The Windowpane Test: Learning Sourdough

Baguettes and 40% whole wheat

2010-03-11T10:53:00.004-05:00

After a business trip to Barcelona, which exposed me to baguettes and their crusty potential, I started experimenting with the long and thin dough shape. Results were good, but they became great recently when I decided to cut down on the amount of whole wheat in the dough (I'd been doing more than half whole wheat flour, with AP taking up the rest).

So, using Peter Reinhart's sourdough method as outlined in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I used approximately 8.25 oz of whole wheat flour and 12 oz of AP flour (or around 40% and 60% of flour weight, respectively, which excludes the completely unbleached all purpose flour starter).

It's very good bread. Retarding the shaped baguettes overnight allowed for an even better flavor and texture.

Notes for next time: build up more gluten, maintain hotter oven for longer.

Catch up

2010-02-03T17:34:00.006-05:00

I'm sure almost no one has passed by this blog, but as it was initially intended as a means for me to document and take notes on my development as a sourdough baker, I am ashamed at the lack of updates here. Since the beginning of all of this, I haven't taken a break of more than one week from working with the New Zealand culture I woke up way back in June 2009. Looking over these previous entries, I laugh at how deflated and strange my old boules looked. I am not going to be humble about it; I've gotten pretty good with baking sourdoughs, thanks, in short, to perseverance in the pursuit of good bread without commercial yeast.

My latest sourdough experiment was a potato rosemary recipe that used a commercial yeast starter, but I used my still developing skills to adapt the recipe for my starter, and it came out great. I used blue potatoes (and the cooking water) in an attempt to make it a noticeable shade of blue, but it turned out rather normal, ruining the marketing brainstorm session I had while mashing the potatoes up before adding to the dough.

ALSO, a breakthrough for me has been using my dutch oven to bake the breads. I preheat it along with the oven and drop the dough into it, close the lid, and then after about 20 minutes insert my probe thermometer and remove the lid. Otherwise, I just follow the same procedures as always, and the breads have way more spring and look amazing!

A lot of my breads have been at least photographically documented, but instead of trying to find as many different loaves as I can in all of my photos, here is a photo of the sourdough I think came out the best of recent baking sessions. I added some crushed garlic I sauteed briefly in olive oil, my favorite variation so far for sourdough.

Blueberry pancakes and an attractive overnight boule

2009-08-21T20:24:00.004-04:00

Blueberries grow all around Amy's mom's house!

The punch of the wild berries went well with the wild yeast pancakes.

Amy put together the dough for these two breads and baked the first one. As is my new ritual, we baked one as soon as it was ready to go and refrigerated the other overnight. Overnight is the way to go!

No refrigeration

Holy crap I've impressed myself. Must've been Amy's magic touch.

Notes for next time:

-more salt... kosher takes up more space than table salt, which is what Peter Reinhart uses. MUST REMEMBER THIS or else I will keep making bland breads

Garlic!

2009-07-28T18:35:00.005-04:00

Today I busted out the most delicious sourdough I've ever made, all thanks to some olive oil and garlic--and, you know, these past two months of experimentation and learning.

Basically, I wanted to copy a bread I love from Beach Pea Baking Co. in Kittery, ME. It's a roasted garlic boule that is so good I've had dreams about it. Wonderful dreams, in which I am prancing through a flowery meadow towards the boule, the sun lighting my grin in the most delicate and subtle way. But I didn't feel like roasting the garlic, since we didn't really have a good head, and I didn't really feel like waiting a while for it to fully roast, so I pan fried about 10 smashed cloves in extra virgin olive oil and added to the dough before the first rise.

The result was a fantastic blend of garlic and sour that I can't really figure out. Is it garlic that is making me feel so great or is it the sour? My breathe must be awful right now.

The only major issue with this bread came when I slashed it just before baking. It seemed that as soon as I punctured the skin the swelling monster I'd been patiently proofing exhaled deeply and deflated to about half its height. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I read just now that the blade should perhaps be wet when scoring. I need to research that more, but it sounds about right. Also, it could definitely use a darker crust.

Lucky for me, I followed Peter Reinhart's method closely and have a second boule retarding in the fridge right now. Tomorrow I will bake again and hopefully nothing will collapse.

Notes for next time: will think about this more and post with the second garlic boule.

Twins

2009-07-21T08:59:00.001-04:00

I was accidentally experimental with my last two sourdoughs. With an unplanned visit to Amy's mother, my baking was interrupted during the final rise stage. I was doing one bread hearth style and one in a loaf pan, and decided to refrigerate the boule (hearth style, in case you aren't aware), and bring the loaf with me in the car. The dough rose during the bumpy ride, and then I immediately baked. The results were good, but definitely not sour and without that desirable open crumb I've been struggling to find.

slash up the middle opened up nicely and looks good

went very well with some soup Amy pulled together

When I got home two days later, the boule in the fridge was looking alright. It had begun to spread out a little, and the taut skin I had created seemed fragile. I let the dough warm up for about 5 hours, and then baked on my pizza stone. Just after putting it in the oven, I got an important work call, and this kept me from my bread for 10 minutes too long. The result was a tough, dark crust. Amy and I ate most of it while driving, and it really wasn't too bad. The crumb was beautifully open and there was a nice touch of sour. Not as much as my first bread, but definitely there. Next sourdoughs will definitely be retarded overnight in the fridge before baking, and hopefully I can pull them at the right time and enjoy some really great bread.

