Sunday, March 30, 2008

Bread #2

[picture of a loaf]

Today's second loaf is a simple sour rye bread. I took most of my sourdough culture (about 300 grams), mixed it in about 600 grams of water, added a couple of grams salt and mixed slowly in 800 grams of traditionally threshed (smoked) organic rye flour. I let the dough ferment for about six hours. Then I transferred it onto my floured peel-substitute, formed a loaf, added flour on top, and transferred the loaf in the preheated oven on a hot baking stone. I baked it for about an hour, first in 200 °C, then after about thirty minutes lowered it to 150 °C. Upon removal from the oven, crumb temperature was about 88 °C.

A taste and texture report will have to wait for a couple of days, as I want to eat the other bread first.

ETA Taste is sour and sharp, typical for rye breads. The crust was soft, which to me indicates that I should have started in a higher temperature. Crumb texture was fairly typical, with small holes.

[picture of a slice]

How to make a sourdough culture

A sourdough culture is a symbiosis of two kinds of micro-organisms: a species of yeast, and a species of lactobacillus. The particular species varies from culture to culture, but the basic mechanism is the same. The lactobacillus makes the culture acidic, which repels most hostiles and pathogens and gives sour bread its characteristic sourness. The yeast is what leavens bread; it is not the same species as you would buy in the grocery.

The two basic things you must understand about a sourdough culture is that you need to feed it, and you need to remove its waste products – particularly you need to dilute the acid periodically so that the environment doesn't become hostile to your pet microbes (too much acid will do them in too, not just the bad guys).

There are many ways of making a sourdough culture by scratch. Here's what I did. You'll need a container with a cover, about a kilogram of (preferably organic rye) flour and lots of water.

Take a clean container and mix in it 200 grams of flour and 400 grams of water. Cover the container and leave it covered in room temperature. Feed it every 8–24 hours by discarding most (but at least half) of it and adding 200 grams of flour and 400 grams of water, and mixing well. In a couple of days it should start being bubbly; at that time, I recommend switching to feeding it equal parts of flour and water (I use 200 grams of both) to make it a bit thicker. When it expands itself in a couple of hours after feeding (if your container is transparent, you should be seeing holes all over it, but not necessarily on top), it's ready (I expect it to take a week to get to this point). It should at that point smell sour but not stink.

A live culture should be fed every 8–24 hours and kept in room temperature. You can refrigerate it just after feeding, in which case it should keep a week or two, and when you want to use it, take it out to room temperature and let it sit for hours, and feed it once before using it. Freezing and drying are reported to work, though I haven't tried them.

To use the culture, take some (but not all) of it several hours after the latest feeding and mix it in the water you intend to use in the dough. Remember to feed the culture.

Note: fruit flies like sourdough, so do remember to cover your culture when not working on it.

ETA The important thing is to dilute the acid when you are feeding. If you can't stand throwing stuff away, just feed the culture exponentially, at least doubling its size in each feeding. You might want to start small if you want to go this way...

ETA Something I forgot to mention... I added some apple cider vinegar to the mix during the first couple of feedings, before it started showing life, to discourage the acid-averse critters.

Bread #1

(ETA a title)

[picture of bread]

Today's first bread is a no-knead sourdough with wheat and soy. I took a spoonful of my rye-based sourdough culture, dissolved it in 800 grams of water, added 300 grams of soy flour, about 20 grams of olive oil and a couple of grams of salt, and whisked it thoroughly to aerate the mixture well. Then I mixed in 500 grams of bread flour. I let the dough ferment for about 12 hours in room temperature, then transferred it to a large pan (diameter of 26 centimeters) and let it proof for about three hours. I added liberal amounts of oil on top (estimate about 30-40 grams), I baked it for a bit longer than an hour in a preheated oven, first at 200 °C, then when I noticed that the oil was smoking, lowered the temperature to 175 °C. At the end of the bake, I used 220 °C for about five to ten minutes. Crumb temperature was about 90 °C when I had removed the bread from the oven and the pan.

I will update later with a report on crumb texture and taste, once it has cooled down.

ETA The crumb seems to have a rather nice, irregular texture, though I was hoping for it to be a bit more holey :) The bread is incredibly easy to cut and feels wonderful in general. The taste is sour, as expected, but creamy and quite pleasant.

[picture of the crumb]