Making own organic REAL bread (skyrocket quality, healthy and inexpensive)

[DaKini]

Hi there, i recently saw the "i gave up bread" thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/giving-up-sliced-bread-grocery-and-weight-savings!/) and think it is time to share my badassity in this field with you (in fact i don't think what i do is badass).
So here it comes (dont be afraid of the long text. It contains detailled information. At its core, making bread is really dead simple.):

A little background and environmental analysis and a word on costs:
I do make my own bread since 2011 and honestly, it is at bakery-quality (the old traditional german ones, not the ones just crisping premade slugs). I make them fully organic (highest organic standard, no genfood, no s#tty ingredients like brown sugar/sirup or some kind of glue). Such bread is hard to get in todays market here (and i guess even nearly impossible in the US) and fair compared here, a 1kg loaf would cost you around 10 €.
So, i will be able to bake double that ammount of bread at equal quality for below 2€ (rye-flour: 1.45€ + heat energy ~0.20€ + water ... err, maybe 0.05€). Even if i make my superduper spelt-sunflower bread (see below) and buy for unusual high prices, i will be way below 4€.

The "i-need-fresh-slices-NOW" trick
I do bake about every 2 weeks and produce 2 loafes of about 800 gramms each. After it cooled down, i usually cut it in slices and put it into the refrigerator.
Everytime i need some slices, i get to the freezer, get the needed ammount of frozen slices, put it into my toaster to unfreeze it and enjoy the slices of warm bread. Doing it this way yields me a slice of bread comparable to a fresh cut slice from a fresh baked loaf, there is really nearly no difference.
The difference is however, that i can enjoy fresh ready cut slices: convinience at supermarket level, ingredients quality skyrocketing while incurring rock bottom cost (even savings compared to not comparable supermarket "bread").

Health consideration
This is quite a little off topic, however i heard much of the "i get fat from bread" fears. The secret is i think, that it A) depends on moderation and b) heavily on the ingredients. If one stuffes his stomach with white wheat based breads that also contain sugar and other things that have no reason to be in a bread, one should not wonder if his body responds in an unusual way.
The truth is: Supermarkets don't sell bread. They sell things that look like bread, but that is NOT bread.
I strongly think, that if your diet is balanced, that real bread would add to this healthy diet and be a cause of health rather then illness. I would also say, that not eating bread is causing the diet to be a bit more unbalanced.
The most weight problems here in germany, that i can see is most people eat too much of the wrong things (like cheap supermarketbread).
Additionally be warned: rye flour is much better for your body than white flour. It contains more nutrients and is not so fast processed by the body.

Basic Equipment and ingredients
Here comes the interesting part for all of you who want to avoid my facepunch which i will freely give out in a post yet to come.
The secret is, that making a REAL bread like described above is really easy. It neither takes much labour time, fancy tools or exotic ingredients.

Tools you need (and most probably already have):

• A small glass for your new pet, the sourdough (i call mine "Saui" from german "Sauerteig")
• A bowl for the bread dough
• Two smaller bowls for the loafes (this is semi-optional, in fact)
• a cloth for covering the bowls with the dough
• A teaspoon and a tablespoon
• A baking oven able to deliver about 250°C
• Some even place to work with the bread dough, kitchen countertop will serve well if clean (i have a fancypants wooden board that my wife also uses for her christmas bakery)

Ingredients you need:

• Water (Tap water will do fine if it has drinking quality without chlorine)
• Organic whole rye flour (do not compromise qualite here! research if necessary)
• A little salt (i use not much, about 2 average filled teaspoons will do fine for my two 800gramm loafes combined)
• Optionally (depending on receipe):
  
  • whole white flour (also do only high quality!). I usually shoot higher and use whole spelt flour.
  • some spice: traditionally aniseed, caraway, fennel. (You really dont need much: for my two 800gramm loafes i use one tablespoon combined)
  • A little white flour for dusting working spaces, hands and the loafes.

How to get started with your new friend, the sourdough:
In case you are not able to get a living culture of rye-sourdough, you can easily make your own.
However, stay away from supermarket starter kits, even the ones of organic stores. They often sell extracts that do not live very well. The only thing you want is a naturally and wild grown culture, and the only way to get it is to make it yourself (or have a friend donate a part of his wild culture).
With a quick g00gle i found a english guide here: http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/rye-sourdough-starter-in-easy-steps/
Some additional tips:
- Be sure to make a rye-based one, it is easier to maintain and more robust) Be sure to give your starter a nice name once he outlived the first week as he will be your new living pet the next years. Be sure to take care of him.
- Also, i mentioned it already above: For baking cycles of about two weeks, there is no need to freeze it. The frdige is really enough.
- From time to time, you should MAKE BACKUP COPYS: Just make a small ammount of sourdough (about 50gramms wet) and once it is ready (after 15-20 hours), smear it flat onto baking paper. Note the "wet wieght" and the date down. Let it toroughly dry at a shadowly place. Then crumble it into a small box that closes airtight.
If you ever need to use the backup, you take the dry crumbled sourdough and add water to it, so its weight reaches the "wet wight" notet. You will let it stay half a day or so, and stir it up occassionally until it is homogenous again. Then its ready to be used. Be sure to make a replacement copy at the current baking day. The dry backup will stay good a long time if stored in a dry, dark and cool place. I already stored my copys more than a year and after that it worked fine.

