My adventure in making sourdough bread

It is hard to believe that somehow I could become fascinated by the craft of making sourdough bread starting from July 2010.

About three months of time has past since the day I started the adventure in the exploration of this ancient art. From the quality of the breakfast rolls that I made yesterday with my own formulated sourdough starter, I think I can now announce my success in taming the sourdough starter with which I make my breakfast buns.

The reason I refer to sourdough bread making as an "art" is because of the unpredictable nature of its most important ingredient, the sourdough starter, which the baker uses to rise the dough. There are so many factors to think about, to stick to, and to experiment with in order to cultivate the healthy yeast for making the best bread that can win your sincere praise and your highest satisfaction. It cannot be just jotted down on paper as a step-by-step instruction for you to follow through, instead, it can only tell you the principles, the ideas, the hypothesis that you must know when you work through the process of making bread using your homemade sourdough starter. And this is how the sourdough bread making captivated my heart.

My first step in the adventure was googling this topic in the website. I'm grateful to the contributors who share their experience and knowledge about the sourdough bread making on the Internet, that just by a flick of the fingers, I got all the relevant information. I learned that some sourdough enthusiasts cultivating yeast by soaking raisins in water, some from boiled potato water, some from apple or other fruits, and various other ideas of all sorts of stuff. I adopted the method of raising my yeast in flour batter after I had tried one with raisins.

My wife advocates healthy food, so I use wholemeal flour in the whole process of making bread, although I personally like using white flour because it can make the bread texture more fluffy and softer. But we should not pursue the pleasure for our taste buds only, Health issue should be taken into account seriously too, so I satisfied her by using hundred percent wholemeal flour plus approximately 5% of gluten flour, which one of the posts in the web says will compensate the fluffiness and the softness of the bread when you use only wholemeal flour.

We had been using the commercially formulated dry yeast available in super market for five dollars per bottle of 150 g. This kind of yeast is recommended to be used up within six months otherwise you will see a sharp decrease or even zero of its leavening strength. But since I started experimenting on sourdough starter from mid July of 2010, we have completely stopped using the commercial dry yeast.

Every 2 to 3 days I will make breakfast bread once for the family. During the first few weeks, the bread I made was too tense in texture because it only raised the dough slightly even though I left it in a warm space to rise for as long as 10 hours or more. I pondered on the cause of this problem and I came up with the following conclusions:

• The ratio of sourdough starter and the flour is too far off the right one.
• The concentration of the yeast raised in the flour batter is far less than the required level.

Gradually I adjusted here and there in the process of growing the sourdough starter and it is now settled at this protocol:

1. The birth of first sourdough starter:
1. make a flour batter by mixing 1/2 cup wholemeal flour, 1 tsp commercial dry yeast and 100ml water. Keep in a transparent container and mark where the mixture is up to on the container. Leave it with lid loosely closed on the top of the container enabling the preferment process to go on in room temperature for about two hours, or when you see a layer of foam forming on the surface of the batter. This is the first generation of sourdough starter.
2. Thereafter, you need to feed the starter with 1/2 cup wholemeal flour and 100ml water. Stir the whole lot till the flour is wet, then leave it with lid slightly open in room temperature for a maximum of 4 hours or before you feel the yeast is beginning to become hungry again. It is time to put the lid tightly on and keep it in the fridge to sleep. If you don’t put the sourdough starter to sleep at this point of time, the yeast will begin to turn sourer and sourer and end up with a pail of rotten stuff and no longer edible, I believe.
2. Preparing to make a dough:
1. Take the sourdough starter in sleeping out of the fridge. I call this “wake up” and leave it in room temperature. You can imagine the yeasts are yearning and begining to work again.
2. Add 1 cup wholemeal flour and 200ml of water, stir the mixture till the flour is thoroughly wet. Then leave it on the working bench with lid lightly closed for about 2 hours depending on the temperature of that day, or when you see a layer of foam emerged on the surface.
3. Pour the batter into the mixing bowl till the remaining in the container falls down to the mark. This is the start point of another new cycle of the whole process. Refer to point 1.a.
4. Now the ingredients of the batter in the mixing bowl are 300ml water and 1.5 cups flour if you trace back the records. For making the softest buns of 16 pieces of the size of 5cm in diameter and 4cm in height, I add 3 cups flour, one tsp salt, 150ml water and 2 tbsp olive oil. Mix and knead till it becomes a dough and leave it in a proper space to rise. This takes about two hours depending on the temperature.
3. Shape the bread:
1. It is your turn now to exercise your inventive and creative capability in the art of bread making.

Having read "The Shack"

A friend, a devoted Christian and dentist based in North Shore City, recommended I read a book titled “The Shack” by William P Young.

The book begins with an explanation of the childhood of the main character, McKenzie, nicknamed ‘Mack’.

My reading took about two weeks, leaving me with the impression the content is quite philosophical because of the great amount of discussion between Mack and the Holy Trinity during a weekend spent in the shack. The discussion is centred on the tragedy which Mack had experienced.

Composed of 18 chapters, the book begins with a prologue of Mack’s childhood wherein the author tells of Mack’s father, abusive when drunk, always seeking forgiveness when sober. These details help me make sense of following episodes.

The core of the story is Missy, Mack’s youngest daughter aged 6 who was abducted from the camp yard where Mack was picnicking with his three children. Only Missy’s red clothes were found on the table by the fireplace of an abandoned shack in the bush. Overwhelmed by his tragic loss, Mack began to question the truth of God’s love.

One day, two years after the tragedy, Mack received a note left in his letter box inviting him to re-visit the shack in which Missy’s clothes were found. It astonished him to see the note was signed “Papa”, in the way his wife Nan refers to God.

Curiosity, anger and guilt, buried deep in his mind frequently haunting him, made him determined to revisit the place to face and challenge the negativities he had been embracing.

One Friday afternoon, unknown to his wife and children, he set off. On entering the bush near his destination, the surrounding atmosphere became so peaceful, refreshing and solemn as he sighted the shack in the distance. It was there he encountered the Holy Trinity - God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The following chapters of the book contain and explain the questions, answers and hot debate which ensue between Mack and God. The main point of the questions being that if God loves his creation, why are there tragedies and sufferings in the world.

I feel the author, William Young must be a very knowledgeable theologian or is a senior Christianity scholar as the arguments he weaves in the story are very deep and incomprehensible to me. Although difficult for me to read, I completed the book in order to improve my reading capacity.

After the two-day stay in the shack with God, Mack felt an inner transformation leaving him with a feeling of light and peace replacing the anger and guilt. He felt it was time to go home and back to reality.

At this point of the story, the author makes a technical twist to involve Mack in a massive traffic accident on his way home. Mack loses consciousness, falls into a coma and on awakening asked his wife what happened. It was then he knew he had been in hospital during the whole weekend whereas for him, he had been in the shack with God.

(Great thanks go to my English mentor Neville who corrected the grammar of the original post for me.)