didn't rise so much, possibly because of the spreading during the long refrigeration period

nice shot of the crumb showing a variety in bubble size

can't say I recommend eating crusty bread in a car

This was a very enlightening bread experience, I must say. With the added stress of interruptions in my normal laid back routine, I was able to see the drastic effect of retarding in a refrigerator and in overbaking. Any unexpected situation is an opportunity to learn and grow, even if you're just baking something. I doubt I would have considered overnight refrigeration of the dough so soon in my bread studies if it hadn't been forced on me. There must be a good philosophical quote to go with all this, but all I can think about is lemons and lemonade. Mmmm lemonade.

notes for next time:
-retard overnight in fridge!
-use more starter in initial dough to hopefully increase sourness
-bake when distractions are less likely

100% Whole Wheat (well, almost)

2009-07-11T15:12:00.005-04:00

After the salt incident, I hungered for bread that had taste, so I psyched myself up after busting out another excellent whole wheat cinnamon raisin walnut loaf of Peter Reinhart's and fed my starter with completely whole wheat flour, mostly because I was out of AP flour. Woops.

I looked around for how to convert an AP starter to whole wheat, and the process seemed to take days. I wanted the bread now, though. I needed it after the horror that ensued at Mom's. So, I decided to risk it and just go about things as if the starter was ready to go the next day. And I think it was pretty much ready. I loosely followed a recipe I found online, and baked a single boule on my stone in just the same way I've done for my past few loaves. Actually, no, after seeing how truly hot my Mom's oven got, I preheated to 550F on my apartment oven. Mistake? Probably, because the bottom was almost entirely black.

Rose no problem.

This bread is actually my new favorite for homemade 100% whole wheat bread. No offense to Peter Reinhart's recipe, which uses commercial yeast and is definitely good. It's just that this one had just a slight tinge of sourness that made it work for almost any application, especially as a standalone piece of dry toast. Best dry toast I've ever had, I think. Adding some Nutella was pushing it, however, since the sweet vs. sour battle was quite brutal, so I will continue to periodically bake Peter's recipe.

Notes for next time:
-go back to preheating to 500 despite lame oven performance
-let ferment longer to really expand flavor

Salt

2009-07-05T14:41:00.000-04:00

I brought a firm starter with me on a visit to my mom's for the weekend and baked bread in a much better oven on a much denser stone. And I really thought the bread was going to be my best ever. It baked into two beautiful boules.

But... as soon as I took the first bite (just as the second boule was finishing in the oven), I realized I had made the most fatal of errors. My tongue writhed and retracted to the back of my mouth and my heart sank, because, yes, you guessed it, I forgot to add salt. One of just four ingredients, and it slipped my mind. I don't even want to talk about it.

notes for next time:
-use brain

White Breads

2009-07-01T19:03:00.000-04:00

The time had come to try an entirely different method of preparing a sourdough. Instead of just skimming, I read all of Peter Reinhart's section on sourdough in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and went with his first basic sourdough recipe, which used 100% unbleached AP flour. I was temporarily out of whole wheat flour anyway, so I was open to the opportunity.

This bread session had a lot of differences from the other four to date. The first big change was using a firm starter.

I let the firm starter watch TV with us

I had to set an alarm for 3am to follow the timing guidelines in the book for when to check on the starter and move to the fridge. It was supposed to double in size in 3-4 hours. Luckily it did, and I didn't have to set another alarm for 4am.

The recipe indicated the the dough was for two boules (or other similar-sized breads), so I took the opportunity to try the new method with a variation in a loaf pan. Since I was following his instructions closely, I finally learned how to properly form a boule, which I had just been guessing at with my first three breads. I gave it a nice, tight skin and it didn't collapse at all! Winging it just doesn't work with bread.

Before final rise

After final rise

This note on the microwave door is a necessity

Pound sign slash style ROCKS

Don't they look pro? These smelled soooo good

The boule is slightly burned on the bottom. I think I need a hotter oven to reduce cooking time.

Not a very open crumb, but went very nicely with some bluefish Amy and I picked up

The bread was actually kind of disappointing, despite it's good looks. The crumb was tight and reminded me of cheap white bread, and there was barely a hint of sourness. Not that it was a BAD bread, not at all. When toasted it is a full football field of flavor. I just need to figure out why things keep changing so much!

Notes for next time:
-watch actual oven temperature more closely
-research starter prep to increase sour flavor
-research bubble production
-try not to eat it all so quickly

Pancakes and Loaf Pans

2009-06-27T17:37:00.001-04:00

Having just run out of that powdered yet somehow "real" buttermilk, I decided the time had come to expand my sourdough horizons. The above pancakes were simple to make and had a nice taste. Definitely different from buttermilk pancakes, but I think I'll save the money and hold off on getting more of the buttermilk.

Sourdough Pancakes Recipe (modification to the one found here):
Mix all of the following together and cook however you want to cook pancakes:

1 1/2 cups sourdough starter, fed the night before
1/2 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon oil or butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg slightly beaten
5/8 teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons soymilk

For my fourth sourdough baking session, I finally broke down and decided to bake bread from my New Zealand starter in loaf pans.