How to make bread
So here is the worklist, optimized for my time schedule and optimized for my locally available 500gramm packs of rye flour. This works very well with my 3year old Saui, with a fresh one it may be necessary to insert some "breeding steps" in case the results are not so good (keep in mind the sourdough needs some months to develop its full strength; he will get stronger everytime you bake):

• The day before baking-day
  
  • At about 21:00 i will start to prepare the sourdough.
  • I take the bowl and put about 350 gramms of the rye flour
  • I then add about 350 gramms water (hand warm, not hot!)
  • I go to the freezer and search for my sourdough starter.
  • With a spoon i empty the glass into the bowl
  • Everything gets stirred until no flour remains dry. This gives a rather creamy consistency.
  • I cover the bowl with the cloth and put the bowl to a warm place (around 23°C, the cooler, the longer the fermentation process takes, at lower temperatures of about 18°C it will never complete with good results)
  • I put the spoon into the sourdoughglass and fill it with water. After a while i clean both by rinsing it with water (no clinical cleaniness required here as long as you work clean otherwise).
• Backing day
  
  • After the sourdough has worked hard for about 12-15 hours it has considerably changed. It is now much bigger and very lofty-bubly. He smells intensive (most of the time very good, sometimes a little alcoholic which is fine also).
    So i take him into the kitchen.
  • Make a new starter: THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT STEP. If you miss out on this, you will need you backup.
    Just take your spoon and take some of the sourdough into the glass. Put the glass into the fridge.
  • Add about two average teaspoons of salt.
  • Add any optional spices.
  • Add about 650 grams of rye flour and 480 grams of water (again: hand warm).
    The water should not get in all at once, because it depends on the  absorptive capacity of the flour charge how much water is needed.
  • Stir it until no dry rye flour is left. Add water gradually to get to the target consistency.
    The consistency is right, when the dough begins to form flocks but remains creamy. (You will know when it was too dry when the bread becomes holes after baking it. It Just needs some ex)perience.
  • When ready, cover the bowl and put it again to the warm place.
  • Let the sourdough work for about 3 hours.
  • After it has grown significantly, make your two loafes. To do this:
    - put wheat flour to a flat space (countertop, board, ...). You need so much that the space needed for the dough is covered, however a thin layer is enough. Its more like dust than a real layer.
    - put the dough onto the dusted space.
    - put wheat flour on your hands and form round loafes. Kneading is not neccessary with 100%-rye-dough, just form the loafes.
    - dust the loafes with wheat flour and put them into the smaller bowls so the will remain in form (otherwise they will go flat)
    
  • Leave the laofes there for about 1 hour, they will settle and destress. You will notice this as a little additional growth of the loaves.
  • Heat up the baking oven. Time it so that it will reach about 250°C when the loafes are done with the little resting.
  • Prepare a baking tray with a backing paper. (Do not put the sourdough bread direct onto the iron).
    If you have a baking stone (for pizza?) you heat it up in the oven and in this case you can later put the bread directly on the stone.
  • When the oven is ready, put the bread loafes onto the stone or the tray and start baking.
    The schedule i use is: 10 minutes @250°C and 50 minutes @150°C; however this needs some experiments on your part because every oven is different. these numbers should be a good starting point.
  • When done baking, take out the loafes and let them cool down at least half a day before cutting. Cover them with the cloth.
  • Enjoy some slices of bread with fresh butter. Cut the rest in slices and put it into the freezer for later enjoyment.

Additional receipe ideas (my favorites)
Okay, here i will now share my "DaKini bavarian rye-spelt mix bread".
Compared to the above 100%rye version it will get more fluffy and also tastes a little less sour and more moderate.
The differences to the procedure above are:
- When preparing the bread dough, replace the 650grams of rye with whole spelt flour.
- When preparing the loafes (right after the long break), you need to knead it to activate the gluten that will provide the neccessary glue for the loaf to hold together. There are youtube videos how its properly done. Knead until the dough is like chewing gum.

To even top this receipe, you can also make my all time favorite so far: "DaKini bavarian rye-spelt mix bread with sunflower seeds".
- To make this, at the day-before-baking put sunflower seeds into a ordinary drinking cup. Fill it up with water.
- At baking day, put the seeds into the dough at the "add the spices" step.
- Use the water from the cup, it will help the aroma.

[limeandpepper]

I like your writing style, it's so cute that your sourdough is like a pet!

your new pet, the sourdough (i call mine "Saui" from german "Sauerteig")

Be sure to give your starter a nice name once he outlived the first week as he will be your new living pet the next years. Be sure to take care of him.

After the sourdough has worked hard for about 12-15 hours it has considerably changed. It is now much bigger and very lofty-bubly. He smells intensive (most of the time very good, sometimes a little alcoholic which is fine also).
So i take him into the kitchen.

I don't make my own bread but I would love to one day. The oven at my current rented apartment doesn't really work. So when I want bread, a couple times a month I will buy from the organic sourdough bakery at the market, when they are half price. They have rye ones there too. I agree that good quality bread in moderation is fine, like most things in life.

I think you will enjoy this thread as well. (It's an old one, and doesn't come up in the forum search function, I had to google to find it again.)

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/do-it-yourself-forum!/the-sourdough-thread/

[DaKini]

Thanks for sharing that link!

I forgot to include my pricing estimates, so i edited the first post to include it.

I like your writing style, it's so cute that your sourdough is like a pet!

Well, he needs to come out of his place regularly to be fed and he really is a living organism :)
It also encourages me to keep looking after him. Sometimes i did him the favor and have baked just so he can come out of his dark cold fridge place. (It was really a four weeks pause of baking, and i wanted him to retain his yeast for good swelling performance. And also i wanted to be sure that he is "ready" and fresh when i bake two weeks later.)

[anastrophe]

I used to have a starter and gave it a name. That thing lived for years.

I don't eat enough bread (or sourdough pancakes, just add salt, an egg, and baking soda to your extra starter) now to keep one alive but I do make a sponge and let it sit overnight when I make bread. Just as tasty IMO.

[YK-Phil]

+10

This is exactly how I feel. About bread, but also about coffee, wine, and almost everything else we eat. Everything in moderation, and everything high quality.

[4alpacas]

I like your writing style, it's so cute that your sourdough is like a pet!

your new pet, the sourdough (i call mine "Saui" from german "Sauerteig")

Be sure to give your starter a nice name once he outlived the first week as he will be your new living pet the next years. Be sure to take care of him.

After the sourdough has worked hard for about 12-15 hours it has considerably changed. It is now much bigger and very lofty-bubly. He smells intensive (most of the time very good, sometimes a little alcoholic which is fine also).
So i take him into the kitchen.

I don't make my own bread but I would love to one day. The oven at my current rented apartment doesn't really work. So when I want bread, a couple times a month I will buy from the organic sourdough bakery at the market, when they are half price. They have rye ones there too. I agree that good quality bread in moderation is fine, like most things in life.

I think you will enjoy this thread as well. (It's an old one, and doesn't come up in the forum search function, I had to google to find it again.)

