Tips, Theory, Technique, and other T-Words: SOURDOUGH!

Above: Any reminder is a good reminder!

We get a lot of varying opinions on sourdough breads here in the bakery. People will be squinting at all of their options behind the counter, and one of the retail folks will suggest a sourdough, and their eyes, turning ever squintier, will let us know that they have no intention of ever buying a sourdough, ever.

Then there are the bleary-eyed customers that arrive first thing in the morning, buy a loaf of our tangiest, and head back on out the door with barely a word. Real devotees, I'm talking about.

All opinions on sourdough are welcome here, provided one thing: you actually try one of our sourdoughs. A real one, not some roll that you got at some dodgy restaurant, made with mail-order sourdough powder, or worse yet, bread spiked with vinegar to get a sour, if not retch-inducing, flavor. I've dragged many people over to my side of the fence simply by not telling them what they're eating, until they ask. On the other side of the coin, if I give them a sample and they spit out my experiment, well, then I'm in a heap of trouble. It's a risky test.

Above: A Grand Levain, naturally leavened

We grow our own sourdough culture here, as does any bakery worth it's sea salt. To be honest, it's really not a big deal, even to keep one at home. The biggest difference is that here at the bakery, there's always someone here to maintain the sourdough - it's built into the production schedule - and at home, it requires that you make bread at reasonably frequent intervals to keep the starter healthy. Totally doable, but for most casual cooks, kind of a pain in the patooks. When I first became a baker, I grew my own sourdough at home and tried to feed it once a day just to have it around. That got old real quick, and when we got a puppy, the first pet (the sloppy, sticky one) got tossed down the drain. So don't feel bad if you've been in the same boat.

But I'm already getting ahead of myself. Since sourdoughs are so misunderstood, yet so easy to understand, I'm going to break this down into numbered points. Here we go:

1. Sourdoughs are made of flour and water: That's it. High-quality flours (unbleached, unbromated) contain a lot of naturally occurring yeasts that will spontaneously begin to feed on the starches when given a medium in which to move around and grow. This medium is created as soon as you add water, preferably non-chlorinated, to the flour. Occasionally, ingredients such as grapes, potatoes, honey, or rye flour are added to the beginning culture to add fermentable sugars to the mix - this may be helpful, but is not necessary.

To make it simple, here's the equation: Flour + Water + Time = Sourdough

I'm not going to throw around recipes here, but the deal is this: Mix together flour and water. Cover and put in a warm place for 24 hours. Then, you feed that mix with more flour and water every 12 hours. The smell will be bad at first, but when you start noticing a pleasant yeasty tang to your mix, you're getting somewhere. Continue to feed every 12 hours for a long, long time.

2. Sourdoughs are regional: It is not the naturally occurring yeasts that give sourdough it's tang, but very localized bacteria (from the genus Lactobacillus, to be exact). These bacteria vary from region to region, giving sourdoughs from around the country (and world) very different flavors. Clearly, the most famous example is the classic San Francisco Sourdough, which relies on a complicated symbiotic relationship between the yeast Candida milleri and the bacteria Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. That's right, "sanfranciscensis." Take that microflora over to Vermont, and it doesn't survive. Try and make San Francisco Sourdough from scratch in New England, and you'll end up with something different. Maybe a wonderful, local sourdough of your own, but not a San Francisco Sourdough. Perhaps something like a North Shore Sourdough...hey, wait a minute!

3. There are many different types of sourdough: Depending on the ingredients, feeding schedule, and hydration of a sourdough culture, you can create many different types of sourdoughs. At A&J King, we use 3 different types of sourdoughs, all originating from one sourdough culture:

• The Liquid: This is our sloppy, wet sourdough starter. When we mix it, it has the consistency of thick pancake batter. When it has reached the peak of it's maturity (right after it's finished "consuming" it's last feeding, approximately 12 hours after), it gets foamy and bubbly, but if you put your hand in it and squeeze, you'd still feel enough strength in the flour/water mixture to feel the crackling of bubbles. It's pretty cool. At this point, most of it is used to mix the North Shore Sourdough. The two pictures are the Liquid right after a feeding, and then 12 hours later:

After we use some of the Liquid in a dough, the rest is used to make the following starters:

• Levain: This is the French word for "stiff sourdough culture," and is the starter in our Pain au Levain (or, "Bread Made From Stiff Sourdough Culture"). We'll take a small amount of the Liquid, and combine it with white flour, rye flour, and water to make a stiffer sourdough starter that will feel like a dough itself, not liquid at all. This starter rises for an additional 12 hours, and is used in the Pain au Levain mix. The two pictures are the Levain right after a feeding, and then 12 hours later:

• Rye Starter: The Liquid is mixed into a stiff dough that has a very high concentration of rye flour. After another 12 hours, this goes into our Leinsamenbrot, or Flax Seed Rye.
• More Liquid: Once all the doughs and starters are mixed with the Liquid, we have to keep some to make the next day's sourdoughs. So, we get a little bucket, take the bit of Liquid that's left, and make a small version of the Liquid to use the next day. And on, and on, and on.

4. Bakers have lots of control over sourdough flavor: For all the local flavor that sourdoughs have, the well-informed baker still has a lot of control over the particular flavor of his or her sourdough. Sourdough will react differently with different ingredients, and under certain conditions of growth. It's not the ingredients that make sourdoughs complex, it's the baker's schedules that many people find confusing (see number 3, above).

A mature sourdough culture will produce two dominant acids that give the dough it's distinctive tang. The mellower lactic acid (the kind that gives yogurt it's palpable bite) and the sharper acetic acid (vinegar). The baker is able to manipulate the concentrations of each of these acids by their sourdough production methods. The general rule is:

• A stiffer sourdough (Levain) will produce more acetic acid, resulting in a tangier flavor
• A looser sourdough (Liquid) will produce more lactic acid, resulting in a smoother flavor
• A sourdough kept in a warmer environment will produce more lactic acid
• A sourdough kept in a cooler environment will produce more acetic acid

So, depending on the warmer or cooler spots in your bakery (like in front of the oven, or even in the refrigerator for a time), the baker can customize the sourdough's flavor. And this is true for the shaped sourdough loaves, as well. Proofing (rising) loaves held at cooler temperature for a long period of time will develop sharper tang than those constantly kept warm.

5. Sourdoughs need to cool: "Mmm! Nothing better than warm bread!" Kind of. I love a warm baguette. I think a warm sourdough tastes nasty. Cooling is an integral part of the baking process. Like allowing a hot soup to cool a bit before you taste it and adjust the flavors, the true character of a sourdough will not reveal itself until the crust has set up and the crumb structure has stiffened. A good, healthy sourdough culture acts as a kind of natural preservative, allowing the bread to stay fresh for much longer than one made with commercial yeast. This, of course, depends on your love of crust, but my mother-in-law Rita has been known to snack on a 3-pound Grand Levain for as long as a week. The flavors won't go bad - and many say they get better with age.

OK, that's it for now. I was planning on keeping this short, but I've found that's fairly impossible when discussing sourdoughs. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I may do a PART 2 next Blogletter.