Failure and Success.

I didn't end up making bread last Friday, because my leaven didn't do what it was supposed to do. It just kind of sat there, looking pathetic. I even let it sit ALL DAY, in my nice WARM OVEN, and still - nada. I was disappointed to say the least (truthfully, I was downright depressed). However, some more research and troubleshooting revealed that my starter wasn't strong enough to make leaven yet - most resources recommended that the starter be rising and falling predictably for at least a WEEK before attempting to make your leaven.
Ok, so, fast-forward a week. My starter has been rising and falling predictably since saturday, and is doing quite nicely in the small half of our oven with the light on intermittently. Tonight I will attempt another leaven, so that perhaps tomorrow I can actually make actual bread. However, I wanted to share the things I have discovered in the past week that have made keeping/feeding my starter easier and more successful:
1. I ditched the glass containers for ziploc one-cup containers. I did this for a few reasons: because they are all the same size, I can visually gauge each rise/fall cycle more easily without having to remember where it was to begin with. Since I feed the same amount of flour/water each time, it always starts at the same level. Also, they are clear like glass, but don't get too warm in the oven - the glass was "cooking" the outer edges of my starter, killing some of the bacteria and making cleanup a pain. They are also cheap/replaceable, so I can have lots of them on hand. Lastly, they have a lid, which I can place lightly on top of the container to keep it from drying out better than a towel or a potholder.
2. I have begun feeding it the same amount of flour/water each time (40g/each). I have found that this amount of food is optimal for the starter in that it is just enough for it to eat in about 24 hours without getting gross and/or watery (that hooch that I was talking about the other day is BAD - it means your bacteria are starving).
3. I keep my starter in the small half of our double oven. We rarely use it, so there's no danger of anyone accidentally cooking my starter. It also gets pretty warm in there with just the light on, which doesn't use that much energy and reminds people that there is something in there when I'm not home.
So that is what I have learned thus far in the bread-making process. It is a lot harder than I thought, but I'm learning as I go, both from the book from Tartine and the vast informational wealth of the internet. Also, some trial and error. Lots and lots of error.

First Attempt at Bread: The Night Before

Prepared my leaven tonight so I can bake my first attempt at bread tomorrow! It's basically the same as feeding it, only you feed it a lot more. I only saved about a tablespoon of my starter, and then mixed it with 200g flour and 200g water. I have to let it sit overnight, and tomorrow morning I start the long process of rising and shaping and baking. Overall, the process might take 9 hours, which means if I want bread at dinner I will have to start at 7 AM! So much for my day off.
To be even more prepared for tomorrow, I weighed out the flour ahead of time - 900g unbleached white flour and 100g whole wheat flour, totaling 1000g. I'm going to keep track of when I do everything on a sheet of paper, that way I can use it for reference later. It's pretty cold out, so I'll probably be bulk rising in the oven with the light on, other wise I'm afraid we will be waiting all weekend for it to rise!
I'm both nervous and excited, because I have things I have to do tomorrow besides making bread. I think I can manage to work around the rising/resting/shaping schedule to try and get all my other errands done, but I don't want to mess up my first round of bread just because I left the house for too long.
Think yummy thoughts!

It's Aliiiiiive!!

Right now, my starter is a fluffy, bubbly, sweet-smelling blob of precious, thriving bacteria. Tomorrow at noon, I expect it to be deflated and stinky again, ready for another feeding, and then tomorrow night I can mix my leaven, and on Friday, I can enjoy delicious, wonderful bread! HOORAY!!
My starter developed a skin on top, probably from sitting in the warm oven all day, but when I peeled it back, it looked absolutely gorgeous (I realize I probably sound insane, but I am SO HAPPY I didn't kill those little buggars!!). I'm proud of myself for doing some research and figuring out why things weren't going in the right direction, and then actually fixing the problem! GO ME!

BUBBLES!

I feel like that fish in Finding Nemo. I want to shout it from the rooftops:

THERE ARE BUBBLES IN MY STARTER!

But I'm pretty sure that they'd haul me away before I could explain what I was talking about, so I figured I'd just write it here. I fed it this morning (10ish), this time keeping it in the same container rather than moving it into a new one. I just dumped out most of the starter and fed it right in the container. I figure it'd be less stressful for the bacteria that way (do bacteria stress out?) and there'd probably be more bacteria retained in the container. Also, less dishes. So, good for everyone, I guess. I turned up the heat in the oven to 90 degrees, and that seems to be doing the trick. I'm going to heat a cast iron pan in the big oven for a while and then put it into the small oven so I don't have to leave it on all the time.

Maybe there will be bread to eat on Friday? Stay tuned!

PS - if anything (else) exciting happens with my starter, I'll take a picture and show you!

troubleshooting.

Today, there was little action in the starter. No bubbles, no rising. I thought for sure I'd have to start over. Instead, I did a little searching on the internet, and I discovered my problem: It's too cold in my kitchen. Luckily, we have a "proof" setting in our oven, so it is currently basking in 85-degree warmth. I also read that feeding it twice a day can help, too. I'm trying to think of other ways to keep it warm, because I can't have the oven on all the time. I can mix it with warmer water, perhaps, and keep it in an insulated container. I checked on it, and bubbles are forming, so that's a good sign. I think it was just too cold for my yeasty friends to make bubbles.

Tonight, before I go to bed, I'll feed it again, with some warmer water, and insulate it the best I can. I'll bet if I leave it in the oven wrapped in a squishy towel and cover the top with a lid, it will stay at an appropriately high temperature. Here's to hoping!