Per Amy's suggestion, I split the dough in two in hopes that there would be a tremendous oven spring

Issues with sunken doughs and burned bottoms made me curious about the other realm, and I have to say, the results were pretty good. And a nice bonus was that the pieces were not so awkwardly wide, allowing for easier toasting.

But, I forgot to slash once again, so the spring was small. Or at least that's what I'm going to blame for these wimpily small (yet still delicious) breads. I've been reading Peter Reinhart and I'm starting to see several mistakes in my methods. My next breads will be following his methods outlined in The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Notes for next time:
-Follow Reinhart closely; this means shaping boules with INSTRUCTIONS (what a concept) and proofing as he recommends, not just winging it

#3

2009-06-22T16:56:00.000-04:00

Bread #2 with some perfect berry jelly made by someone Amy knows

With about 1/10th of my #2 remaining, I went ahead and made a third sourdough bread, this time ditching the terracotta planter altogether and using my new cheap ($10 at Target) pizza stone. This change is one of several that I experimented with for this bread.

Another change was to let the final rise take place on a freestanding inverted sheet pan, which would allow me to slide the dough directly onto the preheated stone with minimal disturbance.

At first, I was going to leave a round Pyrex storage container over the dough, but decided that it was not going to be large enough. I was correct, but the dough spread out more than I would have liked.

Perfectly risen, as well as spread out. This is when I should have baked.

A great theory, but, as you will see, the dough ended up collapsing onto itself, giving me yet another flattish bread.

If only the oven had been ready!

I witness first hand one type of disaster possible when baking bread.

The third thing I did differently was institute a steamy environment by adding boiling water to my cast iron pan, positioned on the top rack of the approximately 500 degrees Farenheit oven.

I snapped this picture early in the baking process, just after spraying down the walls of the oven.

And, for once, I remembered to slash the dough! As you may have guessed, I have actually buckled down and studied a little bit, exclusively dependent upon Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I'm not nearly through with it, but I picked up some quick tips while I was waiting for the overnight proof period to end Sunday morning. But no matter how much I read, I still don't have the necessary instincts to create consistently pleasing bread. I take comfort in Peter Reinhart's "golden rule" for home baked bread, however: "It will always be a hit no matter how it turns out." And so far, that rule has proven to be correct. My third loaf was really a different beast than the first two, with a crisp and delicious crust I didn't realize I was lacking until the first bite. The steampan and spraying the oven walls had had a major effect, as well as the freestanding pizza stone. The heat went through the dough in a completely different way this time.

Aside from being flat and wide, the bread had another unforeseen issue; the bottom was blotched with charred crust. As long as I don't eat the burnt bits, this bread is definitely my best sourdough so far, but if even a speck of burnt crust hits my tongue, the experience is ruined until I drink something to clear my palate.

And I should also note that the overall volume of this bread was much greater than that of the previous two, which actually turned out to be quite a concern, since I had nothing large enough to store it in until a few slices were consumed and I was able to squeeze it into a rectangular baking dish with a cover.

Notes for next time:
-use a bowl or something else to provide structure to the final rise, but still do it on the sheet pan
-don't wait too long to bake!
-perhaps try a longer, refrigerated fermentation as Peter Reinhart recommends... but if I'm too hungry, perhaps not
-figure out if there's a way to avoid the burning
-slash dough JUST before baking, not while oven is just starting to preheat

Second Bread

2009-06-16T17:44:00.000-04:00

Nearing the end of my first sourdough, and anxious to see if my refrigerated culture was surviving, I decided it was time to bake another. I took one of the cultures out, fed it, and let it sit in room temperature overnight.

Yesterday morning, I found another of those wonderful explosions, and quickly pulled together the same dough as I did for my first bread. My plan was to let it do its first rise all day, and then I would start the second rise at around 6pm, leaving me plenty of time to bake it before bed at around 9:30-10pm. Since the first bread was quite sour, I decided to experiment this time by reducing the amount of culture I used. I went down to 230 grams from 250. Otherwise, everything was exactly the same. Here are a few pictures of everything coming together:

Short ingredient lists are important for a healthy lifestyle

Before first rise

After first rise

Another adjusment I decided to make was to use a smaller bowl with a bottom that was not as flat as the one I used last time. This was a great idea, but great ideas with bread are so dependant on a multitude of other factors. I did not flour the cloth napkin nearly as much as last time, which resulted in the dough sticking, and when the time came to bake I had to fiddle with the sensitive risen dough so much that it deflated quite a bit. NEXT TIME I WILL DO IT PERFECTLY!

Before second rise

After second rise

I preheated the oven for what seemed like forever (we estimated it to be about an hour) until the temperature in the pot was around 400 degrees Fahrenheit. No more low temperatures for me. Next, the struggle to separate dough from napkin ensued on the hot terracotta saucer, and then I quickly inserted the probe into the dough, which had indeed fallen but was definitely larger overall than my last loaf. Just spread out more. I put the pot in place, and slid the assembly back into the hot oven. The air in the pot did not take long to get back to 400, which was a big confidence boost.

