sourdough: bread hacking and social baking

SourdoughBread Hacking and Social Baking

Guilherme Zühlke O’Connorwww.z-oc.com

twitter.com/guioconnor

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

http://www.z-oc.com

http://www.z-oc.com

Hackers like

• Learning

• Making stuff

• Reusing

• Sharing


Hackers like

• Learning

• Making stuff

• Reusing

• Sharing

Hackers need

• Regular breaks to clear the mind

• Food to fuel the coding


The answer: Bread

Bread takes hours to leaven(But you only work it a few minutes at a time, perfect

past-time for your breaks)Code, bake, code, bake... eat + code.


Bread is easy

• Flour: 1kg (£2.2)

• Fresh yeast: 20g (0.7oz); dry: 10g (0.35oz)

• Salt: 10g (0.35oz)

• Cold water: 600ml (20 floz)


The leaven

• Use 100ml of water,

• The yeast

• And 100g of flour

• Let it rest for 10~15 minutes


The principle

• The yeast needs water and food, you feed it

• It reproduces and breathes

• The outcome is CO2

• ... and more yeast


The bread

• Add the remaining flour

• And the remaingin water

• Knead the dough

• Leave to rest (it should double in size)


And do it again

• Don’t be afraid of destroy the air bubbles

• There is plenty of yeast to make more

• Knead the dough well

• Leave to rest again


Hack your bread

• Use milk instead of water

• Add sunflower seeds

• Use some olive oil or melted butter

• Cover it in chopped garlic

• Put whatever you feel like...


How many times?

• The more you knead, the more elastic it will become

• Experiment and find your way

• Learn the ways of The Force


Bake

• Time and temperature depend on the size and shape of your breads

• As a reference, use a pre-heated 180ºC (356ºF) oven for some 40 minutes for a 500g loaf


But, wait a second!


Where does the yeast come from?


Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Also called brewer’s yeastIs obtained as a byproduct of brewing beer.


Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Also called brewer’s yeastIs obtained as a byproduct of brewing beer.

But beer itself needs yeast...


Now really, where does yeast comes from?


Now really, where does yeast comes from?

Let’s Catch a Wild yeast!(much more fun than writing answers)


sourdough_init()

• Mix 100g of flour and 100ml of water

• Cover it to avoid dust, but allow it to be in contact with the air

• Leave it for two or three days


Yes, two or three days!


Yes, two or three days!What do you think it will happen?


Bacteria!


Bacteria!

Yay!


Hungry Bacteria!Time to feed them!


leaven_refreshment()

• Take the 200g of leaven you have

• Add 200g of flour

• Add 200ml of water

• Repeat every two or three days


Now you have 600g of leaven!



How much leaven will you have at the end of 10 days?



How much leaven will you have at the end of 10 days?

A lot!


leaven_finalise()

• For 300g of leaven

• 300g of flour

• 150ml~200ml of water

• You’ll end up with some 800g


Share your code leaven

• Give your leaven a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license

• Give part of it to friends. Encourage them to make their own sourdough

• Just make sure you have about 300g for the last refreshment


Making the bread


Making the breadDidn’t we covered that already?


bake()

• Save 300g of leaven and use 500g


• Add 300ml~350ml of water

• 15g of salt

• Make bread with that!


sourdough_leaven.lib

• Refresh the 300g of leaven


• And 150ml~200ml of water


setTimeout(bake, 3)

• Every 3 days or so you must refresh your leaven and this is a good opportunity to make bread

• If that’s too often, why not alternate the task with some friends

• Don’t forget you can make _a lot_ of bread at once and share, so can your friends


Summary

• You’ve built your own leaven library from scratch

• You’ve are distributing it with CC

• You are extending your library to all sorts of different breads

• People are modifying, customising and improving your library


Maintenance

• Baking bread every few days seems exhaustive? Stop it!

• If you want to restart, ask a friend to give you some of the leaven they still have.


Accessibility

• Basic sourdough is not accessible to coeliacs due to the presence of gluten.

• Alternative recipes with gluten-free flours exists, but I’ve never tried them.


Gotta love Sourdough!


Gotta love Sourdough!If only we could FTP it to a web server... sigh!


?Questions

Guilherme Zühlke O’Connorwww.z-oc.com

twitter.com/guioconnor


http://www.z-oc.com

http://www.z-oc.com

sourdough: bread hacking and social baking

Self Improvement

g of leaven anduse

leaven use

code leaven

g of ouradd

fresh yeast

wild yeast

cold water

water youll