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/do-it-yourself-forum!/the-sourdough-thread/

You could always get a breadmaker!  I got one from a friend (they were tossing it b/c they never used it), and I made pretty good bread with it.  More importantly...it was super hands off (and inexpensive). 

Now that I'm done with graduate school, I have more time...and I want to try this recipe!!!  Thanks for posting it!  I need to get a sourdough starter. 

[the fixer]

+1 to the OP. Sourdough rye is the only way to make real bread, and it's the way it was made for hundreds of years before the breweries started skimming foam off their fermentation vats to sell baker's yeast. Now, yeast is a genetically engineered monoculture strain.

I was buying the sourdough breads at Trader Joes for a while, but I'm concerned they aren't real sourdough. You can make bread the conventional way and just mix in some sourdough starter for flavor, but without letting it sit and the lactic acid bacteria going to work. I've temporarily cut out grains from my diet but I soon plan to reintroduce bread as my own homemade sourdough rye. I'll probably try out this recipe.

[the fixer]

You could always get a breadmaker!  I got one from a friend (they were tossing it b/c they never used it), and I made pretty good bread with it.  More importantly...it was super hands off (and inexpensive). 

Now that I'm done with graduate school, I have more time...and I want to try this recipe!!!  Thanks for posting it!  I need to get a sourdough starter.

I've never seen a bread machine that lets you make real sourdough. The one I had a year ago had a recipe for fake sourdough, which used starter plus yeast. Their recipe for making a starter even included yeast! It seems like bread machine recipes generally rely on using lots of baker's yeast to get quick rising, and that's the total opposite of how a traditional sourdough is made.

If there are bread machines out there that let you do this, I'd love to hear about it, but my recommendation is to at least shop carefully.

[4alpacas]

You could always get a breadmaker!  I got one from a friend (they were tossing it b/c they never used it), and I made pretty good bread with it.  More importantly...it was super hands off (and inexpensive). 

Now that I'm done with graduate school, I have more time...and I want to try this recipe!!!  Thanks for posting it!  I need to get a sourdough starter.

I've never seen a bread machine that lets you make real sourdough. The one I had a year ago had a recipe for fake sourdough, which used starter plus yeast. Their recipe for making a starter even included yeast! It seems like bread machine recipes generally rely on using lots of baker's yeast to get quick rising, and that's the total opposite of how a traditional sourdough is made.

If there are bread machines out there that let you do this, I'd love to hear about it, but my recommendation is to at least shop carefully.

You're probably right.  I just made some sort of wheat bread, not sourdough.  I just thought a breadmaker was worth mentioning to someone that doesn't have an oven. 

[DaKini]

A bread making machine is completely unnecessary. Especially as the real bread often needs different times it is much easier without one. Also with 100% rye you just mix the ingredients and have no need to knead. The most thing a sourdough needs is time, its like with passive investing. Let the sourdough do the heavy lifting.
If you dont have an oven, maybe your nighbours will share it or you can rent it for half a loaf or so?

[Scandium]

I've been wanting to make my own bread, since I eat a lot of it. Four slices every lunch. A loaf usually cost me ~$4. This guide will come in handy, thanks!

I'll just need to set aside the time one weekend and make a few loaves. I can hopefully cut the cost even more by skipping the organic stuff since I don't follow that marketing (I prefer science..)

[the fixer]

I'll just need to set aside the time one weekend and make a few loaves. I can hopefully cut the cost even more by skipping the organic stuff since I don't follow that marketing (I prefer science..)

You're right that organic by itself may not make much difference here. Here's some science (http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/living-with-phytic-acid):

BREAD

Bread can only be called the staff of life if it has undergone careful preparation; otherwise bread can be the road to an early grave. For starters, the flour used in bread should be stone ground. Wheat and rye contain high levels of phytase, but this is destroyed by the heat of industrial grinding, and also lessens over time. Fresh grinding of wheat or rye berries before use will ensure that the original amount of phytase remains in the flour.

Rye has the highest level of phytase in relation to phytates of any grain, so rye is the perfect grain to use as a sourdough starter. Phytates in wheat are greatly reduced during sourdough preparation, as wheat is also high in phytase. Yeast rising bread may not fully reduce phytic acid levels.57 Phytate breakdown is significantly higher in sourdough bread than in yeasted bread.58

Yet even with the highly fermentable rye, a traditional ancient recipe from the French calls for removal of 25 percent of the bran and coarse substances.59 As an example of this practice, one small bakery in Canada sifts the coarse bran out of the flour before making it into bread.62

Of course the above article only deals with phytic acid, and not the other dangerous substances found in many grains. There's still a lot we don't know about why traditional cultures prepared their foods the way they did. I think the safest thing to do is try to replicate those traditions as closely as possible while we wait for the scientists to figure out the underlying mechanisms at work.

I would also take issue with the above recommendation I quoted to use stone-ground flour. See http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-13-stone-ground-flour_x.htm and http://thewholetruth.org/Health_Wheat_FAQ.asp (near the bottom, concerning aluminum in composite stones)

[GlassStash]

Health consideration
This is quite a little off topic, however i heard much of the "i get fat from bread" fears. The secret is i think, that it A) depends on moderation and b) heavily on the ingredients. If one stuffes his stomach with white wheat based breads that also contain sugar and other things that have no reason to be in a bread, one should not wonder if his body responds in an unusual way.
The truth is: Supermarkets don't sell bread. They sell things that look like bread, but that is NOT bread.
I strongly think, that if your diet is balanced, that real bread would add to this healthy diet and be a cause of health rather then illness. I would also say, that not eating bread is causing the diet to be a bit more unbalanced.
The most weight problems here in germany, that i can see is most people eat too much of the wrong things (like cheap supermarketbread).
Additionally be warned: rye flour is much better for your body than white flour. It contains more nutrients and is not so fast processed by the body.

How is a diet without bread "unbalanced"? What is so special in bread that I cannot get from a litany of other sources and skip the negative side effects?

[Scandium]

There's still a lot we don't know about why traditional cultures prepared their foods the way they did. I think the safest thing to do is try to replicate those traditions as closely as possible while we wait for the scientists to figure out the underlying mechanisms at work.

