WEBVTT
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Sourdough was this crazy mysterious bread that I'm like, what?
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I would have to like make something to make the bread.
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Wait, you don't add yeast?
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What is this?
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I mean, everyone knows you add yeast in bread.
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Hello and welcome to Rework, a podcast by Basecamp about the better way to work and run your business.
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I'm Sean Hildner.
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And I'm Wayland Wong.
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You may have noticed that a lot of people have gotten super into baking bread while sheltering in place.
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I see articles about it.
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I have friends posting pictures of their bread on social media, and I haven't been able to find bread flour at my grocery store for like a month now.
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Oh, you're making bread as well?
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Now I have this other project going where I'm trying different chocolate chip cookie recipes.
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And there's a famous New York Times recipe from Jacques Torres that uses bread flour.
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Well, we'll save that for another episode.
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Today's show goes out to all of you home bread bakers who are tackling sourdough for the first time.
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We have two bread enthusiasts at Basecamp who are here to talk about their process and what baking bread means to them.
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We're going to start with Nathan Anderson, who is a systems administrator on Basecamp's ops team and lives near Louisville, Kentucky.
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My kids, being kids, they love they love bread.
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They love sandwiches, they love peanut butter and Nutella.
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And we, despite having a Costco membership, would run out of bread quite frequently.
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My mother-in-law, um, she loves garage sailing.
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So she was like, Well, did you want me to get you a bread maker?
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And maybe the gadget person I am said, yes.
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Dumped the ingredients in, hit the buttons, and out came a passable loaf of bread.
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So I just kind of started messing with it a little bit more.
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And I'm like, well, you know, what if I wanted to use my own pan?
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And so then I started looking into, well, when do I need to interrupt the bread machine so that I can take the dough out and you know put it in its own pan and you know, have something that doesn't look like a bread machine loaf.
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Then Nathan took a five-day artisan bread making class in Louisville.
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We learned all about sourdough and whole grains and rye, and I mean it was it was a blast.
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Pretty sure I got started the way it seems like a lot of people are getting started nowadays from the bone appetite YouTube channel.
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Joan Stewart works in Basecamp Customer Support and lives in Portland, Oregon.
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I've eaten her bread and it's amazing.
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Joan is also the one who introduced me to the Bone Appetite expanded universe.
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This was a couple years ago.
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This was uh when they maybe first started getting a little bit popular.
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They had a video of uh It's Alive with Brad Leone, and they had one of their test kitchen guests, Claire Safetz on, and they made sourdough bread together.
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It was a very fun, funny video.
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Look it up.
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It's a little bit of delight from a simpler time, but didn't seem that complicated.
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The ingredients were really simple, and so I looked up online like how to start your own sourdough starter.
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My first and and you know go-to recipe was from bread magazine.
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From there, it's just been pretty steady for the past two years.
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To get going, you need a sourdough starter.
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Now that so many folks are making bread, I feel like you might have a friend or neighbor who can give you some.
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Local restaurants and bakeries in my town are also selling and giving away starter.
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But if that's not an option for you right now, or you just want to make your own, here's how you do it.
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So it takes about a week before you have a functioning sourdough starter.
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You need a jar or some Tupperware.
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If it's got clearish or translucent sides so that you can kind of see inside, that's that's best, but not required.
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You need flour, you need water, and you need a spoon or a spatula.
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So day one, really easy.
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You start with a one-to-one mixture of flour and water.
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It really honestly doesn't matter which type of flour you use, they will all work.
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So one-to-one flour mixture by weight if you have a scale.
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If you don't have a scale, one gram of water is one milliliter.
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So you can do the conversions, mix it until it's smooth, cover it, and you set it aside in a warmish place.
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You know, that everyone's like, it has to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
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That's going to be like the most optimal where you get the most bacterial and yeast growth.
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But if you don't have a temperature-controlled spot in your house, like you know, I don't, I don't have a spot that's consistently 80 degrees.
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So if you tuck it under a cabinet near a dishwasher, sometimes that is nice and warm.
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A cabinet next to a stove can also retain a bunch of heat.
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The next day, we start by throwing away half of it, and then we add the one-to-one flour mixture.
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So again, mix it till it's smooth, set it aside.
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Days three through seven are again the exact same thing.
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You throw away half and then you re-add.
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You're slowly growing the amount of starter that you have.
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So you want to make sure that your container is big enough.
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You have to get rid of some of it.
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So sharing it with others helps, um, but you can also find ways to use it.
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Uh, there's a lot of great recipes online of like using your sourdough discard.
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And if worse comes to worse, you can just toss it in the garbage, I guess.
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Which is sad, but you know, sometimes you don't you don't have everything you need to use every part of the sourdough starter buffalo.
