On Working On A Passion through Sourdough - It's All In The Details

"Working hard at something you don't believe in is called stress. Working hard at something you do believe in is called passion" - Simon Sinek

Java programming is one of my passions, and has been for the last 15+ years. I have a few other passions - like gardening, baking, crocheting, and knitting - but Java has been a solid feature in my life, one way or another. In April of this year, as a pandemic started to rear its ugly head, I was offered an opportunity to grow another passion - a sourdough starter. My past credentials for bread-making have been dabbling in yeast breads, with the active dry variety, and quick breads; I have never worked with wild yeast.

I realized an ember of passion was lit in me at the very beginning when I spent hours researching about sourdough starters the day before I was going to pick it up - what is it? how do I keep it alive? how do I make bread out of it? Will it attack me at night? By the time I had the starter in my hands, I had a recipe, basic over-the-counter all purpose flour, and an interest in not killing it.

This sourdough path led me to great websites and YouTube videos of sourdough bread bakers showing all the steps to make a picture-perfect loaf. They touched on the "best practices" to follow for loaves that have their signature crusty outer shell, a springy, chewy texture inside, and slightly (or strong) sour flavor. For encouragement and inspiration, reddit's sourdough community became another go-to resource. It soon led me to my favorite recipe from food52 - Sarah Owens' Table Loaf. If made correctly, it creates a beautiful 1.5lb loaf that checks all my boxes for good sourdough bread.

Once you have a good recipe, and some best practices to follow under your sourdough belt, it is just about jumping in and trying it out. Let me just say that failure gave me many humbling opportunities to learn. You think having all that info will make the process fool-proof, but sourdough is finicky. 

The starter needs to be ready! Testing for the starter's readiness is crucial before making the dough, otherwise it could be setting up for disaster from the beginning. This means also getting some good whole wheat flour to feed it. The presence of the germ and endosperm in whole wheat flour encourages greater activity in wild yeast - its like seeing the effects of sugar on kids!

The dough needs time. Wild yeast performs slower than the active dry yeasts. From starting a leaven to baking your bread, it can take about 24 hours. BUT, managing the time at each step is essential! Too much time will lead to an over-proofed, flat loaf!

The dough needs warmth. Wild yeast feeds on the sugars from the starchy molecules in flour. As a byproduct of this action, they release carbon dioxide which gives bread its rise. In order to make sure the yeast is very active, it needs to be kept happy an WARM. Too hot, your yeast will die; too cold,  their activity slows. It needs to be at a nice 75 - 78 degrees.

The dough needs a tender hand. You can't knead sourdough or punch it down. It takes time for the wild yeast to build up the airy texture in bread. Careful manipulation through gentle stretching, folding, coils, and "lamination" will help get a better rise in the final product.

Huge holes in a sourdough bread slice = big mess. This is my own opinion, but just because pictures of sourdough bread slices with huge holes throughout may look pleasing, think about the practicality of eating it - how do you eat butter/pb&j/nutella on that without dripping all over yourself??? And assuming you did get some of that in your mouth, would you feel full after one slice? two? 10? eventually, I guess.

Learning the techniques to property handle sourdough dough was another tangent I had to research. After learning about coil folds, stretch and folds, slap and folds, lamination, and the Rubaud method, I usually now follow the method presented by Full Proof Baking which has a mixture of a few of them. Since then, most of my loaves have had great spring. Most...

After baking a few loaves, a few things become clear - using an active starter is key, knowing when to start the bread-making process is crucial if you don't want to be up past midnight tending to it, flouring your banneton is essential to avoid next-day sticky messes, baking in an intensely hot dutch oven with a lid cannot be understated, and that there is a direct correlation between the temperature of the dough, the ambient air, and the time needed for the "bulk fermentation" process to make a successful loaf.

Ken Forkish gave me more insight to the last part. In his book "Flour Water Salt Yeast", he notes that temperature must be considered as an ingredient in the sourdough making process, and to know what the right temperatures are for my kitchen. I must not be afraid to push the boundary of fermentation time for my loaves - which basically means you'll need to over-proof a loaf or two to understand what the correct times and temperatures are for my environment. Eek. Eye-opener for sure, but who wants an over-proofed loaf?!?

Well, I have been keeping a journal of my sourdough baking where I document when I start what phase, what the ambient temperature in my kitchen is, what the dough temperature is after each step, when I bake my loaf at what temp and for how long covered/uncovered. This was a good thing because recently, I did push the fermentation for my loaves a bit too much. Come to find out, a 79-degree dough, rising for 6 - 7 hours in my kitchen will result in an over-proofed dough. Bread actually still came out tasty - none of my family members complained - but I can tell.

Since then, I've tweaked my times, carefully measured my water temperature used in my dough to manage the fermentation, depending on the ambient temperature in the kitchen. It's great knowing that my process can be relied on to create a delicious loaf of sourdough, but it encourages me to try different things - changing up the recipe, put additions to the dough, bake other sourdough forms like pizza, rolls, pancakes, pretzels, bagels, etc. And learning the baker's percentage, I have also come up with my own sourdough mix to use with my starter. The possibilities are unendingly challenging.

It may be early to say whether sourdough is a passion for me like programming with Java is, but I know it will stick with me for a long time to come, and I love them both for the same reasons - what they can create, the challenge each can present, the continual learning opportunities, and the potential to improve. 

P.S. Don't forget to put some flour on your parchment to avoid it sticking to your bread after baking. Gah!