Wait, we don't have a complete understanding of something using modern science, so we should instead trust the (ofter arbitrary) traditions of peoples from per-enlightenment? I don't exactly see how that is any better..

[the fixer]

Wait, we don't have a complete understanding of something using modern science, so we should instead trust the (ofter arbitrary) traditions of peoples from per-enlightenment? I don't exactly see how that is any better..

A lot of traditional food preparations were based on thousands of years of informal empirical study and evidence, for which records don't exist. Reading about how Native Americans prepared acorns for consumption, for instance, reveals a highly complex process that isn't just some random voodoo. Those same native cultures were also much healthier, and it was discovered in the early 20th century that people in those cultures who switched over to western diets suffered a lot of health, developmental and mental problems. The biggest failing of the enlightenment was this idea that all traditions are dumb and we should just scrap them in favor of scientific reasoning. The problem with this mindset is that you may not understand something well enough yet to decide which way of doing it is better.

As a result, we no longer eat sourdough and instead use monocultured strains of yeast to make bread in ways that leave glutens, phytates, and other nasties intact in the finished product. We didn't know about any of this stuff in the 1800s, and it's only in hindsight that we're just starting to understand it all. For instance, we understand Celiac Disease but we still don't understand other adverse effects of wheat consumption. We bathe foods in sulfuric acid ("acid hydrolysis") to process highly toxic foods like soybeans into things that approximate real foods, but there's little evidence that these foods are actually healthy. Traditional cultures used soybeans as food only in complex fermented products: soy sauce, miso, and tempeh. Nowadays even soy sauce is commonly made through hydrolysis, yet this decision was made before any studies were done to analyze the health effects of soy sauce made through the two processes; it was just a decision by the food industry to reduce costs and extend shelf life.

We feed chickens corn and soy despite the fact that their natural diet is grubs and grasshoppers, we feed cows corn despite their entire digestive tract being specialized to eat grass, we partially hydrogenated soybean and seed oils and have recently switched to heavy use of palm oils, I could go on and on.

Science-based decisions in food is a great idea but it's never actually been done before the fact, leaving us with a totally messed up food system. I'd boldly predict that science will continue to vindicate most traditional methods of food preparation as healthier than what's produced by the modern industrial food system. It's the safest bet you can make.

[Metta]

Hi there, i recently saw the "i gave up bread" thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/giving-up-sliced-bread-grocery-and-weight-savings!/) and think it is time to share my badassity in this field with you (in fact i don't think what i do is badass).
So here it comes (dont be afraid of the long text. It contains detailled information. At its core, making bread is really dead simple.):

A little background and environmental analysis and a word on costs:
I do make my own bread since 2011 and honestly, it is at bakery-quality (the old traditional german ones, not the ones just crisping premade slugs). I make them fully organic (highest organic standard, no genfood, no s#tty ingredients like brown sugar/sirup or some kind of glue). Such bread is hard to get in todays market here (and i guess even nearly impossible in the US) and fair compared here, a 1kg loaf would cost you around 10 €.
So, i will be able to bake double that ammount of bread at equal quality for below 2€ (rye-flour: 1.45€ + heat energy ~0.20€ + water ... err, maybe 0.05€). Even if i make my superduper spelt-sunflower bread (see below) and buy for unusual high prices, i will be way below 4€.

Thank you so much for the time you took typing this out! About 25 years ago I visited your wonderful country and tasted the bread there and it changed my life. When I returned I could no longer stand the supermarket breads sold here (there were few fancy bread bakeries back then) so I gave up on buying bread and began making my own, which helped our bottom line as well as our taste buds and probably our health. This began our process of creating a more frugal life for us since it broke the mental frame we'd lived in. Sadly, I never learned how to make the savory loaves I found there (though my whole wheat bread is quite delicious) so I'm very excited to have your recipe for genuine German sourdough made with rye. I have some rye berries that are begging to be ground into flour so this comes at a very good time.

[DaKini]

Cool, tell me how it went!

[Scandium]

Wait, we don't have a complete understanding of something using modern science, so we should instead trust the (ofter arbitrary) traditions of peoples from per-enlightenment? I don't exactly see how that is any better..

A lot of traditional food preparations were based on thousands of years of informal empirical study and evidence, for which records don't exist. Reading about how Native Americans prepared acorns for consumption, for instance, reveals a highly complex process that isn't just some random voodoo. Those same native cultures were also much healthier, and it was discovered in the early 20th century that people in those cultures who switched over to western diets suffered a lot of health, developmental and mental problems. The biggest failing of the enlightenment was this idea that all traditions are dumb and we should just scrap them in favor of scientific reasoning. The problem with this mindset is that you may not understand something well enough yet to decide which way of doing it is better.

As a result, we no longer eat sourdough and instead use monocultured strains of yeast to make bread in ways that leave glutens, phytates, and other nasties intact in the finished product. We didn't know about any of this stuff in the 1800s, and it's only in hindsight that we're just starting to understand it all. For instance, we understand Celiac Disease but we still don't understand other adverse effects of wheat consumption. We bathe foods in sulfuric acid ("acid hydrolysis") to process highly toxic foods like soybeans into things that approximate real foods, but there's little evidence that these foods are actually healthy. Traditional cultures used soybeans as food only in complex fermented products: soy sauce, miso, and tempeh. Nowadays even soy sauce is commonly made through hydrolysis, yet this decision was made before any studies were done to analyze the health effects of soy sauce made through the two processes; it was just a decision by the food industry to reduce costs and extend shelf life.

We feed chickens corn and soy despite the fact that their natural diet is grubs and grasshoppers, we feed cows corn despite their entire digestive tract being specialized to eat grass, we partially hydrogenated soybean and seed oils and have recently switched to heavy use of palm oils, I could go on and on.

Science-based decisions in food is a great idea but it's never actually been done before the fact, leaving us with a totally messed up food system. I'd boldly predict that science will continue to vindicate most traditional methods of food preparation as healthier than what's produced by the modern industrial food system. It's the safest bet you can make.

"Those same native cultures were also much healthier"
What? How? In an age where the average life span was <40 years old! No shit they didn't get hearth disease and cancer.

