fermentation. This is not only normal, it is a good sign that your culture is healthy. If it smells off for the first few days, don't worry. This is just the process where the desired bacteria overwhelm and starve out the undesired bacteria. This is why we age it for a week or so before initial use. Remember: It's Mix, Discard, Feed. Never skip any of those steps.
Not gonna lie to ya.... while this does take some time to do, it's really mostly just waiting. Same for the process of making the bread itself. It really is not much effort, but for the impatient you might want to just throw out the starter and get your bread from the store. There are many recipes for making bread with commercial yeast that will get you a loaf in a few hours, but for me that kind of defeats the purpose. That said, if you do this right, you can have a fresh loaf of the best bread you've ever had every day.
Now I want to touch on the use of home-ground flour. I am not sure why this is the case, but you might not get the same texture as you will with commercial flour unless you take an additional step. It involves letting the flour and water co-mingle for awhile before adding the starter and salt. You can skip this step if your home ground stuff doesn't have this problem, but it doesn't hurt and just adds a little more waiting time.
Ok, so let's make some bread.
If you genuinely detest kneading dough, you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn that you won't be doing any of that, at least not in the way you might think. The fermentation/proofing part of this is so long that the gluten forms just fine on it's own. Kneading dough only accelerates what is otherwise a natural process.
You'll need a mid sized dutch oven. If you don't already have one, just get one. They are an amazing tool for cooking all kinds of things. They are cheap, and they last forever.
Also a good sized bowl for mixing the ingredients. Get some parchment (baking) paper also.
To the aforementioned "good sized bowl" add 450 grams of flour and 405 grams of water (for a 90% saturation). 405 is not a typo.
Stir well with a good wooden spoon.
If you are using home-ground flour, cover and refrigerate overnight. The refrigeration will reduce any fermentation while allowing the flour to get well hydrated and start the formation of enzymes and the breakdown of the starches.
Add 130 grams of the starter to the bowl. While you don't have to do this right away, you'll want to add 65 grams of flour and water to the remaining starter, mix well, and store in a room temperature environment for 24 hours before making more bread, or putting the starter in the fridge. This will make sure your current culture lives on for the next loaf.
Also add 9 grams of salt. Kosher salt, or that pink Himalayan stuff is fine. Avoid iodized salt. It's not natural anyway.
Mix this well with a wooden spoon. Now while I said that no kneading was required, and that is still technically true, you might find that dumping the dough onto a floured surface and mixing it by hand to be more effective. Basically you want to make sure the starter and salt are well distributed.
At this point, we need to let the dough ferment for awhile. If you can keep an eye on it, you can do this at room temperature and keep an eye on it until it has pretty much doubled in size and has a bubbly surface. Ideally, you'll want to do this over a long period of time at reduced temperatures. The refrigerator is a little too cold for this, so my suggestion is to put in a cooler with an ice-pack for 12 hours. This is to make sure it does not over-ferment if you are not checking it every few hours. This is especially important in environments over 70F, since a higher heat will fuel the fermentation process to be much more aggressive than we want.
Once that's done, you can optionally spend the next hour stretching/folding the dough every 15 minutes over 4 iterations. The dough will be sticky, so make sure your hands are wet so the dough will not stick to them. It is important to wait 15 minutes between sessions to give the dough a chance to "relax" and settle into it's internal structure before stretching/folding it about some more. Stop when the dough starts to feel like it's resisting the stretch. Wait 15 minutes before you stretch/fold it again.
Four times might be excessive, and personally I think you can skip this part entirely, but not skipping it will make the final product even better. Or at the very least, it won't make it worse. If you are using commercial flour, you can probably skip this. You're choice.
So now we start the part where we turn this blob of dough into a loaf of bread, and this wonderful you-tube baker has not only repeated a lot of what I've said here, it has the benefit of being in video form, and hopefully helps bring this all together for you:
Now let's touch on how to preserve your starter for future use.
If you think you'll be making bread once a week, just keep it in the fridge and feed it at least once a month. Once every two weeks would be ideal.
If you want to take a break from making bread, but want to preserve your culture for future use, there are a few approaches you can take.
In the fridge, the culture will be alive, but (and this is the official term) it's growth is being retarded by the lower temperature. This affords longer periods of time between feedings. From one day to a few weeks.
However, when dried and frozen, the culture can stay viable for decades, if not centuries.
Take a portion of the starter and spread it thinly on some parchment paper and let it dry completely. Take the dried results and store it in a jar and put it in the freezer. The bacteria aren't dead, rather they are in a state of "suspended animation" and will remain viable for a very long time. To "revive" it, just add it to 70g water and flour and it will spring back to life in a day or so.
I currently have a sample of a centuries old culture from Giza. Allegedly the first example of leavened bread made in human history. I can say that there is nothing special about it. It tastes like bread. But the idea that it is so old is nonetheless interesting.
If you want to go down this path, know that I am happy to give advice/suggestions on the subject, and please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Hope this makes your winter a bit more tolerable!
Peace.
I suppose i could just turn excess bud into hash. Because growing less is not an option, I nearly enjoy growing as much as toking(nearly)