Actually taken near the end of baking, but you get the idea

The bread came out a lot different this time, at least in terms of crust. I did not presoak the pot, I made sure everything was hot, and I used less starter. One or all of these factors got me the attractive loaf below.

Noticeably tamer than my previous bread, this one was actually somewhat disappointing at first taste this morning. The lack of sourness was not the issue, however; rather, it was the lack of smell. This turned out to be a personal issue caused by allergies (or perhaps the bread improved with age), because later in the afternoon when my nose had cleared, this bread had a taste that seemed an instant classic. Tonight we will have it with some tri-colored pasta with mushroom sauce from Terra Cotta Pasta (best in our region for sure). Should be nice.

Notes for next time:
-flour the napkin
-flour the napkin
-see if I can get a baking stone instead of using saucer
-if I get the stone, get a peel
-or maybe just bake in loaf pan?
-use all 250g of starter, me likey tang

Is it winking angrily?

Field Tests

2009-06-16T17:25:00.000-04:00

The process of caring for and eventually baking sourdough is very intense and educational, but the whole point of baking bread is to eat and enjoy it. My first NZ Sourdough may not have had much oven spring, but it made up for it in several ways. I noticed that the sourness was not nearly as tangy after 24 hours, which I've read can be the case with any breads containing whole wheat. The flour kind of settles in to its environment, and when the grains are comfortable, so is the eater.

I quickly want to note that I chose to store this loaf in an unclosed zip top bag. I probably would have used a paper bag instead, but we did not have any large enough on hand. This seemed to be good enough for the duration of the loaf, providing the option of sealing the bag if staleness becomes an issue. Normally I stow bread in the fridge in a sealed bag, but I don't like the constant need to toast, microwave, or wait for bread that isn't cold. Sometimes I just want a regular temperature snack, you know?

And now onto some applications of my new friend. I think that this bread is actually good enough to just munch on solo, but in chorus the flavor harmonizes so well with a lot of other foods. We tried it with eggs, butter & jam, and a fresh herb and tomato bruschetta (ideal with a tangy sourdough). Pictures:

Eggs love sourdough (so do strawberries!)

We ate the bruschetta with some fresh pasta in pesto with seared chicken, a perfect dinner

Fresh basil and oregano courtesy of our back porch

Day 8: Earth Meets the Oven

2009-06-12T17:46:00.000-04:00

Finally, I'm just about caught up with the blogging here. I'm actually writing about Day 8 on... Day 8!

So, today was pretty much the day I'd been waiting for. All I had to do was work the dough a bit, let it rise again, and then throw it in the oven.

Nice expansion in the preceding 12 hours

Sounds simple, but as you may have learned by now, I juggle a lot of variables when cooking. I don't really know why I do it, but I always do.

Let's go over the variables I dealt with in the final few stages of the bread baking process:

Following three different sets of instructions.
Not thinking about the wetness of the dough until the day of baking.
Using a DIY cloche made out of a 7" terracotta azalea planter with saucer (without proper usage instructions at all).
General lack of knowledge and unpreparedness.

I decided to skip out on Ed Wood's instructions for the rest of my baking, since he only required 1 minute of "mixing" in the morning, then more proofing and then immediately baking, all in a bread machine that I am staunchly opposed to using. This left me with King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking and Peter Reinhart's The Break Baker's Apprentice. Each has excellent instructions with great detail, so I pretty much borrowed from both of them.

The first thing I borrowed was folding on a floured surface. Since my dough was already fairly dry and stiff, I should not have added any more flour. But hey, it happened.

Then, following the lead in KAF's book, I waited 20 minutes and folded again. I excitedly tried the windowpane test, but the dough failed miserably, tearing almost immediately. So I stretched and folded some more, waited a bit, stretched and folded some more, and then did the test again. Getting there. I continued with the folding and stretching until I finally got a good enough result. Amy woke up in time to help me out by taking a picture.

Amy saved me a lot of annoyance by taking this picture. I had been trying to hold the stretched dough to the light with my left hand and take a picture with my doughy right, which, I swear, is impossible.

The moment was rushing at me, now. I set up a makeshift proofing bowl (opaque pyrex with a cloth napkin dusted heavily with flour) and plopped my best pal in.

Pre-final rise

My three sources recommended a final rising time of between 2-4 hours, but I ended up going a little too long into the fifth hour because of some work I had to do for my job. Oop, there's another variable: real life. I'm not sure if this extra time caused any issues, but I don't think I'll wait nearly as long with my next bread, since there was not much growth between the 3rd and 5 hours.

Post-final rise

I preheated the oven with my terracotta pot (soaked in water experimentally for 10 minutes) and saucer inside, up to around 450 degrees F. This is where Peter Reinhart became an influence in this bread. Ed Wood specified 375F, but that was for a bread machine. I was trying to recreate a brick oven with the terracotta, and brick ovens are HOT. So I went with Peter Reinhart's temperature and hoped for the best. Then I had to be very gentle and cautious. I had to handle this risen dough more delicately than I had handled anything before in my life (I've never held a newborn, so...). Real bakers use a peel and slide the dough onto a baking stone, but I don't have either of those; I just have a terracotta saucer with an inconveniently sloped edge. Why didn't I think about this darned edge when I was in the gardening store? These kinds of questions were pointless at this stage, so I overturned the bowl and let the dough slip into my left hand. Since the dough had technically been rising in the bowl upside down, I had to shift the dough to my right hand to get it onto the saucer upright. This was not an issue, but I feel that the risen dough lost some of its height in this process.