And i don't see how feeding cows corn has anything to do with science based food. Science doesn't say that's ok, greedy farmers do. Science does say Organic vegetables (which is a marketing label) is silly and has no benefits, and that GMO has no detrimental effects.
Empirical study > "people 1000 years ago looked pretty healthy to me" ...
It's strange to me to see such a large part of the the highly educated MMM community fall for something as simple as the appeal to nature/noble savage logical fallacy.

The whole "gluten is bad" fad is mostly based on nonsense peddle by people selling books and appearing on Oprah, not science. (yes, I know you'll now point me to the blog of someone who just happens to sell a book..)
Try this: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4239

[Scandium]

To get this back on track.

I tried to bake two breads this weekend, with poor results frankly. A simple whole wheat recipe. Problem was rising dough, or lack thereof. Probably temperature related. We keep our house ~65F (or less), about 18C. So how do you get dough to rice properly? What's the best way for a temperature controlled room/chamber without heating up our whole house?

I used a halogen construction light from my garage to keep the dough warm and it helped some but not enough I think. I have a aquarium heater I've used for beer brewing and think I'll try a water bath next time, set at 70F.

[gillstone]

I tried to bake two breads this weekend, with poor results frankly. A simple whole wheat recipe. Problem was rising dough, or lack thereof. Probably temperature related. We keep our house ~65F (or less), about 18C. So how do you get dough to rice properly? What's the best way for a temperature controlled room/chamber without heating up our whole house?

We had the same probelm with getting dough to rise until I found a trick to make my electric oven a proof box.  Note this will only work in an electric oven - a gas oven is much too hot because of the pilot light. 

Put an old pan in the bottom rack of the oven and fill it with 2-3 cups boiling water. 
Now set the oven timer for 1 minute and then turn it to 400F. 
Once the timer goes, immediately turn off the oven. 
This should get you an oven that sits around 80-95 F and humid. 
Pop the bread in and wait.

I've been baking 2 loaves a week for 3 months now and this has never failed me.

[Scandium]

I tried to bake two breads this weekend, with poor results frankly. A simple whole wheat recipe. Problem was rising dough, or lack thereof. Probably temperature related. We keep our house ~65F (or less), about 18C. So how do you get dough to rice properly? What's the best way for a temperature controlled room/chamber without heating up our whole house?

We had the same probelm with getting dough to rise until I found a trick to make my electric oven a proof box.  Note this will only work in an electric oven - a gas oven is much too hot because of the pilot light. 

Put an old pan in the bottom rack of the oven and fill it with 2-3 cups boiling water. 
Now set the oven timer for 1 minute and then turn it to 400F. 
Once the timer goes, immediately turn off the oven. 
This should get you an oven that sits around 80-95 F and humid. 
Pop the bread in and wait.

I've been baking 2 loaves a week for 3 months now and this has never failed me.

Awesome! Thanks.
Figured I could use the oven, but didn't know if it would hold heat well enough. Sounds like it might. We do have an electric oven so I'll give this a try. Once I've eaten these two 2" tall breads..

[the fixer]

Empirical study > "people 1000 years ago looked pretty healthy to me" ...

Empirical study: http://healthwyze.org/archive/nutrition_and_physical_degeneration_doctor_weston_a_price.pdf

There are people out there who interpret these results to serve their own ends (like saying you should stone-ground your flour or never use a microwave), but that doesn't change the basic idea.

I also linked to a Scientific American article above about gluten sensitivity. Celiac disease is sound science from the cause to the mechanisms, although there are a host of others who exhibit similar traits who do not have Celiac (many have self-diagnosed). This area is poorly understood, but we do know that something in wheat affects these people.

I tried to bake two breads this weekend, with poor results frankly. A simple whole wheat recipe. Problem was rising dough, or lack thereof. Probably temperature related. We keep our house ~65F (or less), about 18C. So how do you get dough to rice properly? What's the best way for a temperature controlled room/chamber without heating up our whole house?

I use my electric oven to make yogurt, and I don't think the water is necessary (actually I've heard that lots of humidity can damage an oven). I turn on the oven to 350F for one minute, then turn it off. Sometimes I cycle the oven light or just leave it on, depending on room temperature, and the oven stays at 90-100 degrees (of course I'm sticking 120 degree yogurt containers in it which probably helps). I use one of those little laser heat guns to monitor it, and if you want a slightly lower temperature it should be possible with some experimentation.

[Metta]

To get this back on track.

I tried to bake two breads this weekend, with poor results frankly. A simple whole wheat recipe. Problem was rising dough, or lack thereof. Probably temperature related. We keep our house ~65F (or less), about 18C. So how do you get dough to rice properly? What's the best way for a temperature controlled room/chamber without heating up our whole house?

I used a halogen construction light from my garage to keep the dough warm and it helped some but not enough I think. I have a aquarium heater I've used for beer brewing and think I'll try a water bath next time, set at 70F.

The secrets to getting dough to rise are yeast, gluten and patience. If your dough has sufficient gluten and you have sufficient patience (and you've used yeast or a sourdough culture) your dough will eventually rise. You can lubricate the gluten by adding fat to the dough, which results in a lighter loaf and a slightly faster rise. I use 2-3 tablespoons of oil or fat. You can also use a teaspoon of gluten flour for every cup of whole wheat flour for a faster rise and lighter loaf. Reducing the salt (which controls the activity of the yeast) will also improve the rise. When I learned how to make whole wheat flour I found that the best way for me to do it was with 2/3 whole wheat flour and 1/3 white flour. The white flour provided the "training wheels" I needed to learn because dough rises easier if there is no bran. Later I was able to eliminate the white flour entirely.

There is a set of books called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day that advocates a very light kneading of the dough (or no kneading) and then putting the dough in the refrigerator overnight and letting it rise slowly in the cold. A cold rise results in very tasty bread. Also if you are making whole wheat bread, lots of kneading can damage the gluten strands since each of the pieces of bran acts as little razor blades, cutting the gluten as you knead. So it is beneficial to take the slower rise for whole wheat bread.

We keep the house at 62 or 68 (depending on time of day) in the winter, so the dough rises slowly. I set it up and check on it every now and then, punching it down if it gets too excited. I find it more relaxing to bake winter bread than summer bread because summer bread rises fast and I have to pay more attention. Sometimes I rise bread in the refrigerator during the summer so that I can set it up at lunch and then remove it prior to dinner when I get home from work. Because the house is relatively warm in the summer (temp set to 75 degrees) it warms up and finishes rising quickly.