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You should have this nice bubbly kind of I don't want to say frothy, but a very kind of creamy flour mixture.
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Um, and that is your starter, and you're gonna feed that every day if you keep it out of the refrigerator.
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If you put it in the refrigerator for long-term storage, you only need to feed it once a week.
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Once a week, I take it out of the fridge and put it out on the counter for a couple hours to let it kind of come to room temperature.
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And then I take about maybe 50 grams of it, put it in a new container.
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I actually bought like those sort of I think they're core takeout containers from uh a restaurant supply store and uh a hundred grams of uh warm water filtered and a hundred grams of flour.
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And then I'll add a little bit of rye now, which makes it a little bit more active, gives it a different flavor, which I like.
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I th I think like professional people have a very much more scientific uh way of doing it, and I'm more like I'll just kind of do what I feel as long as the numbers kind of match up, it's okay.
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It is alive and it is something that you need to continually feed.
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I happen to forget to feed mine a couple days, but it's okay.
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It'll still be alive.
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You can recover with a couple regular feedings.
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So it's very, very forgiving.
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There's nothing to be scared of.
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It's really hard to mess up.
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Joan's been maintaining her starter for two years now.
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It's stayed alive even through trips out of town and other small interruptions.
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I find a week is a good cycle for me so I don't lose track of it.
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But it can go up to, for me, like up to two weeks.
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You you just have to, I don't know, you just have to believe.
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Uh uh develops this kind of liquid on top, and that's basically like spent fuel for the starter.
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So you just kind of pour that off and feed it again, and it comes back to life.
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You'd be really surprised like how long it can go without feeding in the fridge.
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In the fridge.
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The only thing I'd really heard about sourdough starter was that some people name theirs.
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I named mine Edna Mode because we're gonna make incredible bread.
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A lot of people you'll hear talk about I have a heritage sourdough starter from San Francisco, or this one's been alive for 300 years, you know.
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And that's really cool that you kind of know where it came from, but local wild yeast will take over whatever sourdough starter you have.
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You know, the local yeast takes over because there's a lot more of it.
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Um, and it's all around.
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So Edna Moe lives in the now.
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Joan Starter does not have a name.
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I don't really give inanimate objects names, which I guess like in terms of like the hierarchy of things that exist in my home, is it's more animate than any other thing that I have, like my computer.
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I mean, I have my cat.
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That that has a name.
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Okay, so where were we?
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That's right.
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Making the starter and seeing if it's ready to bake with.
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When it's at its ripest, you can take just a little bit like a pinch, like the tiniest like teaspoon, even maybe like a quarter teaspoon, and put it in a bowl of water and it should float.
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That's usually how I tell that it's ready to be used for bread.
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Also, uh does it float because it's a witch?
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Yeah, and then I have to kill it.
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Yeah.
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We are ready to make bread now.
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Nathan and Joan use slightly different methods, but they end up at the same place.
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And that place is Flavortown.
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We'll start with Nathan.
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I'm gonna pretend I'm doing like the basic sourdough recipe that you find variations of everywhere.
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So you want to take about 30 grams or about an ounce of your starter, and then you want to say, okay, the total I'm going to need is roughly 200 grams of starter.
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So I need to add the same amount of flour and water to that starter mixture so that I can make my leaven.
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We want to have a little bit of left over so that we can actually add that back to our sourdough starter.
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Let's go with a 240 gram total.
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So we need 105 grams each of flour and water.
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We add that to our starter and we let that sit for 10 hours.
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And then you're ready to make bread.
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So you take 200 grams of the leaven that you just made, you put that in a bowl with roughly 700 grams of water, mix it with your hands so that the leaven is kind of broken up and mixed in with the water, and then you add your 1,000 grams of flour to that, and you just kind of mix it with your hands until it's this big shaggy mess.
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Okay, so once we get everything mixed up and there's no dry ingredients left.
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We scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula or something and we let it sit for 10 minutes.
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After 10 minutes, we want to put some salt on it.
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Once you have that kind of scrape down and you've gone all the way around, you kind of have to just reach in with your hands again.
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And you grab one edge of it and you tuck it to the middle, and you rotate the bowl a little bit, you grab an edge and tuck it to the middle, and you do that 30 times.
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Give it a good mix so that the salt is very evenly distributed.
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One time I didn't quite do that, and that was that was interesting.
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There's just like a little pocket of salt there.
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After you do the 30 times, you set it aside again for another 10 minutes, and it like it relaxes.
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After it relaxes, you grab it again and you do the exact same thing.
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You do that three times, you know, knead and then rest for 10 minutes, knead and then rest for 10 minutes.
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And the last one, you don't let it rest for 10 minutes, you let it sit for basically half an hour.
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Because at this point, your dough is nice and kneaded.
