Question for my Baking-minded Peeps

[femkes_follies]

So, I'm designing a class on yeast leavening in period. My intention is to discuss the similarities and differences between mild startes, sour starters, and pure cultures (from Ale), as well as why you can't make bread with lager yeast. I'm going to bring along a variety of breads. At least a desem, a wastrel, and a peasant rye/pease loaf. I also plan to bring along small starter cultures for anyone who wants to take one home.

My conundrum lies in the fact that I have trouble filtering information for people whose backgrounds are different from mine. I can do it for the hubs - he has learned over the years to either follow my mental leaps or throw me into reverse. Spoiled and overeducated - B.S. in microbiology.

So - from my perspective - metabolism, substrate, pH, culture source, and the process of attenuation are at the root of the matter.

But: just how MUCH of that information is important to somebody who wants to recreate period baking techniques.

What would you want to know?

1. Why rye breads should always be made with a sourdough starter

2. Which species of yeast come from where

3. How to obtain your own yeasts to bake with - and how to bake with them.

4. How to bake bread with ale barm - and why I think that getting barm directly from the brewer happened relatively rarely

5. How to maintain a starter, and what happens when you do.

Other thoughts?

Comments

[eleanor-deyeson.livejournal.com]

I'm not really much of a baker, and don't plan to from an SCA standpoint, but I'd really enjoy a class like this, just to help understand how period craftsmen worked.

I hope you will post answers to those questions after you do the class.

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

*l* Well, the more time you spend baking bread, the more you start to understand what would be required to do it on a large scale without a freeze-dried megabrick'o'yeast.

I can send you a copy of my classnotes when I get them done.

John still plans to give your husband a ring. But you see how we got going on the yeast thing, now. ;-)

I tend to lock a fair few of my posts, but if you get some new lj'ers you think would benefit from any of it, send them my way.

[landverhuizer.livejournal.com]

possibly unrelated... I've been lucky to develop my own yeast naturally, what some may call a sour dough starter BUT I don't let it go sour. A lot of post period sources touch on the same thing... though I have found the odd reference (in period) that specified sour bread.

okay, very unrelated
it just had me thinking a few pointless thoughts :P

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

What you've got is a mild starter. They're easier to keep that way if you keep them "dry" - more dough consistency. The wetter your starter gets, the more likely it will "sour." Your starter probably has yeast (wild ones are often the same species as Baker's Yeast, but a little less vigorous in nature) and some lactic-acid producing bacteria. The bacteria actually brings a "sweeter" note. The acetic-acid producing bacteria prefer a lower osmolarity - more water. So, in a wetter starter, they start proliferating and digest the lactic acid into acetic acid, thereby dropping the pH and creating a sour flavor.

Probably a lot more than you wanted to know.

What I find adorable is that what you're using (mild starter), is called a desem in Flemish, and has been the standard way of making bread in the countryside for centuries. ;-)

(If you happen back across the sour reference, I'd like to have it)

[landverhuizer.livejournal.com]

Though (again post period) have come across a lot of instruction for not letting more liquidy yeasts from going sour... sounds like a lot of trouble, but possibly worth it? potato based and the like.

Can't remember all the details on the references but right off I can tell you that at least one or two came while searching out sauces and I do have the reference listed, just need to hook up the external and find it... hopefully it was saved before my computer died (several full days work in that one document alone... and was just thinking about backing up before it happened too).

[alysten.livejournal.com]

I am just geeky enough that I would like all of those. Though 2, 3 and 4 are probably at the top of the heap.

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

As you are on the list for class notes reviewers (OK, at the moment, you ARE The list), you'll get all of the above. ;-)

And I'll make a mental note to bring you a starter when we finally get to meet.

[ablackram.livejournal.com]

All those sound good, but most of the info sounded good on Sat.