Ignore recipe books that tell you how long your dough should rise. Dough is a living ecosystem and how long it rises depends on the altitude, humidity, temperature, age of the yeast, type of yeast, moisture in the flour, level of gluten in the flour, sweetness or starch in the dough, and so on.

[DaKini]

Ignore recipe books that tell you how long your dough should rise. Dough is a living ecosystem and how long it rises depends on the altitude, humidity, temperature, age of the yeast, type of yeast, moisture in the flour, level of gluten in the flour, sweetness or starch in the dough, and so on.

I can confirm reinforce this.
You will get a good feeling after a couple of loafes.

[the fixer]

^ That reminds me, if anyone in the Seattle area wants some starter send me a PM. I've been keeping a starter for about 5 months now just using wild fermented all-purpose flour, it's quite happy. At the last feeding I noticed little air bubbles trapped against the jar, this is a very good sign of the starter's rising power.

serpentstooth you're quite right about child/infant mortality rates skewing life expectancy numbers, it bothers me too but I just didn't feel like I needed to bring it up.

Chapter 3 (page 38) of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration that I linked to previously covers a study of some isolated communities of Swiss in the 1930s that lived pretty much entirely on sourdough rye, butter/milk/cheese, and some veggies, plus sheep meat 1/week. That's pretty neat.

[MayDay]

If anyone in the Columbus, oh area wants a starter, let me know.  We did start from a starter Culture, but it has been alive long enough now that I think it is pretty good.  I am going to try drying out a sample of our starter thanks to this thread.

Last winter we grew our own starter but that wasted loads of flour as we kept having to empty some out to feed it new.  Thus, I am super glad to see the recipe for sourdough pancakes!  Does anyone have other use-up-extra recipes? 

I also am curious why rye sourdough is better?  We buy locally grown and milled whole wheat flour in 25 lb quantities.  I imagine the local mill has rye flour as well, I have never checked prices.  I hate to stock yet another pantry staple on top of the oat flour, almond flour, corn meal, white flour for the occasional holiday treat, etc.  Also, can we take our wheat sourdough starter, and just start adding rye flour when we feed it?

For those who are gluten free for whatever reason, I have a friend with celiac who does GF sourdough.  She teaches classes locally in it, I don't know if GF sourdough info is readily available in the web or not.

[the fixer]

I also am curious why rye sourdough is better?  We buy locally grown and milled whole wheat flour in 25 lb quantities.  I imagine the local mill has rye flour as well, I have never checked prices.  I hate to stock yet another pantry staple on top of the oat flour, almond flour, corn meal, white flour for the occasional holiday treat, etc.  Also, can we take our wheat sourdough starter, and just start adding rye flour when we feed it?

The only two health-related reasons I know of to prefer rye over wheat:

• It's how a lot of traditional breads were made in Europe (this presumes that those people had figured something out that we don't know)
• Rye contains twice as much phytase as wheat, an enzyme which breaks down phytates present in both grains. Phytates may or may not be harmful, most of the scientific consensus seems to be leaning toward "slightly harmful in large quantities" but it's complicated...

I also found this http://www.breadtopia.com/sourdough-rye-bread/ and have read this before http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=65

If I were you I wouldn't bother switching unless you either want to get away from kneading (I didn't know rye breads didn't get kneaded before this thread!) or have a specific health problem you're worried about.

[DaKini]

Of course you can knead rye bread and in fact many do. For me this never gave significant difference in the outcome so eventually i skipped the kneading alltogheter. It worked very well so far.
The reason for kneading, as far as i kno, is, that this wil activate the gluten. With wheat this is neccessary for the dough to hold together well (it kind of glues the bread dough). With gluten being absent in rye, this is not possible; here the sourdough fermentation will activate some stuff (i knew this but forgot it now) which will do the "gluing".

Besides that, it is a pain to knead 100% rye bread because the dough is usually much wetter than mixed breads or wheat based breads. It does stick to the hands so it is hard to perform the kneading.
Well, i skip it. I only knead my mixed breads (and in fact, i only do this if the non-rye part exceeds about 1/3 of the dough).


A reason for basing your sourdough is that the sourdough cultures can work much better with rye. Thus the sourdough will be more robust and will not die or go bad so easily. However i only know this from theory, i never had a dying sourdough so far.

[MayDay]

I consulted with H last night (he is the main sourdough starter parent and baker in this house) and he reports hugs the hates rye, so I guess that answers that!  I may still buy a small bag of flour to try for myself and the kids. 

We use a kitchen aid mixer for the kneading which is so handy.  I can't believe I resisted getting one for so long! 

[Metta]

Cool, tell me how it went!

At this very moment there is a delightful slice of dense, delicious rye bread made from rye berries and a small bit of salt on my plate and it is heavenly! It flattened a bit more than I would prefer so I need to work on that but in terms of yumminess it definitely makes the grade! So, so, so much cheaper than flying to Germany!

I really appreciate the time you took to give advice. Had I not had your words to look back on I would have thrown out my starter or my dough because it didn't look right to me. But waiting for the perfume to develop in the starter and realizing that my dough was going to remain a sticky mass, instead of the sensual ball of whole wheat dough that I'm used to, helped me get past my prejudices.

My husband who loves dense, flavorful breads is also very pleased.

Carolyn

[Metta]

I consulted with H last night (he is the main sourdough starter parent and baker in this house) and he reports hugs the hates rye, so I guess that answers that!  I may still buy a small bag of flour to try for myself and the kids. 

This bread is really not like rye bread you find in the US. So if your husband likes dense breads, he may like this one.

[DaKini]

Hey very cool, glad to hear! I need to bake soon too because only two slices are left of the last batch.

[edit] Scheduled for tomorrow.

[MustachianAccountant]

I've been using the "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F1R9D9Q/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00F1R9D9Q&linkCode=as2&tag=weneamopl-20

And no, the title is not an exaggeration. At all.
Which makes sense when you consider that bread only has 4 ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt.

