sourdough

Using the no-knead bread recipe has really significantly increased my interest in making good home-made bread. The major revelation was that baking the bread in a dutch oven results in an amazing crust. The fact that you don't have to knead the dough... well that simplifies the process somewhat, but truth be told, I actually enjoy kneading dough once in a while. But while the crust is as good as any you’ll find, the flavor of the crumb remains limited by the use of commercial bakers yeast. The yeast you buy in stores certainly helps the dough rise and results in a reasonably light crumb, but despite 20 hours of proofing, the flavor just doesn’t live up to what you expect when you cut through the crust. 

I didn’t use to enjoy San Francisco sourdough all that much. It’s certainly very different from the light sweet crumb of French baguettes. However, after living in the Bay Area a few years, I began to really enjoy the complexity sourdough bread adds to any meal, sandwich, or snack. As I searched for ways to improve the flavor of my breads, it became clear that making my own sourdough starter was probably the easiest way to add substantial flavor to my bread.

There are thousands of types of yeast. But the stuff you buy in supermarkets is always the same strain, regardless of the brand you buy or whether it's dried or in cake form. It gives a fast, predictable rise, but is lacking in flavor. All other bread yeasts are usually called sourdoughs. So what exactly is sourdough? In short, a sourdough starter actually consists of two separate organisms. There is the yeast which gives the bread its puff. Then there is the lactobacilli, which converts sugars into lactic acid and gives the bread all of its delicious sour flavor.

I won’t go through a step by step description of how to make a starter. Suffice it to say that I followed these instructions, and used King Arthur Organic Whole Wheat Flour and tap water. That’s it, just two ingredients. The goal of the process is to grow the yeast and lactobacilli that is naturally occurring in the flour into something that’s strong enough to lift and flavor bread. It is not to capture wild yeast from the air in your kitchen, though that may happen. Using organic whole wheat flour is key, because if you use bleached, processed white flour, it won't contain the natural yeasts and lactobacilli you are trying to harvest. The process took me about two weeks, feeding the starter twice a day with flour and water. Your starter is ready when it doubles in size between feedings and smells like your might expect sourdough starter to smell like (like sourdough!).  Since it’s doubling in size every twelve hours or so, you have to chuck half of it away before feeding it more flour and water. Otherwise you'll have enough starter to fill an Olympic-sized pool after a week. When it’s strong enough, you simply use some of the starter where you would normally use yeast. One cup of starter is roughly equivalent to one packet of yeast.

With my bubbling starter in hand I tried my no-knead recipe once again. As you can see it looks great, and lo and behold it actually has that sour flavor I was after. Oh and that crust... Perfect. Now I just need to work on not eating an entire loaf in one day! As for the starter, it stays semi-dormant in the fridge, slowly developing more flavor until I'm ready to use it again.