Another factor I never considered was the insane amount of heat loss that must have been occuring while the above picture was taken. I let the bread cook for about 10 minutes and then removed from the oven again for two reasons. One was to check and make sure nothing horrible had happened, and the other was so I could thread my probe thermometer through the hole in the bottom (now top) of the pot and make sure the bread reached the proper internal temperature. I hated myself at this moment, because I knew there was a massive amount of heat dissipating from the dough at such a crucial time. Next time, I will either not use the probe or I will stick it into the dough first thing.

Back in the oven, the probe gave me some upsetting readings for the oven temperature (which was actually getting the ambient temperature within the terracotta pot). It was not budging past 250F. I had made obvious mistakes that caused this problem. First, I didn't make sure the pot reached 450F before getting the dough in there, and second, I opened the pot up partway through the cooking. I decided to crank the oven to its highest setting, which was surprisingly all the way up to 550F, and managed to get the external reading to around 400F. I sat in the kitchen with my laptop and did some more stuff for my job, waiting for the Polder to beep when the internal temperature of the bread reached 205F. I'm not totally sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say this happened after approximately 50 minutes of total baking.

I had no idea what to expect when I lifted the pot off of its saucer. My biggest concern was that the dough had grown too large and would be stuck to the uncovered walls of the pot, and my second biggest concern was that the bread would be totally burnt. Luckily, neither of these atrocities occured.

The crust was leathery and strangely smooth on this first New Zealand bread of mine. The smell was a mix of nice fresh bread and earthy terracotta, and really, it was not a bad combination at all. Earth meets the oven; it summed up my hopes in baking sourdough quite nicely.

I was immediately disappointed by the visible lack of growth, no doubt due to the low, inconsistent temperature, but that was not the true concern I have with this bread. I sliced a piece and observed the expected lack of open crumb with a slight shake of my head. But I figured that it couldn't be too bad, since I had made a lot of breads in the past that didn't rise too well and they all tasted fine.

I took a bite, expecting the hear choruses of angels from the windows and trumpets blasting at my from the cabinets, but instead felt my tongue quiver under the intense sourness of something that surely was not bread. Never had I tasted a baked good so sour. Very comparable to the sourness of sour cream and nearly that of lemons, I was struck into a still despair. At first, I was downright repulsed, but with each bite I felt that it could possibly just be another of those adult, acquired tastes. I certainly love coffee now, even without sugar.

Perhaps I will acquire the taste of this bread, too. After all, I expect that I will be the one to eat the bulk of it, and I just polished off a nicely buttered second slice that turned out to be intensely pleasurable, with an air of forbidden pleasure I don't usually experience with food I've made. Maybe if I made a sandwich next...

Notes for next time:
-fully preheat terracotta and leave it closed the whole time
-don't let dough rise too long
-read more of what the King Arthur Flour kitchen, Peter Reinhart, and a few good websites have to say on sourdough, and really learn a method
-keep experimenting, regardless of weird results!

Day 7 (Evening): Chrysalis

2009-06-12T01:33:00.000-04:00

In order to be totally certain the the culture had fully fermented, I fed the culture in the glass jar at 6pm on Day 7, and if it rose 3 inches by 9pm, I would put together the dough and move even closer to the final goal. And let's just see what happened...

6pm (Before)

7:16pm (getting there!)

8pm (2 inches is good enough...)

8:38pm (BINGO)

My culture was officially ready! Really, ready, in fact. I scaled and measured the wonderfully short list of ingredients from Ed Wood's partial whole wheat sourdough:

Culture
Whole wheat flour
Unbleached white flour
Salt
Water

One issue I did not take into account with the ingredients was the consistency of my culture. I had been pretty much throwing in a somewhat random amount of water with each feeding, achieving a varying consistency. Ed Wood stated that it should be a thick pancake batter, but there was no way to really tell if my version of a thick pancake batter was the same as his. So, figuring that all will work out without giving it a second thought, I used the exact amounts for each ingredient as specified.

This time I let my mixer do some of the work (score one for the bad guys). The result was a strong dough with a pleasant feel. It seemed firm, despite the warnings of wet dough in King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking, but I didn't worry, and let the dough grow for the next twelve hours into Day 8. I was reminded at the time of the simple stages of the life of a butterfly. My dough had been a creeping caterpillar for the past several days, slowly growing and preparing for a change, and now it had undergone a dramatic, temporary change, with a completely different future to behold the next day.

Day 7 (Morning): Man vs. Machine

2009-06-11T15:30:00.000-04:00

Ah, confidence. I was brimming with it. Even though this was technically over Ed Wood's estimated 3-5 days of activation (it was 5 days, 12.5 hours after I started, to be exact), I was invincible on the morning of Day 7. Here is what awaited me in my room temperature proofing box at around 9am:

This has about 1 1/4 inches of net growth since the last feeding 12 hours before, but I've found that after a culture it reaches peak frothiness, it falls back into itself somewhat

Admit it, you kind of want to dive in

Just wanted to try and capture the consistency here

I decided that I'd better officially check to see if my cultures would pass Ed Wood's test of 2-3 inches of volume increase within 3 hours, so I set an alarm for noon and started another feeding frenzy.

