Author Description

Why Bother With Pre-ferments and Wild Yeast? Why return to the older, slower, and more complex bread making when, with the advent of commercial yeast, the process became significantly more reliable and faster? Simply Answered! Sourdough has a wonderful crust & crumb; tastes better, lasts longer, and is healthier. All of which makes it worth the effort! Those who haven’t used wild yeast may have a hard time fully appreciating all involved in creating a sourdough loaf. With commercial yeast, all fermentation characteristics are "built in" and you just need to purchase it, store it, retrieve it when needed and just open a jar, or rip open a small packet and use the recipe amount. Not so with wild yeast! You must first manufacture your starter/mother. And not only must the yeast be trapped and tamed; it must also be trained to become a stable mother from which modifications can be made to achieve different crusts & crumbs, and flavors. Just like with direct breads, we initially begin with a sourdough formula created by someone else. But, to replicate a given sourdough formula, we must first accurately replicate the author's mother. Unlike simply knowing a specific amount of commercial yeast, we must further train our mother to match the characteristics of the author’s mother (The question of why the author created this mother is a topic worthy of consideration). This means the author must have clearly and accurately provided all necessary specifics to replicate their starter/mother. Sadly, this is often not the case. But with proper knowledge & skill, the Sourdough Baker can analyze the overall formula and determine how their mother must respond to create the desired product. This is Sourdough at its best!