Emily's Quest, Series 1

Good Morning Blog Followers!  Meet Emily.  And Carter and Annie.  

One of the cooler things about a family are those who come into the family.  Emily married Mike, my half brother.  Mike and I share the same Dad - who, incidentally, is my Number One blog-reading fan!.  Mike did good!  Look at those smiles and the cutie the two of them made.  There are not many red heads in the Kinzer Family! That's Carter, their Number 1 son!!  And Annie, one heck of a good dog.  

Emily reached out to me recently asking some questions about sourdough bread making.  As I have been up to my elbows lately in flour and sourdough starter, and she is not the only one I know curious about making sour dough breads and things, I will begin a series titled, "Emily's Quest" the adventures of making sourdough bread.  

Bread needs air or it is more like a rock or a tortilla!  Air comes from bacteria eating sugar and producing gas.  Interestingly enough, it is the same bacteria that makes delicious batches of sauerkraut fermenting away on my counter tops that makes sourdough starter bubble away on my counter.  Lactobacillaceae.  The breakdown process produces lactic acid which gives sourdough its unique flavor.  Makers of many good things.  These gas pockets form and if there is a strong structure, they will be nice little pockets of air in your loaf.  Illustrated below, one of my favorite loaves - pecan bread made with some rye flour and molasses. 

Anyone interested in sourdough bread has heard stories of years-old sourdough starter, kept alive and passed from generation to generation.  "My great great grandma's aunt started this starter back in Minooka Illinois"!!  It is speculated that the whole thing came about when someone waaaaay back when left out some mixed bread dough and wild yeasts settled in making for a lighter and more airy bread.  One article I researched boldly stated, "sourdough bread is older than metal".  Wow, that's old. 

Some say you can taste the differences in various starters due to the various wild yeast types.  San Francisco, known for its sourdough bread, discovered a local yeast, named it and then found it in a number of other places!  This is a fun article to read  Wild Yeast and proclaims the most probable real truth - the flavors are generated more from the flours and sweeteners than from the yeast variety.  This article is a bit misleading, touting the benefit of these good bacteria.  Truth is, they all die when one bakes the bread.  They may have done some really good health things while rising and working, however, the health benefit of live bacteria can only be found in fermented products that have not seen heat; sauerkraut, yogurt, and kombucha, for example. 

So where does one start on this quest to make sourdough bread?  Emily is making some of her own, putting a caldron of wheat and water on her counter, inviting wild yeast to settle in and call her starter home.  I love everything from King Arthur and this is where I would go if I didn't already have starter of my own.  I have been gifted two different starters; one from a gal with whom I used to exercise and another from Addie, my all-creative blog-follower master-baker friend.  One lost its zeal and I know feed Addie's starter regularly keeping it alive with constant flour and water refreshings.  They say starter can be dried, the bacteria chilling out in the dried crispy flour flakes.  I have sent some Wyoming wild yeast for Emily to reconstitute and see if the yeast will come to life. 

Series 2 will discuss the process of making the bread.  Get out your kitchen scale (thanks for that tip Addie, you are spot-on right!), bowls and mixing spoons!  Below, some happy sourdough starter pictures.