Come on, yeasties! Dinner's on!

Note the pink line. This is the "before" shot.

While I waited, I started to peruse my other bread resources, Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice and King Arthur Flour's Whole Grain Baking. I was greatly disturbed to find that the method's in both books were much different than those provided by Ed Wood. For example, in the KAF book, there were a series of steps to take every 20 minutes for the day of baking. Pulling, folding--stuff I vaguely remember seeing in the bread episode of Good Eats, but had for some reason totally dismissed from memory. How had I forgotten to study! All I had was a little booklet that wasn't even that well written! In Ed Wood's now seemingly poor instructions, there were just FOUR steps total. I will sum them up now:

Mix all the ingredients together and wait 12 hours.
Mix the dough again for a minute and then wait 3-4 hours.
Bake.
Cool.

It seems that the recipes in the booklet are aimed at bakers using bread machines, so of course the steps can be simplified as there is a machine to do the bulk of the work. But I found it rather annoying, since A) I don't have a bread machine and B) I'm trying to create a legitimate, back to basics kind of bread here, and relying on technology seemed, to be frank, pathetic. Ed Wood, as grateful as I am to him for having a site where one can obtain a great variety of cultures, had pitted man against machine, and seemed okay with the idea of just letting the machine win. So, without a bread machine, or even instructions on how to proceed with my soon to be born dough, I decided to wing it. Instead of studying Peter Reinhart's book, a renowned source for all things bread, I skimmed the basic steps and images in the KAF book and spent the remainder of the 3 hours getting some work done for my work at home job. Everything would be fine, I kept telling myself.

And so, it seemed, everything would. Taken around 12pm:

Day 6: Moosing

2009-06-10T17:08:00.000-04:00

After implementing my new warmed water rule, I woke to find both cultures slightly puffed with bubbles. I don't know if I can convey the excitement. I will try by comparing to moose watching once again.

My younger brother and I have made 4 trips to northern NH so far in the past year, with the sole purpose of each trip being to find moose. We've both gone "moosing" separately, but I've never seen on my own. Tim, my brother, has seen a total of 10 moose in the past 8 or 9 months, and I consider him to be an expert on the matter. These trips are among my all time favorite memories, partly due to the good company, and partly due to the sort of magic encountered in the search.

I love the excitement of driving into the first well justified moose x-ing zone on the Kancamagus Highway, the car immersed in that barely detectable dim blue light that exists before the sun peers over the horizon. Once we reach a known spot (where moose activity is evident by either past sightings or the presence of tracks), we silently sneak down a trail to an opening, not even letting our heels touch the earth. Tim, the real brains behind the activity, has spent hours in trees overlooking an open patch of forest while the sun rose, waiting patiently to see anything. The pure hope you feel in scanning the woods for a moose is untouchable by any other experience of that day, unless, of course, you actually see one. In terms of my sourdough journey, on Day 6, the sun hadn't yet risen, fresh tracks littered the mud, and branches were crackling nearby.

When the time came for my cultures' evening meal, I opened the proofing box to find an exhilirating suprise.

The culture was actively bubbling when I took this

The culture had exceeded the required three inches by an immeasurable amount, but this was a full 12 hours after the last feeding, and Ed Wood's instructions required this level of activity to occur within 3 hours, so I fed both cultures and went to bed, dreaming of fermentation on a volcanic scale awaiting me the next morning. I hadn't seen the moose yet, though.

Days 3-5: The Smell

2009-06-09T16:12:00.000-04:00

Days 3, 4, and 5 were all pretty much the same. I did not bother taking many pictures because nothing looked too unique.

My fears of death never fully subsided (even now, on the eve of my first dough, I'm concerned that something out of my control like the humidity or a loud noise from a neighbor could disturb my cultures and ruin everything). But I did my best to keep these thoughts to a minimum, since I could still see that things were still moving and shaking with my culture. Bubbles still rose above the hooch and the smell was--even though I'd never smelled anything like it before--exactly how a sourdough culture is supposed to smell. The smell actually coats your entire mouth and you can feel it tingling along the sides of your tongue. A stink worth experiencing, it is instantly exciting and even somehow satisfying.

On Day 3, the time came to discard some culture as the jar was not large enough (the quart size I was using is strongly recommended, as to keep the bacterias as active as possible without spreading themselves out too much--or whatever), so I decided to split the culture in two and start a second colony (or whatever it should be called) in a clean yogurt container. I fed each a cup of flour and an unmeasured amount of water that I thought seemed right.

These three days of almost no noticeable change gave way to superstition. On the morning of Day 4 I decided to put the light in the proofing box on for an hour or so, to raise the temperature and maybe speed things up. In a way, this probably did help, because I was still using cold water from the pitcher we keep in the refrigerator, which must have lowered the temperature of the culture significantly at each feeding. I started to perceive subtle changes in the structure of the bubbles; or at least I thought so. Just like it is when scanning the woods for wildlife, your eyes will notice things that aren't there and you will trick yourself. On hiking trips last fall with my brother, I could've sworn I saw a massive male moose on three separate occasions. The first time was at night, and the supposed moose (whose presence I was willing to bet a significant sum of money on) turned out to be an outhouse positioned in the distance behind a sign. The second moose turned out to simply be a collection of branches, which, waving in the distance, made up the general shape of the extra-large northern deer.

