my friends - i have a problem - an addiction - not the usual, so let me divulge right quick - i haven't had a stiff drink in over a week and a half, i haven't played zelda for other a month, and last night i went some 8 hours without touching any tobacco - so, what's my addiction - yeast! i loose sleep reading recipes and letting dough ferment, i spend endless amounts of custom on new flours and grains, i waste even more time blogging all about it - it's an addiction - no one can help me - i don't need your help - i'm sotally cunder untrol - that's it - you've all pissed me off - imma gonna hit the marshmallow soup now...
...ah, sweet release, thanks for understanding. i just i'm really obsessed and i will ride this crazy comet to the coldest edge of the solar system. i enjoy this way too much, must be in my blood - what i enjoy the most is the exchange of ideas on an unscripted and uncensored prose that we know as the internets. as an amatuer baker, i feel it is most positive to disclose my findings and promote others to the art. when i was in art school, i remember talking to the pros when they came in for lectures and felt both awestruck by their work but unfulfilled by their explanation. the real meat came from my fellow students, and i specifically recall an alternative process photo course - we all slaved away in the darkroom on new processes (new to us, old to the world), trading half-baked remedies to problems only noobies could create and eventually stumbling onto the correct and logical solution. this is my motive for these posts - though it's woofully one-sided (how's about some comments you passive masses) hopefully some other noob baker catches me in the search results and finds my experiments helpful. i for one have been cruising blogs of other bakers on my level and finding their wisdom more beneficial than a recipe, without elaboration, concocted by some master who is probably withholding a secret or two.
on the subject of working with wild yeast starter, i can see no reason why not to confound and amaze whomever catches a glance at my designation here on google's approximation of geocities. space and time become the defying factors to excellent breadwork, so i figure, the more people giving their fresh ideas and discoveries away, the better the entire class of bakers becomes.
in the previous post on my "dump" bread, i mentioned saving a portion of the dough in the freezer. i've never frozen dough before and want to find more economical methods of baking as i seem to make such large batches. to expand my experiment, i worked up a small batch of similar "dump" dough. i somewhat followed the method described in Seeded Multigrain Sourdough from the Wild Yeast blog and took it through it's full fermentation, just as the previously frozen dough, and then wrapped it up tight and set it in the ice box. the differences between this dough and the first dump batch are as follows:
different assortment of grains in soaker
no preferment
no dry yeast
larger ratio of starter
less whole wheat flour being replaced by white bread flour
one fundamental difference is the size of the batch. i made the second dump dough at about a fifth of what i made earlier, the total mix equaled about 3 to 4 cups - i did this for several reasons - first off, i've speculated that small batches don't work as i commonly like several loaves in the oven at once - the more moisture in the oven, the better, right? i also wanted to work my kneading skills - turns out, the slam/fold kneading is a great process for most straight-up white doughs but when the dough is grainier, it's wisest to just dig you palms into it. working with the smaller amount of dough let me control the dough with one hand and i could easily observe what reaction the dough had to my process of kneading. i have learned this about kneading - two primary functions of the kneading process are to stretch the gluten and trap air inside the dough - no mater what technique you employ, as long as the dough is physically stretched and provided air. yeast are living things too, and all us censused as the living need to breathe and do some yoga, ya dig.
other differences from the first batch, no sponge pre-ferment was implemented and i did not use any dry bastard yeast. (can you tell i'm forming a bias). the soaker sat for about 6 hrs and the final dough was mixed with the straight starter, same multigrain starter as the first batch. as aforementioned, i've been collecting my kitchen scraps for the dump - this newer dough incorporates the last of those scraps but also some new ingredients - because payday came around and what the hell. i soaked newly vended millet, quinoa and hemp seeds, along with a few other grains i had that were soon to turn to dust. one ingredient i have plenty off is rolled oats, which was part of the soaker in the first dump. you know how great oatmeal is, right - i always liked the consistency and flavor that bread has whenever i incorporate oats.
i also refrained from adding caraway and fennel to see if their flavor was really that intricate. the final and probably most significant change to the new dump was the flour. previously, i had used basically a whole wheat blend. the small batch uses mostly bread flour and no vital wheat gluten.
when i take the dough out of the freezer, it's rock hard. i had to let it thaw for 4 hours and then jumped right into shaping. it was still kind of cold but was perfectly workable. i proofed the dough just over an hour and baked the loaves as i would normally. and here are the results...
fuckin' hell yeah - i will start saving dough in the freezer at every batch and maybe get some of those lost hours of sleep back. at the top of the post is the second batch and directly above is the original dump bread.
i can't expound much right now - for there's a festivus to celabrate - but i've run some amazing tests with my starter and a new squash bread. i've also worked up some batches of the sweet bread which was the feature to the video on slam/folding technique. all of that next time from the ship - peace - kevo
by kevin walsh, 2010
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