Bread Making: A Home Course by Lauren Chattman

Author:Lauren Chattman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Published: 2005-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

Sourdough Baking

COMMERCIAL YEAST BECAME widely available around 1900. But yeast-raised bread was baked for thousands of years before this product came to market, before bakers even knew that yeast existed or what it was. So how did leavened bread rise without those little granules that come in the red and yellow packets? The answer is sourdough, which is nothing more than wild yeast, captured from the environment in a mixture of flour and water and cultivated by the baker until it has multiplied in sufficient numbers to be able to perform the same function as packaged yeast.

You may have heard that wild yeast is difficult to grow outside of San Francisco, that it will die if not fed three times a day, that you can destroy a culture by stirring it with a metal spoon, that tap water will kill it. Myths and misinformation about cultivating, maintaining, and using a wild yeast culture prevent even experienced home bakers from trying sourdough baking. This is a shame, because the process of caring for a from-scratch culture isn’t difficult at all (though it does take a week or more of feeding and care). And, as any artisan baker will tell you, sourdough breads are among the most moist, flavorful, complex, and long-lasting breads you can bake.

In this chapter, I’ll explain exactly how a sourdough culture is cultivated and used, and then I’ll give you a recipe for the very simple sourdough that I have used with fantastic results. Once you have successfully cultivated your own sourdough, I will show you how to use it to bake a sourdough baguette, a sourdough country bread, a semolina sourdough round, and a sourdough rye bread.

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