This was taken just before the night feeding on Day 3.

Looking at those bubbles each morning and evening, I thought that maybe they were growing larger or more frequent with each feeding, but I had to admit that the volume of the culture as a whole had not really shown signs of growth. The culture would have to bubble up a few inches before I could know for sure that it was ready. So I started trying different things, like turning on the proofing light as mentioned, stirring the culture extra vigorously at feeding time, barely stirring at all, and experimenting with how much culture I discarded before feedings. The amount of culture to discard is still pretty confusing to me, so I've decided that it's a good idea to just discard as much as you need to in order to leave 3 inches empty at the top AFTER the culture is fed. This will at the very least keep things clean. I'm still not sure if discarding too much or too little culture before each feeding has positive or negative effects. My culture seems to have taken a day more than Ed Wood predicted, but that could be for a vast array of reasons.

For the night feeding on Day 5, I realized I should use warmer water, so I nuked it up to about 80F , and felt some promise from the slightly warm jar in my palms as I placed it back in the proofing box. The yogurt container did not yield as pleasant a feeling, unfortunately, but you can't expect much from plastic. I don't think it really matters what type of container you use for fermenting a culture, as long as it's clean and about the right size, but next time I do this I'm going to make sure I use glass jars only. If, for any reason, because glass represents a clean, ancient purity for me, and I'm convinced the whole process is much more attractive with the material's rustic charm. Plus, it's clear, which is helpful for sneaking a peak at the progress without having to remove lids.

Day 2: Millions of Mouths to Feed

2009-06-06T13:19:00.000-04:00

For the 24 hours I had to wait, I began to feel a small amount of worry in my abdomen. I had ordered only ONE wheat-based culture, and if I failed with this one, I'd either have to try my luck with the rye, wait over a week for a new culture to arrive, or attempt capturing some yeast in the apartment again; none of these options really appealed to me. This attack on my patience is one of the issues that pushed me away from sourdough after my first attempt. It's one thing to be constantly working towards a goal and seeing some level of progress with each day, but when setbacks start popping up and forcing you to put a project on hold for more than just a few days, it can be, as Liz Lemon would say, a deal breaker. I didn't mention before, but after that first successful loaf I made, I tried three more times to get a new loaf going, but not a single one rose. Your starter teases you with a bland but optimistically springy bread, only to lay flat for the next three dates? That's a deal breaker, ladies.

But, worries aside, I trusted in Ed Wood, because he had a backup plan for how to wash and reactivate a culture should anything go wrong. And, just like when I had to get... something.... checked out by a doctor, my fears were only in my head, because the culture was happily bubbling away.

6/6/2009, 9:05 pm:

Side of jar, showing how thick each layer was

View from above looking down into jar

Close-up of the layers

There was quite a bit of "hooch" (the dark liquid between the doughy bottom layer and the foamy top), but I paid it no mind, as I had read somewhere that you can just mix it right back in. This, I later found out, was not really a good move (though certainly not fatal, or even wrong if you know what you're doing in the feeding process... more on this in later entries).

I decided that there was plenty of room in the jar and I would not need to discard any of the culture yet, so I fed it a cup of flour and 3/4 cup of water (note that this was cold water for the first few feedings.... I'm thinking now that the water should be room temperature). The yeast were having their first meal, and it was to last 12 hours. The consistency of the culture was a bit on the loose side, but I could imagine a pancake batter being about the same density, so I didn't worry about it. I turned off the light in the proofing box to give the yeast a comfortable dining temperature (recommended to be around 70F), and had successfully made it to the next stage in this not so overwhelming experience.

Ed Wood estimated that it would take 3-5 days for the culture to be ready, with feedings every 12 hours. This meant I would use a minimum of 6 cups of flour and, after starting up a backup container for a second culture, up to 20 cups. I did not consider this when I bought a the 3 small 2 lb. bags of organic unbleached flour, one of which had been used for brownies and waffles already. There were millions (or at least a whole lot) of hungry yeast in my culture that I needed to keep fed, and they were capable of eating a lot!

Since I'm trying to do it entirely organic (aside from the initial culture, which I assume was probably not organic), this bread experiment was starting to sound expensive. I'd already dropped about $10 on the proofing box and $20 for the cultures. Unless I'm able to really start cranking out the loaves week after week, this could prove to be an unwise investment. To help lessen the impact on my wallet, I decided to skip the larger grocery chain stores and walk the 1/4 mile to Dover Natural Foods at the end of my street and snag a larger 5 lb bag for $6. This is much cheaper than the $3-4 price of the small bags, and it's definitely more convenient (and uses less packaging!).

