a sour culture

Sourdoughs have long mystified this novice bread baker.  Snatching yeast from air and trapping it in the folds of a loose dough, like fireflies in a jar, is to me, magic.   Thankfully, there are people like my baking instructor, Paul, who can teach even the incompetent tease logic into this baking mystery, and learn to culture sours.  On the first day of our french bread course, Paul handed out two mother starters- a levain and a rye chef.  Both began as seed cultures that were transformed into a mother culture- the base of the sourdough that is fed and aerated and prodded along until you finally pull off a portion for your bread starter.  Paul had been maintaining his cultures for a number of weeks, and when he opened the jars to share them with us, the tangy, yeasty perfumes were strong enough to intoxicate.

When the class ended, I took my starters home and obediently fed them daily for a week, until I had a quart of bubbling festuous culture.  I decided to try my hand at a rye loaf first, and took to Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads for advice.  Peter explains that rye hearth breads are made with varying proportions of rye and wheat flours, and suggests beginning with a meteil- containing 45% rye.  I followed Peter's advice, and created a soaker with whole wheat flour, which I rested in the refrigerator for a day.  The rye chef was given a large dinner of rye flour and filtered water, and then put to bed for 24 hours at room temperature, until it had doubled in size and smelled strongly of fruit and yeast and vinegar.  Once the starter was ready, a portion was weighed out and combined with the soaker to form the final dough.  The result was a tacky gray ball that resembled the homemade playdoughs and mudpies I concocted in my younger days.  I thought about tossing the whole mess out, but decided instead, to try a little patience. 

The final dough rested for an hour, and in the mean time, I fed what remained of the rye chef (rye flour, water, and a nice stir) and popped it back into the refrigerator.   Once the dough had doubled in size,  I divided and formed it into three batards, which had their final proof in a make-shift couche, before being scored and baked off.  When the loaves were browned and crusty, I pulled them from the oven, waited until they were just cool enough to barehand, and dove in: dense; subtly sour, with flavors that fold and unfold from front of tongue to back and bring to mind sweeping wheat fields and freshly turned earth.  After finishing an entire loaf and a half pound of cheese, Joe and I decided that the meteil was nice, certainly edible, enjoyable even, but a bit of a laxative it you know what I mean.   


I must sheepishly admit that since my bread course has finished, and Tallahassee has hovered in the nineties for a month or more, my oven has gone on extended vacation.  It is bound to return to me soon, to spark and rumble and inspire me to make something lovely.  Just you wait.