How to capture wild yeast for bread (and WHY it works)
video description
Date: 2020-05-26
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 9
Gabo
Once again, Adam misrepresents the professionals he sets at odds with the home cooks. Read the two biggest books on baking sourdough bread: Flour Water Salt Yeast and Tartine, and you'll find that they don't advocate for using distilled water; they say filtered but any will work, just like NC State does and that Adam does not argue against. They don't argue for using strictly Whole Wheat Flour, they actually recommend using a blend of Whole Grain and White Flour, and while Chad Robertson (Tartine) does say the Organic Flour came out better, it's not a requirement for good bread. Ask most baker's and they will explain that Whole Grain flours produce a more active fermentation (something that may or may not be more desirable, but that any flour will work for this. YOU NEVER HAVE TO USE ANYTHING SPECIFIC. A common theme in Adam's videos is to misrepresent the professional side of cooking so that he can better sell his home cook argument. I'm sure he has examples of bakers being uber-particular and exclusive about their methods, and that's not surprising, but it really does not take a lot of effort to find professional bakers who use simple ingredients for what they make. As a baker, here is a problem with Adam's (and maybe NC State's): 1. Discarding Half - The ratio of the mature starter (leftover after you discard) to the new flour and water added is one factor that determines how quickly your starter rises. Most bakers will tell you 20% as opposed to 50% because 50% will produce a quick-rising starter that needs to be fed frequently. As you can see with Adam's starter, it needs to be fed every 12 rather than every 24 hours. If he were to use a 20% mature starter, it would probably not need to be fed as frequently. From Adam's earlier video about converting his recipes to metric and respecting home cooks. Feeding your starter every 12 hours is not respectful of home cooks and results in a lot of discard. 2. Using Volume not Weight - If you want to bake bread (or anything really, invest in a kitchen scale. Adding things like flour by volume can mean the actual quantity varies by 20%. I'm genuinely surprised that NC State is using volume measurements for their scientific study, because the volume/weight discrepancy alone disqualifies a lot of the data. Most bread recipes will use weight measurements anyways. 3. Replacing Commercial Yeast with Starter in Recipes - This is a bad idea. Substituting starter for yeast requires more than just accounting for the new flour and water. Commercial yeasts are very strong and powerful at creating gasses and adding leavening. Starters are less so. Commercial yeast is used in a lot of highly enriched dough because the enriched ingredients (eggs, butter, sugar, etc) arrest fermentation so they need the powerful commercial yeast to help the rise. No amount of starter will get you the same rise that the recipe is planning for. To successfully substitute starter for yeast, you'd have to fiddle with every other ingredient, not just the flour and the water to achieve similar results. Starter's also take a lot of time to rise compared to yeasts, so you have to account for that as well, and it's not just as simple as letting it rise on its own, because it may not actually rise due to the other ingredients. If you want to create a good, strong starter and bake delicious bread, read Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish and/or Tartine by Chad Robertson. These are quality books written by professional bakers who know how to translate professional baking to the home kitchen without the laziness and corner-cutting of Adam Ragusea. As always there are people worth listening to who actually know what they are talking about, as opposed to Adam, who reads up on a subject for maybe a week, steals an idea of two from Weissman, Babish, BA, or ATK along the way, and puts out a video that attempts to undercut what bakers have been teaching for centuries because home cooks need it simpler. It's insulting to home cooks that Adam thinks that we could not or don't deserve to put the same level of care, attention, and effort into our food as professionals do.