We've also been experimenting with Boston Brown Bread, which you already know about if you live in New England:

http://www.americanfoodroots.com/features/american-made/found-recipes-boston-brown-bread/

[DaKini]

Well, if i only count "active time" i will be at about 15 minutes i think with my rye-sprout mix bread, kneading and cleaning the kitchen included (Pure-rye will be significantly faster).
As i make 2 loafes, that makes about 7 minutes per loaf. However, that two loafes will last about two weeks, so it will not matter much if i would need 5 or 20 minutes total; the difference is not so significant.

Significant is, however the comparison to just buying the same ammount and quality of bread: i would need to sit at the office about double the time to work for my bread.

No, thanks! Making bread myself is even more enjoyable. Hm, you made me curious, i think i will use a clock to get exact "active" numbers and i will report them here.

[MustachianAccountant]

Well, if i only count "active time" i will be at about 15 minutes i think with my rye-sprout mix bread, kneading and cleaning the kitchen included (Pure-rye will be significantly faster).
As i make 2 loafes, that makes about 7 minutes per loaf. However, that two loafes will last about two weeks, so it will not matter much if i would need 5 or 20 minutes total; the difference is not so significant.

Significant is, however the comparison to just buying the same ammount and quality of bread: i would need to sit at the office about double the time to work for my bread.

No, thanks! Making bread myself is even more enjoyable. Hm, you made me curious, i think i will use a clock to get exact "active" numbers and i will report them here.

The book uses a "no knead" method, which brings the time down, I think.
At any rate, as you said, the time even with kneading is insignificant. My wife makes four loaves a week for our family... which when compared to grocery store prices and quality makes this a very worthwhile activity.
Plus, being able to make your own bread falls into the "badassity" category.

[the fixer]

Besides that, it is a pain to knead 100% rye bread because the dough is usually much wetter than mixed breads or wheat based breads. It does stick to the hands so it is hard to perform the kneading.

Even stickier than 100% whole wheat dough? That stuff is like glue. The only successful 100% whole wheat loaves I ever made were with a bread machine.

I got my bread pans today (old ones were Pyrex and broke), so I have everything ready except for me. I discovered a strange reaction I think caused by milk, I need to investigate further before I start messing with my diet any more.

[Metta]

Even stickier than 100% whole wheat dough? That stuff is like glue. The only successful 100% whole wheat loaves I ever made were with a bread machine.

My whole wheat dough isn't sticky. It has that lovely firm but soft characteristic described as "baby's bottom" and it easily balls up under kneading in my mixer. The secret is the amount of gluten in the wheat. Look for Winter Wheat (either Red Winter Wheat or White Winter Wheat). These are high gluten wheat varieties that work particularly well in bread dough. I buy wheat berries in bulk and grind my own flour because I like the taste and am a bit of a control freak when it comes to food doing my bidding. The other hint is to knead it less than white flour. The bran in whole wheat flour cuts the gluten threads, which will make it stickier and denser.

As to the stickiness of the rye dough: OMG was it sticky! It was like working with spackle (though it smelled better). Had I not had DaKini's warning I might have tossed it out as a failed experiment. Of course I'm glad I didn't toss it since we are in rye bread bliss now.

[the fixer]

Interesting... my whole wheat breads always involved adding some amount of vital wheat gluten, but they were still sticky. It wasn't using fresh-ground flour, though, maybe that has something to do with it too?

[Hamster]

Traditional cultures used soybeans as food only in complex fermented products: soy sauce, miso, and tempeh.

Late to the discussion, but I have heard a number of people say this and it's simply not true. Green soybeans (edamame) since at least the 2nd century BC, Tofu (which is not fermented), since at least before 1000AD. Soy milk (in some form, possibly in soups) since at least 2000 years ago. People have been eating unfermented soy for a very long time, maybe longer than rye bread...

[DaKini]

Interesting... my whole wheat breads always involved adding some amount of vital wheat gluten, but they were still sticky. It wasn't using fresh-ground flour, though, maybe that has something to do with it too?

I think the ammount of water needed is also an important aspect.
Rye needs more water than wheat, so maybe you should just use less water?
How much water do you use when preparing the dough?

With 100%rye i try to shoot for about 180% TA ("Teigausbeute", dont know the english term. It is the ratio of flour to water based on the flour weight: [total dough]=[100 parts flour] + [80 parts water]) in total bread (baking will reduce that about 10%)
With my mixed breads i shoot for about 170%.
However keep in mind i use whole grain flour which needs slightly more water.

[DaKini]

Hi there, above i promised to take times when making the next bread.

As i made my mix-bread receipe today (started yesterday) i watched the clock closely.
All in all (from clean kitchen to clean kitchen) i had 30 total minutes fun doing manual labor.
Note that i only guessed this to be about 15 minutes, so you see how much fun it can make, causing the time to fly by double speed.

It breaks down like this:
- 3 minutes: Preparing the sourdough using flour, water and starter.
- 5 minutes: Prepared bread dough.  (I must add that i had to go searching for our scale my wife had kidnapped)
- 20 minutes: Prepared bread loafes, cleaned kitchen and utensils.

The result is currently getting ripe for the oven i will now turn on.
In about one hour our home will smell from the scent of fresh baked bread, so you need to add some minutes for enjoyment and also some seconds for taking the bread loafes into and out from the oven.

[the fixer]

Late to the discussion, but I have heard a number of people say this and it's simply not true. Green soybeans (edamame) since at least the 2nd century BC, Tofu (which is not fermented), since at least before 1000AD. Soy milk (in some form, possibly in soups) since at least 2000 years ago. People have been eating unfermented soy for a very long time, maybe longer than rye bread...

I don't want to clutter the thread with this stuff, but it's a big interest of mine... I read some more and realized I've stated it too extremely that traditional cultures didn't use unfermented soybeans. Here's what I've found:

• According to soy info center, the description of the soybean plant itself dates only to 7th century BC, but all early evidence documents only eating the young leaves, eating the green beans only during times of famine, and then later for medicinal purposes. At best the historical record I can find suggests that edamame was eaten only in small quantities or when there wasn't anything else to eat.
  
• I'm having trouble finding much on traditional uses of tofu and soymilk that's not obviously biased one way or another. The earliest records suggest that soymilk was primarily used to make tofu, then it later became its own food item. All I can say is that it's not obvious how much of these foods were consumed in the traditional Chinese/Japanese diet.

