I Am Very Passionate About This...

Yesterday was another in a long line of cold, grey winter days here on the farm.  Not much to note other than a few party tricks from dearest Chester.

Can you make your tongue into an "M"?  Chester can.

Can you touch the top of your nose with your tongue?  That's right... Chester can!  What a fun chap!

It was yet another day of Ginger hanging out near the dry lot - eternally hopeful that an extra meal will come her way. (seen below looking longingly at the donkeys' breakfast time... don't worry she already had her own!)

Amazingly, she runs back and forth from pasture to treat box whenever she knows we are passing by.  Either that, or Ginger has cloned herself!  Yes, that mailbox on top of the fence is filled with graham crackers... and she knows it!

*****🥖🍞🥖*****

I thought that today might be a good day to talk a little more about sourdough bread and my obvious obsession with it.  

Yes, I'll admit, I have become something of a bread snob.  Actually, if truth were told - I only began eating actual bread about 2 ½ years ago when I received my first sourdough starter from a friend.  Up to that point, I ate what most people call bread - that which one finds in a store, ensconced in plastic - an industrialized, undigestible, sugar-laden approximation of something that our ancestors ate as a mainstay in their diet.

Sadly, today's store-bought bread has very little in common with the loaves that scores of earlier generations consumed as they broke bread and shared the most basic act of human existence... eating.  Aside from the absence of usable nutrients, today's bread has an amazing shelf-life, due in part to the preservatives added to the mixture and the treated plastic wrapper in which it comes.

So what is the basic difference between home-baked sourdough bread and store bought?

That question is answered in two parts - ingredients and how the process of bread-making changes those ingredients into that which is absorbed by our digestive systems.

Let's look at the ingredients listed on a bag of store-bought "sourdough" bread.  First off... to call this sourdough is a big stretch.

Flour, water, yeast (to make the bread rise), sugar (to feed the yeast and produce the carbon dioxide that makes the bread rise), vegetable oil (for softness, but why? no, seriously, why?), rye flour, wheat gluten (added to strengthen the dough), potato flour (helps to reduce staling and enhance toasting), lactic acid (sour flavoring), sodium steroyl (added to disperse the fats and make the bread softer),  calcium propionate and sorbic acid (preservatives to prevent molding) monoglycerides (to improve texture and shelf life), malted barley flour (improves flavor), citric acid (tenderizes the gluten), soy lecithin (adds back structure to the tenderized gluten), whey (adds protein)

Wow... a whole lot of chemistry goes into a loaf of industrialized bread!

Now, what goes into a loaf of sourdough bread? 

Flour, water, salt and any add-ins you might choose (whole grains, seeds, nuts, fruit, spices, etc)  A basic loaf of "artisan" sourdough bread has just three ingredients at its core.  Then what makes it rise?  You probably noticed there is no yeast in traditional sourdough bread.

Ahhhhh.... but there is. And all of the magic for sourdough bread comes in the "starter".  What is the starter?  (amazingly,  nothing more than flour and water that, with time and patience, and a whole lot of luck, grows it's own colony of native yeast obtained from the flour and the atmosphere).

Yes, the magic of sourdough bread comes from the "starter" also known as the "Mother".  It's what the pioneers carried with them as they swept across the country.  And it's what "lives" in every sourdough bread baker's kitchen.

My starter:

My starter at 10 AM having just been fed 

Sourdough starter can be thought of as a living organism.  In actuality, it is filled with lots of tiny living organisms... yeast and lactobacillus bacteria who thrive on the flour and water that they are fed.  On the days that my mother is not being fed or used for baking, she lives in my refrigerator.  Once a week, (which is at least how often I bake with her) I feed her (more flour and water) so that the yeasts and bacteria within her remain robust and active.

My starter at 2 PM - doubled in size from being fed (she's now ready to use or to stow in the refrigerator until next time.

Every loaf of bread that I bake receives a measured dose of my starter along with the flours, water, salt, and other ingredients depending upon the recipe used.



I have been asked,  "where does one get a starter?"  From a friend (those of us with sourdough starter are always happy to share ours!), or from a good online source (such as King Arthur Flour's online website - they ship a dehydrated version with instructions on how to get it active and bubbly.). 

You can also find instructions online for starting your own starter from scratch, but it's a bit tricky.  

So why is sourdough bread healthier?

To put it simply... because of the long fermentation process (in other words, you mix up your bread dough and allow it to rise on the counter anywhere from 8 to 12 hours).  During this fermentation time, the natural yeast and the naturally occurring healthy bacteria (the lactobacillus - which give off lactic acid, responsible for that "sour" taste) go to work on the flour, pre-digesting the gluten (the protein of the wheat) and making it more bio-available (broken down) for your digestive tract.  Pre-digestion of the wheat gluten makes sourdough bread easier on the digestive tract for those individuals who have difficulty digesting gluten.  

 The yeast feeds off the carbohydrate (naturally occurring sugar) of the wheat and releases carbon dioxide (air bubbles) which is responsible for the rising of the bread.
The glycemic index of sourdough bread is much lower than that of store-bought breads - thus, resulting in a more stable blood sugar and fewer carbs on the waistline!  Sourdough bread has 25% more protein available to the body than store-bought simply because of the long fermentation rate.



Is sourdough bread hard to bake?  Absolutely not!  Our ancestors baked it all of the time.  Many European countries have continued this time-tested tradition... and it's starting to catch on in this country.   It's one of the best ways to join the Slow-foods movement!  There's a quality of life that's been lost in the industrialization of our foods.  Sharing a hearty loaf of hand-crafted sourdough bread is more than just eating, it's ceremonial... a celebration!

Is sourdough bread time consuming?  No.  Once you get into the habit of thinking ahead, it's quite easy.  

Ie:  5 minutes in the morning to "feed" your starter.  15 minutes that evening to mix up your dough.  A couple of "stretch and folds" done every 15 to 30 minutes after that and then the dough sits (covered) on your countertop until the next morning.  The next morning, you heat up your oven, shape your loaves and allow them to rise a little (while the oven heats up) and bake in a Dutch oven for a total of 50 minutes.  You can adapt this schedule to your own.  And if you aren't ready to bake when your dough says it's time?  Just pop it into the refrigerator.  It will stay there (and stop growing) for hours, even a couple days - until you are ready to pop it in the oven!

Easy peasy.

Any questions?  I'd be happy to elaborate.😉