reply
Once again, Adam misrepresents the professionals he sets at odds with the home cooks. Read the two biggest books on baking sourdough bread: Flour Water Salt Yeast and Tartine, and you'll find that they don't advocate for using distilled water; they say filtered but any will work, just like NC State does and that Adam does not argue against. They don't argue for using strictly Whole Wheat Flour, they actually recommend using a blend of Whole Grain and White Flour, and while Chad Robertson (Tartine) does say the Organic Flour came out better, it's not a requirement for good bread. Ask most baker's and they will explain that Whole Grain flours produce a more active fermentation (something that may or may not be more desirable, but that any flour will work for this. YOU NEVER HAVE TO USE ANYTHING SPECIFIC. A common theme in Adam's videos is to misrepresent the professional side of cooking so that he can better sell his home cook argument. I'm sure he has examples of bakers being uber-particular and exclusive about their methods, and that's not surprising, but it really does not take a lot of effort to find professional bakers who use simple ingredients for what they make. As a baker, here is a problem with Adam's (and maybe NC State's): 1. Discarding Half - The ratio of the mature starter (leftover after you discard) to the new flour and water added is one factor that determines how quickly your starter rises. Most bakers will tell you 20% as opposed to 50% because 50% will produce a quick-rising starter that needs to be fed frequently. As you can see with Adam's starter, it needs to be fed every 12 rather than every 24 hours. If he were to use a 20% mature starter, it would probably not need to be fed as frequently. From Adam's earlier video about converting his recipes to metric and respecting home cooks. Feeding your starter every 12 hours is not respectful of home cooks and results in a lot of discard. 2. Using Volume not Weight - If you want to bake bread (or anything really, invest in a kitchen scale. Adding things like flour by volume can mean the actual quantity varies by 20%. I'm genuinely surprised that NC State is using volume measurements for their scientific study, because the volume/weight discrepancy alone disqualifies a lot of the data. Most bread recipes will use weight measurements anyways. 3. Replacing Commercial Yeast with Starter in Recipes - This is a bad idea. Substituting starter for yeast requires more than just accounting for the new flour and water. Commercial yeasts are very strong and powerful at creating gasses and adding leavening. Starters are less so. Commercial yeast is used in a lot of highly enriched dough because the enriched ingredients (eggs, butter, sugar, etc) arrest fermentation so they need the powerful commercial yeast to help the rise. No amount of starter will get you the same rise that the recipe is planning for. To successfully substitute starter for yeast, you'd have to fiddle with every other ingredient, not just the flour and the water to achieve similar results. Starter's also take a lot of time to rise compared to yeasts, so you have to account for that as well, and it's not just as simple as letting it rise on its own, because it may not actually rise due to the other ingredients. If you want to create a good, strong starter and bake delicious bread, read Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish and/or Tartine by Chad Robertson. These are quality books written by professional bakers who know how to translate professional baking to the home kitchen without the laziness and corner-cutting of Adam Ragusea. As always there are people worth listening to who actually know what they are talking about, as opposed to Adam, who reads up on a subject for maybe a week, steals an idea of two from Weissman, Babish, BA, or ATK along the way, and puts out a video that attempts to undercut what bakers have been teaching for centuries because home cooks need it simpler. It's insulting to home cooks that Adam thinks that we could not or don't deserve to put the same level of care, attention, and effort into our food as professionals do.
reply
Caty
I'll look into the NC project. It could be fun, and I would like to recover from my last attempt at sourdough starter. However, I do live in San Francisco, and I think that our yeast environment has been studied to a fare-thee-well. So, I don't know if they need Bay Area input. Some months ago, following 2 videos from Chef John, at Food Wishes, I set out to make a starter. I bought unbleached flour, on someone's advice. (I'm not sure that it was Chef John's advice, as I looked at several videos, after watching his presentation) The result was a massive moth infestation, that I didn't connect with the flour, for a few days. I dumped everything, and abandoned the project. The main Boudin Bakery is 10 blocks from my house, and I figured who needs this? I love to cook, but I don't do much baking. In all probability, I did something wrong in the purchase, or storage of the flour. I'll look at the information from the sourdough project.