[Metta]

Interesting... my whole wheat breads always involved adding some amount of vital wheat gluten, but they were still sticky. It wasn't using fresh-ground flour, though, maybe that has something to do with it too?

It could. Fresh ground flour retains more of the oil from the wheat germ and oil is a friend to gluten. But that said it is a small amount of oil and I don't know that it has much of an effect other than making the bread taste phenomenal. My guess would be not enough gluten, though. With ordinary whole wheat flour I use 1 teaspoon per cup of whole wheat flour.

I don't know how close you are following recipes but that could be part of the problem as well. Bread is really part of an environment and you have to work with it in the place you are in. I grew up learning to cook and bake in Denver. When I moved to Ohio nothing I cooked came out right and the bread was just a disaster. And I kept burning everything! Low altitude forced me to change all my recipes. When I moved to Memphis (where I live now) the moisture in the air during the summer changed how all my food responded to cooking and baking again.

What I do when I need to relearn how to make whole wheat bread (as I periodically do) is add white bread flour to my whole wheat until my loaves are coming out perfect. Then I begin reducing the white flour component bit by bit modifying the other parts of the recipe until I get close to my goal. I consider bread-baking a relationship with the dough and the environment and know that I have to put in time to have a good relationship.

MustachianAccountant mentioned the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day, which I also recommend. You might want to see if that method changes your luck with the bread.

[imustachemystash]

Wow!  I spend a fortune on bread each week and I have been looking for a recipe.  i will try yours out and let you know how it turns out.

[Hamster]

Also apologies for the "secondary thread" within the bread discussion.

• I'm having trouble finding much on traditional uses of tofu and soymilk that's not obviously biased one way or another. The earliest records suggest that soymilk was primarily used to make tofu, then it later became its own food item. All I can say is that it's not obvious how much of these foods were consumed in the traditional Chinese/Japanese diet.

I'm not sure what bias you are worried about. Like suggesting that soy producers are fabricating history to make people want to eat soy beans?

I personally get a bit tired of the circular reptition of various pseudoscientific "truisms" in various  circles - traditional cultures only eat soy, blending destroy all the vitamins in food, you need to eat raw foods to get the enzymes needed to digest the foods, etc.

Also from Soy Info Center:

Sung Dynasty (960-1279 [AD]) . During the Sung dynasty tofu became a common food of the lower classes. The first suggestion of some connection between Liu An and tofu appeared in the poems of Chu Hsi (1130-1200), the greatest scholar of the Sung.

They mention tofu in Japan around that same time, so it must have been established before then to have spread between both countries.

They also state in the same website that soy milk is mentioned as far back as 82 BC, although it's not clear how it was consumed or how it was made.

At any rate, at least 1,000 years of tofu consumption in China. I don't know how long it takes for something to be considered "traditional diet", but I think 1,000 years of tofu is a pretty good history.

[worms]

• It's how a lot of traditional breads were made in Europe (this presumes that those people had figured something out that we don't know)

What they had figured out was simply that rye survived and grew in cold, wet, northern climates with marginal soils and could be a reliable staple (along with oats in some countries).  It is only more recently that we had the technology and crop-breeding to allow wheat to be grown in these locations or the transport infrastructure to import wheat from further afield.

[the fixer]

So I hope this doesn't discourage people, but my first two loaves came out bricks. There was significant rising and the tangy smell from the dough, and I kept them in the oven with the light on to give them a nice 90F environment, but I guess it still wasn't enough. Perhaps I didn't nurture my starter enough before baking. The more likely explanation is that the dough was too dry, a common problem for me (plus I'm now using a totally different flour than I'm used to).

I'm going to stick with making single loaves until I get it nailed down.

[DaKini]

Hey fixer,
i had that problem too ocassionally. Like you think, it usually was caused by using too less water.
Perhaps your baking temperatures are also not right?

What do you mean by "brick" exactly? Is the crust too hard or is the entire bread hard? It should look like a sponge in the inside, with many fine holes, some bigger ones are common also.
If using much rye, be sure to let the bread ripe at least 12 hours before cutting the loaf.
Another cause may be using hot air instead of top-/bottom heat. Hot-Air tends to dry the crust too much. You also may add a cup of water onto a baking sheet (be sure to vent out the steam after 15 mins approximately).

I may better assist if you can give exact numbers and outlay your process (if you like).

[Metta]

Interesting... my whole wheat breads always involved adding some amount of vital wheat gluten, but they were still sticky. It wasn't using fresh-ground flour, though, maybe that has something to do with it too?

While I was making bread yesterday I suddenly realized that the dough was sticky and that it always has this phase, which causes me to add a small bit of flour and, if that makes it too dry, a dribble of water. I didn't even think about this when you first asked because it is just part of the early mixing/kneading for me and by the time it is complete the dough is no longer sticky. Perhaps you just need to modify as you go to get the right consistency.

[the fixer]

Hey fixer,
i had that problem too ocassionally. Like you think, it usually was caused by using too less water.
Perhaps your baking temperatures are also not right?

What do you mean by "brick" exactly? Is the crust too hard or is the entire bread hard? It should look like a sponge in the inside, with many fine holes, some bigger ones are common also.
If using much rye, be sure to let the bread ripe at least 12 hours before cutting the loaf.
Another cause may be using hot air instead of top-/bottom heat. Hot-Air tends to dry the crust too much. You also may add a cup of water onto a baking sheet (be sure to vent out the steam after 15 mins approximately).

I may better assist if you can give exact numbers and outlay your process (if you like).

The results were very short, dense loaves. It's edible and there's some small air pockets inside, but it's kinda like the equivalent of getting it to rise with just baking powder and no yeast. It's similar to a muffin or pizza crust texture.

I've had this problem many times before, especially during a period when I was baking with a bread machine. With the machine it was easier for me to observe when the dough was too dry based on how it behaved as the kneading paddle spun the ball around the pan, but I still wasn't very good at getting it right. The results are very similar to those outcomes.

I think I'll figure it out in another loaf or two, as Carolyn said it's probably just a matter of learning to read the dough for this particular grain.