Basic Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread Part Two: In Which We Bread

     Have starter, will travel...

     My intent here is to present a recipe, but more importantly a method, that's as simple and streamlined as possible which will allow you to produce a professional quality bread out of a home kitchen every time with no unnecessary steps or exertions.  Once you've got the logic down, you can then use it as a basis for more involved types of bread to which you'd like to apply a sourdough starter.  In future posts, I'll show you how you can utilize this same technique to make sourdough bagels, flat bread, pita, focaccia, a thick-crusted loaf, and even a whole wheat sourdough pizza crust that's actually good.

     What's needed is time.  Sourdough ferments at a much slower rate than baker's yeast.  Whereas a packet of active dry yeast can double a dough mass in two hours or less, a sourdough culture will take most of the night.  If you want to bake bread for lunch, you have to start the dough the night before, preferably the day before.  There are no shortcuts when it comes to the wait.  Great bread requires great patience.   The good news is the actual work is minimal.  You don't need a mixer and you don't have to knead for 20 minutes.  The trick is to let the microbes do most of the work while you gently guide the process in the right direction.  One of the many advantages sourdough has, though, is fermentation temperature.  You'll notice that at no point will I say you need to place the dough in a warm spot in order for it to rise.  Your natural culture performs very well at common room temperatures.  Anywhere between 65 and 85 degrees will do perfectly, so you'll have no problem baking bread in a winter kitchen.

     Let's take a look at our ingredients:

•   Three cups whole wheat flour 
•  1 1/2 cups room temperature water 
•  Sourdough starter (about two tablespoons) 
•  Three teaspoons kosher salt dissolved in the water*

These specific numbers are immaterial.  It's just the amount I'll usually make for a couple days worth of bread. What's important are the ratios:

• One part water to two parts flour 
• About a teaspoon of kosher salt per cup of flour*

*The amount of salt of course is to taste, but you absolutely need at least a minimum of salt for the bread to come out properly.  Keep in mind that table salt will have more salinity per volume than kosher salt due to the shape of the grains, so adjust accordingly.

     Now pour the water into the flour.   Use a spoon or spatula to mix the center into a batter-like consistency.

 It's at this point you add in the starter.

Keep mixing until the flour and water have completely come together.  You may find that the dough mass will be dryer or wetter according to ambient humidity.  With this ratio, it really should never be too dry, but if you find it too wet just add a little bit more flour in -- you will want the dough to be on the moist side, though, as it makes a big difference in how the bread expands in the oven.  You shouldn't have to knead with your hands, but rather bring it together with your utensil until it's a singular, homogeneous mass with good elasticity.

Cover it up and say goodnight...

Basic Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread Part One: Microbial Necessities

     These posts will attempt to show just  how easy and labor-free making a flavorful and healthy whole wheat bread at home can be.  In part one, we discuss the necessary germs, how we can get ahold of them, and how we keep them as our lovely, gaseous pets -- less maintenance than goldfish, smell better than dogs, and they magically turn what amounts to glue into one of the best foods ever.

     So why sourdough?  Why not!  It's totally natural, totally free, healthy, and adds a depth of flavor that most people think is only possible in bread from a traditional bakery.  I would also assert that people who find that commercial yeast breads don't agree with them would have less issues with digesting natural sourdough.  Our friend here is a stable symbiotic duo of a wild yeast strain and lactobacillus bacteria.  The bacteria creates an acidic environment that prevents other bacteria and yeasts from taking hold.  There are just a few types of yeast that can survive alongside the lactobacillus, any one of which will foot the bill for baking; and even after baking, its acidity will prevent spoilage much longer than common breads. 

     So now you might be saying, "Well Matthew, I don't have a sourdough starter, what do?"  There are three ways you can get around that:

1. Get one from someone who bakes with sourdough.  It's no skin off their nose.  Just ask.  I could give hundreds of people a starter on a daily basis and it wouldn't be much of a bother.  You can even get one through the mail. 
2. Make it yourself from scratch.  The traditional way of creating a culture requires time, patience, and some luck that your flour, your hands, and the air around you contains the right yeast and bacteria to get it going.
3. Start with a baker's yeast.  Purists may hate this and say it's pointless, but in my experience it's the fastest way if you don't have access to an extant culture, plus you can start baking immediately (though, it won't be sourdough if you do).  Every time I've done it, I had a sourdough starter going within four days.

     I provided a link for making it traditionally, but I know most of you won't want to commit to a week of waiting with no guarantee of success so I'll cover the baker's yeast method in this post.  There's nothing wrong with it.  After just a couple days of feeding, the natural yeast and bacteria will take over and you'll have a for-real-deal sourdough starter.  You might be under the impression that such a method would never yield a totally natural culture, that it would always be tainted by commercial yeast.  I assure you the store-bought yeast will be completely taken over and gone fairly quickly as it cannot maintain itself in the presence of its wild counterparts.  My take on it (i.e. uneducated guess) is that the baker's yeast simply "opens the door" for the less vigorous strains to step in.  Most people think that their culture is somehow hermetically sealed and remains the same for as long as they keep it alive. The truth is that it's constantly being informed by ambient spores. The natural yeasts and bacteria in any particular area change over time and a maintained sourdough culture will follow suit.  You will also find that if your starter travels around the country, the characteristics of your bread will change as regional spores affect your starter.  
   
     So, dig around in your pantry for that packet of active dry yeast that's been sitting around forever and break it open.  Take a pinch of it and mix it into a small amount of lukewarm water (preferably filtered or spring water, but I've never had any issues with straight tap water).  Once dissolved, add in enough flour to bring it together into a moist dough mass.  You'll want to use a non-sterilized whole wheat flour which will be more likely to harbor the yeast spores you need.  One part water to two parts flour is a good rule of thumb. To keep waste to a minimum, make the starter to be only a couple tablespoons worth of material.  Cover it up and let it proof.  About twice a day, at least once a day, you'll want to feed it.  Now, feeding.  Here's where I get to the part that people can't wrap their heads around: Take a spoon, scoop it out and throw it away.

     Yup.

     You don't need it.  If you didn't throw out the bulk of your starter during feedings, you'd end up with a mountainous amount after a very short while. What you need is what's left in the container after you scooped it out.  Pour in a small amount of room temperature water, mix it up with the culture residue, and then add in enough flour to bring it together into a moist dough mass, just like before.

  After a couple days of this, you'll notice the culture will change. It will look and smell different and it's at this point that the commercial yeast is no more.  You'll want to feed it for a couple more days to make sure that it consistently proofs.  If it doesn't, have patience and continue feeding.  It will come around.  Once you're confident in it (it smells right and should double in size within eight hours or so after feeding), it's ready for baking.  You can also reduce feedings to just once a day at this point, every other day if you have to, but I find it best to make a ritual of it before I get ready for bed every night just so it gets done regularly.

     Now I should say that this is what works for me as a micro-scale home baker, and I see no reason why it wouldn't work for you, but there are as many methods for maintaining and baking sourdough as there are bakers who use it.  I would encourage you to see what other people do, experiment, be creative and tailor your methods to suit yourself.  The most rewarding part of it for me is being connected to thousands of years of baking history while creatively bumbling around in my kitchen, making it my own.  Nothing is set in stone here.

     So that's the hard part, and there's nothing hard about it aside from the waiting. Now you're ready for the fun part.  It's slow motion fun, but it gets my rocks off.  In part two, we will discover the joys of producing our very own naturally leavened, professional quality whole wheat bread.