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The gluten change should be forming in there, and now it's starting to do a little bit of a rise.
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So after half an hour, we do a fold.
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You reach in and you lift the whole thing out, and then you fold it over, and then you do that three times, and then you let it sit for another half an hour again.
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After you do those folds, then you're ready to form the loaves.
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Basically, we will dump it out onto a lightly floured counter and chop it in half because you've been making two loaves worth of dough.
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You fold it, you get it formed into a nice kind of a tight bun.
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If you're doing a boule, which is the round loaf, if you're doing a loaf pan, you'll actually use a slightly different process to get it more into the loaf shape.
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And then you put it in either a banneton, which is really just a reed bowl or bamboo bowl that you floured and it just rests in there overnight.
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I don't have fancy bread baskets.
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I actually use colanders that I got from the Vietnamese grocery store, which give a great, a great result.
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If you just use a like a kitchen, nice clean kitchen towel in a plastic colander from an Asian grocery store, you'll get a great result.
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So after I've shaped them, I'll flower the towel and put the loaves in there and then stick it in the fridge for one to two days.
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The longer you wait, the more flavor there is.
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You'll notice that while Nathan has his dose it overnight, Joan leaves hers alone for a couple days.
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Again, there's a lot of variations on the basic recipe.
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Let's get this bread in the oven.
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A Dutch oven is going to give you the easiest results by far.
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It's so stupid easy.
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If you happen to have a cast-iron Dutch oven, pull the lid off, preheat your oven to like 400 degrees, and put the Dutch oven in there for about 30 minutes.
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So it's hot.
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It's really hot.
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So be very, very careful.
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I usually use a Dutch oven or I have a really hard bottom, like really thick wall sort of stock pot sort of thing.
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It's not a stock pot, just very, very thick pot.
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And I preheat that for maybe half an hour to an hour.
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I uh take the loaf out of the fridge, pop it on a plate, make sure I cut it with the, I think it's called a lame or a knife.
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It's like a little razor blade you use to cut shapes in.
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And that's to um help the loaf rise and kind of the shape that you want it.
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Because otherwise it's just kind of gonna explode in any direction it wants to.
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Not explode, but it's kind of like gonna poof up and like it'll break where it breaks.
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The cuts sort of like give you a nice shape and like let you kind of control where that's gonna go.
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Pop it in the Dutch oven, cover it, bake it at 500 for about 20 minutes.
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After 20 minutes, I'll uncover it and bake it for another 20 minutes.
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Nathan does 45 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
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They both end up with beautiful bread.
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Sometimes they don't, and that's okay too.
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Be patient, especially when you're first starting.
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Like, keep going.
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Don't be discouraged if the loaf looks weird.
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It just takes time for you to get comfortable with the whole process.
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Have fun.
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Like enjoy, enjoy the process.
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And it's just a good time.
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Even if it doesn't turn out to be a beautiful, wonderful loaf.
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Like if you just slice it and toast it, it's still fine.
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It's great.
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You've got toast.
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Yes, a sandwich is good.
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You know, and I'm not knocking a sandwich, but especially the sourdough uh that I've been making these days, it's a very springy, wet loaf.
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And when you toast it, the outside gets wonderfully crunchy, but the inside keeps that kind of chewiness and it just holds butter so well.
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It's just by far my favorite.
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What kind of butter do you like?
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Almost any butter is fine.
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Like I said, we're a Costco family.
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So I mean, our routine butter that we get, it's the Kirkland salted butter in the little blue boxes.
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A shout out to Colin here, my coworker from Ireland.
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He and I both share a deep abiding love for Kerrygold butter.
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Which they also have at Costco.
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Which they also have at Costco, yes.
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And I also have some upstairs.
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It's amazing butter.
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I noticed that it's distributed from someplace in Illinois, though.
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Oh, no kidding.
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Yeah, so I'm a little I have questions.
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Well, after they lift the shelter in place in my town, then I will drive out, making try to drive by the factory, see what's going on.
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Just some investigative reporting.
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What do you think learning how to make bread and making bread and making it part of your routine does for your brain and your mental and emotional health?
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Being a software engineer, I sit at a desk all day, every day.
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I work with things that aren't here, right?
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I work with actually things that don't exist.
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Servers in the cloud.
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Like I spin up a computer.
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That computer doesn't really exist.
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It's really just a piece of a different computer that I'm telling it to do something.
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So coming out of that world into doing physical things, you know, with my hands, I take these raw materials, these raw ingredients, and I work a process which I mean, I am still an engineer, so I love process.
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I work a process that if I do this, I'm going to get bread.
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And sure enough, I get bread.
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And it's just, it's just great.
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It is so very satisfying to make something with your hands and a little bit of your brain and have it turn out to be something that feels so sustaining and wonderful for the next couple days.