reply
I'll look into the NC project. It could be fun, and I would like to recover from my last attempt at sourdough starter. However, I do live in San Francisco, and I think that our yeast environment has been studied to a fare-thee-well. So, I don't know if they need Bay Area input. Some months ago, following 2 videos from Chef John, at Food Wishes, I set out to make a starter. I bought unbleached flour, on someone's advice. (I'm not sure that it was Chef John's advice, as I looked at several videos, after watching his presentation) The result was a massive moth infestation, that I didn't connect with the flour, for a few days. I dumped everything, and abandoned the project. The main Boudin Bakery is 10 blocks from my house, and I figured who needs this? I love to cook, but I don't do much baking. In all probability, I did something wrong in the purchase, or storage of the flour. I'll look at the information from the sourdough project.
reply
MarschelArts
I've started baking with my own sour dough a few years ago out of couriosity and try it on and off since then. Was pretty handy once the yeast wasn't available anymore. I experiment with different flours and felt the best result was with a mix of rye and whole wheat flour. Starting with rye, then mix rye and wheat 50 50 or alternating. Never tried destilled water, though I get why it might help. Tap water has a lot of stuff in it, depending where you live. Mine seems to work fine. As to what to do with the surplus Starter: I started to mix that into a bit of extra water and flour, some salt and sometimes Olive oil or melted butter, knead it up into a small batch of doughlet it sit a bit and make a flat pan bread out of that for breakfast. Usually I get two good pieces out of that. It's sometimes like pita, sometimes it resembles naan a bit more. Better than just throwing it away.
reply
I've started baking with my own sour dough a few years ago out of couriosity and try it on and off since then. Was pretty handy once the yeast wasn't available anymore. I experiment with different flours and felt the best result was with a mix of rye and whole wheat flour. Starting with rye, then mix rye and wheat 50 50 or alternating. Never tried destilled water, though I get why it might help. Tap water has a lot of stuff in it, depending where you live. Mine seems to work fine. As to what to do with the surplus Starter: I started to mix that into a bit of extra water and flour, some salt and sometimes Olive oil or melted butter, knead it up into a small batch of doughlet it sit a bit and make a flat pan bread out of that for breakfast. Usually I get two good pieces out of that. It's sometimes like pita, sometimes it resembles naan a bit more. Better than just throwing it away.
reply
Belmin
I made my starter waaay back before all this stuff. So I'll just tell you a few things from my experience: - It's probably best to use rye flour, it's easiest to sustain - You can make it without discarding any, just start with small amount, and before using it calculate desired weight and feed it like that - If you calculated it good, you'll be left just with scraps in your jar, but don't worry, just keep those scraps in fridge, and when you want to use it again, just feed it 2-3 times to desirable weight - Don't keep it longer then 10 days in fridge - It's gonna be sticky oh boy - It's easiest to use grams when feeding, sou you feed it in 1: 1 ratio (exp. 10 grams of water: 10 grams of flour) I'll edit if I remeber of something new.
reply
I made my starter waaay back before all this stuff. So I'll just tell you a few things from my experience: - It's probably best to use rye flour, it's easiest to sustain - You can make it without discarding any, just start with small amount, and before using it calculate desired weight and feed it like that - If you calculated it good, you'll be left just with scraps in your jar, but don't worry, just keep those scraps in fridge, and when you want to use it again, just feed it 2-3 times to desirable weight - Don't keep it longer then 10 days in fridge - It's gonna be sticky oh boy - It's easiest to use grams when feeding, sou you feed it in 1: 1 ratio (exp. 10 grams of water: 10 grams of flour) I'll edit if I remeber of something new.
reply
chris
I've got a brother who's sole job is to microwave flour on a commercial scale to make it more safe to consume on a raw level. He says that salmonella and echolalia are the tip of the iceberg. I still consume raw egg and flour occasionally. The more you know. :) add rye and spelt flours at 10% of your starter give yeast and bacteria something to chew on. Mix it up. Add some complexity to the starter and the dough recipe. Bake your bread past pasteurization temps for at least 10 minutes and end up with something that takes 40-60 minutes and reads 200F internal. Everything's dead. This predates written history for a reason. It works and is the BEST thing you can make in the kitchen. Period. ;) Adam!