Day 1: The Baby

2009-06-06T02:00:00.000-04:00

Before I could dive in and start cranking out the bread, I had to take the partially dormant cultures I ordered from sourdo.com and wake them up, or "reactivate" them. The cultures came with instructions, too, which was a relief because if you've ever browsed around the Internet trying to figure out how to do sourdough, all you end up with is a bombardment of different opinions, many of which are in DIRECT conflict with each other:

Add sugar!
Don't you dare add sugar!
Use grapes!
...no, use pineapples!
Just use water and flour!
Use a heating pad!
Cheating by adding yeast is okay!
Adding yeast is on par with turning to satanism, you devil worshipping heathen!
I can't believe you didn't add sugar!

So, frustrated with the lack of a universal, true method, and not wanting to experiment TOO much, I decided to stick with the instructions that came with the culture. Ed Wood recommends using a homemade proofing box made out of a styrofoam cooler with a dim lightbulb poked into it. Simple enough, and definitely cheap enough. The lighbulb would need a dimmer attached to it so the temperature can be regulated, but other than that, nothing complicated or fancy, just how sourdough is meant to be--simple and attainable by all.

25 watt bulb with in-line dimmer (that plastic thing with the dial). These are attached to a simple work light I found for 6 bucks, which is just a light socket attached to a cord.

To ensure I maintain the recommended temperature range of 85-90 degrees F, I put my Polder to work.

With the proofing box ready to go, I grabbed a jar and dumped in weighed amounts of water, flour, and the culture, and mixed it up. It looked like pancake batter, just as Ed Wood described, so I felt good. Some small air bubbles were rising and erupting at the top, gently foreshadowing the days to come.

With the tip of the probe touching the floor and the oven temperature sensor at the top of the jar, I was able to get great data on how the culture was doing, top to bottom. Why yes, I am a huge nerd.

I waited until the temperature breached 90, and then dimmed the light. After about an hour of checking and adjusting, I was able to get readings constantly around 83F (bottom) and 93F (top), which seemed about right. Now I just had to wait 24 hours. The glow of the proofing box in the night sent me back to childhood, when the calming dimness of a nightlight was a requirement. In this way, the warm box gave off an aura of safety, and I wanted to lay on the couch by the newborn and just watch it all night like an overcautious parent. Lucky for my neck and back, I knew already how uncomfortable that couch was.

Day 0: Wanting, Needing

2009-06-04T08:45:00.000-04:00

Technically I'm on day 7, but didn't think of keeping a log of my experience until last night. So I will recreate days 0-6 from memory in backdated entries.

Before I get into the daily logs, here's a little bit of introduction. Basically, I'd like this blog to be a record of what precisely happens with my experiences with sourdough. I've made a loaf once before, after successfully capturing wild yeast (Dover, NH Sourdough... hm), but the bread was not so sour and definitely not so tasty. Quite bland with unpleasantly bitter undertones. I was also at a stage in the sourdough learning process where I didn't realize the crazy dynamics involved, with a loaf being nearly unpredictable due to the multitude of factors involved that lead to that perfect, wondrous creation. Temperature, consistency, ingredients, time, and sheer willpower (in no specific order) are probably the top five issues to consider, but maybe I'll change my mind with experience.

Sourdough born out of the air on 5th Street

So after failing (in my mind) with the Dover breed of sourdough captured in my home office (wow that sounds so much more professional than it is), I abandoned my wild yeast starter and studied other, simpler methods of cooking food. I've only been actively cooking for a year or so now, so I have a lot of ground to cover, and sourdough, it seemed, could wait. But I was still curious about it, and whenever I had the chance I ordered sandwiches with sourdough bread or snagged a boule at a bakery. I did my best to eat slowly, so I could really figure out what it was that made my favorite food writers drop to their knees and pray to the gods Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces exiguus (science!). I tried several different preparations beyond a basic sandwich, from just ripping chunks off and chomping the soft flesh of the bread like a beast, to delicately toasting slices and spreading a bit of butter on the surface, nibbling and savoring each clenching of my jaw, every gulp of the sweet-salty-sour-umami that makes sourdough what it is.

Sourdough, I think, is where the difference between want and need is blurred. On the one hand, a person could feasibly go through a lifetime without bread. There is no inherent need for it, and folks seeking peace through low-carbohydrate diets are perhaps living at least acceptable lives with some form of happiness. But for me, after having some really great bread, a tugging, pulling WANT grows and grows until it becomes something new. It's more than just a craving, like one might have for a Pop-Tart or a Hawaiian pizza. And after what I've smelled and tasted, I hesitate to keep it classified as a simple, greedy desire. It doesn't have the unpleasantness of greed, but rather, it is the resolution to the most basic of conflicts: hunger. And we all need to eat something, so why not the most fulfilling, delicious thing humankind has been lucky enough to figure out?

As you can see, I found through my onslaught of bread eating the benefits of the effort required, and with a little encouragement taken from John Thorne's section on sourdough in The Outlaw Cook, I decided to order an already captured culture from Ed Wood's site, sourdo.com. I went with the recommended culture for beginners, which comes all the way from New Zealand.

A wheat culture and a rye culture from New Zealand

This is where the adventure begins. As of the time of this writing (6ish days after starting the activation process), I have yet to actually reap the benefits of my efforts, but with a little luck, I hope to be tasting my second sourdough (and my first delicious sourdough) sometime tomorrow afternoon. But maybe something happened in these past few days that would indicate otherwise...