Into the Wild

Let's talk about micro-organisms...

So you have "quick breads' and "flat breads", but really...these are not bread. If someone says to you "hey you want some bread" and they hand you a pita, there is a good chance you are going to throw it at them. Of course there is a caveat...a big caveat...there are some regions of the world where bread is flat...all of it. So take note of the region you are in before you start playing frisbee with their "bread". I assume however if you are reading this particular blog then you are like me and when you say "bread" you want bread that has life.

So to give bread life we need yeast. The easy way to get life into our bread is to use a "commercial" yeast. Go to the store and pick it up in handy little packets that you dump into flour. The yeast that most people are familiar with is called active dry yeast. Essentially it is yeast that has been put into suspended animation. This gives it a pretty decent shelf life, you have to wake it up before you can actually use it and the process generally requires about 25% of the little guys to give up the ghost. The bread I have been making has all been made with instant yeast. Instant yeast is mostly alive, but it is also much more perishable. When you are looking at a bread recipe make sure you know what kind of yeast the recipe is expecting because you are going to need more active dry yeast than instant yeast.

But I digress...tonight we are going wild. I am sure most of you have heard of sourdough, but what makes sourdough different. Well, as you might have already figured, sourdough breads are made with wild yeast. The term "sourdough" is often used to describe any bread made with a wild yeast even when the bread isn't really sour. I haven't really wrapped my head around that bit just yet, so let's get on with rounding up some wild yeast.

First of all the way I understand it we don't actually have to catch the yeast, it is already hanging around in the flour. So we just have to give it a happy place to live and it will grow and multiple. I started the process of cultivating the little guys last with with some all purpose white flour. Apparently I didn't do a very good job at building the habitat because nothing happened...well actually something did happen, I grew mold.

Thinking that maybe the flour was the problem I started over with some organic whole wheat flour. Last night when I checked on it I found a stinky bubbly blob...in other words I had some happy yeast. At the current rate I should be able to take this starter and turn it into a mother by tomorrow night. The mother is our long term housing. With proper care mother will keep the whole colony happy indefinitely.

So in summary...this weekend we should be eating sourdough.