The Second Feeding

Not nearly as exciting as the first. Don't get me wrong, my starter still stunk like ripe cheese today, but it didn't really DO anything except develop a layer of stinky water (which is called "hooch" lol). No bubbles or anything.



So I did the same routine as yesterday: weighed out 35g water and 35g flour, mixed it with my fingers, then added it to 20% of the starter from yesterday in a clean container (this time a clear plastic one). I'm trying to be patient, because I'm supposed to be "training" the starter to go through a cycle of rising and falling over a 24 hour period. If my starter were a puppy, today it peed on the carpet and then chewed on the sofa.



Just to show you my method: the big container is the flour I use (it's a 50/50 blend of whole wheat and unbleached white flour, I use King Arthur flour in case you were wondering), the little custard dish on the scale is the food, and to the right of that is the remaining 20% of the starter in the plastic container. Oh, and the pumpkins in the background are going to be turned into pumpkin pie later this month :)

After I got it all mixed up, it didn't smell quite as strong, and in a few hours it should supposedly smell sweeter, start to rise, and then fall again. I have to work today, so I'm going to have my dad check on it to tell me if it's rising or not, because I won't be home until 9:30ish. Hopefully it starts to do SOMETHING, so I know my little friends aren't dead!



Eat, little ones, eat!

It's Feeding Time!

So, I probably could have fed my starter yesterday, because a few hours after I posted my progress, it GREW so much that I had to put it into a bigger container. After I moved it, it shrank again (due to the movement or the end of a cycle? I have yet to figure it out). It also smelled quite sharp yesterday. Today, it smelled VERY sharp, like Parmesan cheese (stinky, stinky Parmesan cheese!), or like stinky socks according to my mom. I'd rather think of cheese than socks when making bread, however, so let's stick with cheese.



You can see in the bowl where it had risen to and then fallen. I got a new, clean glass bowl to transfer the starter into, and then I prepared the food: I mixed 35g of warm water and 35g of flour together with my fingers (apparently, using your fingers is important because metal utensils can harm your microbiological friends. I guess I could have used something wooden, but it's more fun to use your hands!)



I put the resulting blob of "food" into my clean glass bowl (because I like to be able to check things out through the glass)



Then, I took about 20% of the starter and added it to the food, mixing carefully so I wouldn't kill any of the yeast. The rest of the starter went down the drain, and it took its smell with it (much to the relief of my family).



So tomorrow, it will be the same drill, until it establishes a predictable rise/fall cycle. Then I can make my leaven and actually start to make bread! HOORAY!

Hooray for Microbiology!

Today was day one for developing my starter. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much of anything, because it's only been 24 hours. I mean, really, how much bacteria/yeast can grow in flour and water after just 24 hours? Apparently, quite a bit.



See all those little bubbles of microbiological goodness? No? Well, here's a side-view:



Beautiful, beautiful little bubbles! These bubbles are proof that my little friends are feasting away on the sugar in the flour. How cool is that? It's like my own science experiment! Know what else is cool? The starter has started to GROW - it's now a full inch bigger in the bowl! Super exciting! Tomorrow if/when the bubbles are bigger and the smell is stronger, I'll do my first "feeding", where I discard most of it and feed the rest with a half flour, half water mixture.

I also went out and purchased a cast iron combo cooker, which apparently is the best bread-making device because it allows you to capture steam at the beginning of cooking. The initial steaminess is apparently the secret of great, crusty bread.



It's basically two pans that act as lids for each other - one deep one, and one shallow.



I thought it was a good investment, especially if it makes bread more delicious. And, you know, I guess you can cook other things with it. Like... french toast?

Tomorrow, hopefully, I will have pictures of me feeding my starter. I will feed it regularly for a few days , until a regular "cycle" of rising (like I saw today) and falling is achieved. Then I can make my leaven, and finally, the bread of my dreams. Or at least my first attempt at it.

Let's Start With the Starter

I've managed to master a lot of baking techniques by this point in my life. I can make perfect, springy cupcakes from scratch and top them with homemade icing. I can make chewy, uniformly-shaped cookies that aren't brown on the bottom. I can make brownies using real melted chocolate and melt-in-your mouth coffeecake. But I have never been good at making a wonderful, crackly, springy, moist loaf of bread. And bread is my favorite thing.
I have been given several bread recipes, which gave me plenty of information about how to make bread, but no one ever stopped to explain why. Why are some breads crunchy and others soft? What makes sourdough different from french bread? Why does it matter what flour I use?
Finally, I happened across a bread book from Tartine, the famous bakery in San Francisco. It contained all the information I was looking for: Not only the how but the why. I read it cover to cover. Twice. If you are looking for a book that teaches you everything you ever wanted to know about bread and bread-like things, you need to go buy it. I'm a science-nerd type, and this book goes in depth without being boring.

To Start: The Starter.

Today I started my starter. It was a lot easier than I expected. The starter is basically a mixture of flour and water that you let sit at room temperature for a few days until you get a culture, which is pretty much what you don't want happening to any other food in your kitchen, unless you are already making yogurt. Anyway, it provides the rise, or the leaven, for your bread. Bread tastes about a thousand times better if you use natural leaven, which means you have to make a starter. The bacteria and yeast in the starter come from the flour itself, the baker's hands, and the air. Believe me, these little guys are your friends.
After I develop my starter, I have to feed it every day (I wouldn't want my little friends to go hungry). It's a lot like having a pet, really, only in the end it gives you yummy-tasting bread. Then, after a few more days of feeding, I can begin to make my bread.
Since it will probably be hilarious, I will take pictures. And since I am wildly impatient, I started this blog. Hopefully fresh, warm, wonderful bread is in my future.