reply
I've got a brother who's sole job is to microwave flour on a commercial scale to make it more safe to consume on a raw level. He says that salmonella and echolalia are the tip of the iceberg. I still consume raw egg and flour occasionally. The more you know. :) add rye and spelt flours at 10% of your starter give yeast and bacteria something to chew on. Mix it up. Add some complexity to the starter and the dough recipe. Bake your bread past pasteurization temps for at least 10 minutes and end up with something that takes 40-60 minutes and reads 200F internal. Everything's dead. This predates written history for a reason. It works and is the BEST thing you can make in the kitchen. Period. ;) Adam!
reply
kamaangirthearcher
In the 80's my cousin had a bakery in Iran and it was illegal to sell bread with commercial yeast! All bread had to be made with sour dough. You have to keep in mind that this was in the middle of one of the longest running conflicts of the 20th century with wide spread shortages and food rationing and coupons. Anecdotally I have made sour dough starter with 00 Italian flour which I have since fed with whole meal, brown and bread flour which is what what we could get. Starter is doing fine, bread and pizza have been very good.
reply
In the 80's my cousin had a bakery in Iran and it was illegal to sell bread with commercial yeast! All bread had to be made with sour dough. You have to keep in mind that this was in the middle of one of the longest running conflicts of the 20th century with wide spread shortages and food rationing and coupons. Anecdotally I have made sour dough starter with 00 Italian flour which I have since fed with whole meal, brown and bread flour which is what what we could get. Starter is doing fine, bread and pizza have been very good.
reply
normal
I tried to make sourdough with both raisins and honey as they both have natural yeast in it, as I only have bleached flour which I heard won't make soudoughs. It worked really well but I ended up tasting the sourdough starter almost everyday (though I mostly tasted already sour ones) ended up getting sick (diarrhea, fever, and a terrible headache) though I can't confirm it's from sourdough, I ended up throwing it away and decided to try again with flour only later. Has anyone made a successful sourdough with bleached flour?
reply
I tried to make sourdough with both raisins and honey as they both have natural yeast in it, as I only have bleached flour which I heard won't make soudoughs. It worked really well but I ended up tasting the sourdough starter almost everyday (though I mostly tasted already sour ones) ended up getting sick (diarrhea, fever, and a terrible headache) though I can't confirm it's from sourdough, I ended up throwing it away and decided to try again with flour only later. Has anyone made a successful sourdough with bleached flour?
reply
FXM
In several years of sourdough baking, and probably half a dozen new batches of starter, I've learned that just about any flour and water works fine, and it's perfectly ok to change flour types along the way. And don't throw out the used starter- use it for some super tangy skillet flat bread! Adam is right, and I want to emphasize that it's way easier than the self-proclaimed experts want you to believe. There may be an optimum way for certain situations, but for the most part, you can just wing it and it will turn out fine.
reply
In several years of sourdough baking, and probably half a dozen new batches of starter, I've learned that just about any flour and water works fine, and it's perfectly ok to change flour types along the way. And don't throw out the used starter- use it for some super tangy skillet flat bread! Adam is right, and I want to emphasize that it's way easier than the self-proclaimed experts want you to believe. There may be an optimum way for certain situations, but for the most part, you can just wing it and it will turn out fine.
reply
Laurie
I created a starter in September. With it, I bake: sourdough bread, banana bread (my favorite because it s not cloyingly sweet, my husband s super delicious chocolate birthday cake earlier this month, waffles, pancakes, crepes, crackers and coffee cake. I loved creating it, finding just the right ratio of flour and water to feed it, and caring for it. I can t cook worth a damn and started anxiety baking with the presidential election. If I can do this, anyone can.
reply
I created a starter in September. With it, I bake: sourdough bread, banana bread (my favorite because it s not cloyingly sweet, my husband s super delicious chocolate birthday cake earlier this month, waffles, pancakes, crepes, crackers and coffee cake. I loved creating it, finding just the right ratio of flour and water to feed it, and caring for it. I can t cook worth a damn and started anxiety baking with the presidential election. If I can do this, anyone can.
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
