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posted by chromas on Tuesday November 20 2018, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the kitcheneering dept.

Eater has a longer article on how sourdough, and bread in general, is back in fashion and the changes being inflicted on the millenias-old staple by tech bros.

“I spent a lot of time — I don’t want to say ‘debugging,’ because that sounds really technical — but just working on recipes and trying to teach myself and there really weren’t a lot of materials out there at the time to do that,” he told me by phone this spring. “With bread baking, you kind of follow an algorithm to produce a result and that result isn’t always what you think it’s going to be, so you kind of have to step back and debug and diagnose the steps along the way. How did I go wrong here? That’s because technically the temperature might not be right or the dough strength might not be right. That iterative procedure and working through those algorithms kind of appeals to engineer. There’s the precision part of it, but also, when it comes down to it, technical people like to work with their hands. You want to construct something and I think bread is a good way to do that.”


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @01:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 21 2018, @01:13AM (#764503)

    Ever since I was a kid I've loved sourdough breads. I usually bake whole-rye sourdoughs, but I occasionally do half-wheat and once in a blue moon all whole-wheat (I've never had good success bread using all regular wheat flour, I think it doesn't feed the acid-making bacteria enough, so it's not very sour and doesn't have a long shelf life). My Finnish Great-Grandmother left a lot of recipes that I love to bake and experiment with.

    If you are interested in sourdough, you can buy a starter online or get one from a local baker, but it's usually not too hard to make. Get some whole-grain flour (I buy 50lb. sacks and grind myself but that's not necessary, mix a few tablespoons with double the amount of water, cover, and let it sit for a day. Mix in equal amounts of water and flour each day until it gets a sour smell and bubbles forming. The grains should already have yeast and lactic-acid bacteria on them, so nothing else is really required, but you can add sugar, use potato water, add yeast if you can find non-instant yeasts.

    A very simple whole-rye sourdough [2 bread-pan loaves]:
    Step 1:
    500 grams flour
    800 grams water
    50-100 grams starter
    Mix ingredients well and let ferment at room-temperature for 8-24 hours. Sourdough bacteria like cooler temperatures, so you don't need to put in a warm place, and you can even refrigerate it (with a longer ferment time) if you have issues due to a hot climate.

    Step 2:
    300 grams flour
    Mix using a stand mixer or by hand, dough will be very wet at all stages of this recipe, not similar to a conventional wheat dough at all so don't worry about it. Let sit for an hour or two until it starts to rise. If you see that the level has risen and fallen (bubbles on the side of the pot) you went too long, but don't worry, your bread won't rise quite as much as otherwise.

    Step 3:
    200 grams flour
    4 grams salt
    Mix and knead for 10-15 minutes, I prefer a stand mixer because this dough is extremely wet. Rye doesn't have much gluten so you won't see a big change in your dough like a wheat bread. It will still be very wet and not easily handled. Separate into two loaves, I usually use bread pans, but you can use a baking sheet too. Cover with a moist cloth or plastic wrap and let the loaves rise until doubled. Poke them all over with a fork or use a knife to cut slashes, mist the tops using a spray bottle of water, and bake at 450F/230C for 45 minutes.

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