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I love giving loaves of bread as gifts or or just like bringing it to a gathering.
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I just made a loaf for a friend who's sick.
00:16:23.039 --> 00:16:26.240
It's in the waiting in the fridge now, and I'm gonna give it to her tonight.
00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:36.559
My day was made the other day by my 14-year-old because I told him previously, I'm like, look, my goal is to get so good at making bread that you prefer my bread over store-bought bread.
00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:38.720
And that happened the other day.
00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:41.120
He's like, Dad, do you have any more of your bread?
00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:42.720
I'm like, you finished it all.
00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:45.440
He's like, Oh, it's so good.
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.720
And that to me, I mean, that's love.
00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:52.480
I do get a lot of satisfaction knowing that I'm getting better.
00:16:52.879 --> 00:17:00.720
Sometimes it's a surprise when I open the lid of the bread mid-baking, and then it's like it's the oven spring is really good and it's really puffed up.
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:03.039
And I was like, oh, I didn't even know it was gonna be that good.
00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:05.200
I was just thinking it would be okay.
00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:07.440
And then it's really good.
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:16.480
Rework is produced by Weyland Wong and me, Sean Hildner.
00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:18.480
Music for the show is by Clip Art.
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:28.880
If you've been baking bread at home and you want to share your photos with us or any stories you have, please send them to us at Rework Podcast on Twitter or hello at rework.fm.
00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:40.160
Okay, you want to tell me about your dream?
00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:41.279
Ugh, okay.
00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:49.279
So the week that we are releasing this episode is, I believe, the week we were supposed to have our spring meetup at Basecamp, right?
00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:50.160
Did I get the date right?
00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:50.559
Mm-hmm.
00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:50.880
Yep.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:54.480
And I have not had a work dream in a really long time.
00:17:54.799 --> 00:17:59.200
But last night I dreamt that it was the meetup and we were still having it.
00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:08.720
But Jason and David said that we had to put protocols in place where it would be safer and more socially distanced, but we were still gonna have it.
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:12.640
And so the new protocol was that the meetup was at my house.
00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:13.920
Yep, that checks out.
00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:15.119
This makes total sense.
00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:26.160
So I had everyone from Base Camp at my house, sitting around my extremely too small dining room table, spilling into the living room, milling around the kitchen.
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:36.160
And the other thing was that for some reason I kept driving co-workers to Whole Foods one at a time, maybe because that was the most socially distanced way.
00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.759
And so I drove Joan, who's in this episode.
00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:44.400
I in my dream, I drove Joan to Whole Foods, and I also drove Lexi to Whole Foods.
00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:47.599
Lexi is another coworker of ours who's been on the podcast before.
00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:52.319
Well, I can't thank you enough for both hosting and taxiing people around town.
00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:52.880
I love it.
00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:53.920
That was my dream.
00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:56.640
I gotta go stress eat some chocolate chip cookies now.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.799
Sourdough was this crazy mysterious bread that I'm like, what?
00:00:04.879 --> 00:00:07.519
I would have to like make something to make the bread.
00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:09.199
Wait, you don't add yeast?
00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:09.759
What is this?
00:00:09.919 --> 00:00:12.240
I mean, everyone knows you add yeast in bread.
00:00:13.119 --> 00:00:17.760
Hello and welcome to Rework, a podcast by Basecamp about the better way to work and run your business.
00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:18.879
I'm Sean Hildner.
00:00:19.199 --> 00:00:20.399
And I'm Wayland Wong.
00:00:20.559 --> 00:00:25.600
You may have noticed that a lot of people have gotten super into baking bread while sheltering in place.
00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:27.120
I see articles about it.
00:00:27.199 --> 00:00:34.560
I have friends posting pictures of their bread on social media, and I haven't been able to find bread flour at my grocery store for like a month now.
00:00:34.799 --> 00:00:36.479
Oh, you're making bread as well?
00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:41.039
Now I have this other project going where I'm trying different chocolate chip cookie recipes.
00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:45.759
And there's a famous New York Times recipe from Jacques Torres that uses bread flour.
00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:48.159
Well, we'll save that for another episode.
00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:53.679
Today's show goes out to all of you home bread bakers who are tackling sourdough for the first time.
00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:59.520
We have two bread enthusiasts at Basecamp who are here to talk about their process and what baking bread means to them.
00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:06.959
We're going to start with Nathan Anderson, who is a systems administrator on Basecamp's ops team and lives near Louisville, Kentucky.
00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:15.840
My kids, being kids, they love they love bread.
00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:19.439
They love sandwiches, they love peanut butter and Nutella.
00:01:19.920 --> 00:01:25.760
And we, despite having a Costco membership, would run out of bread quite frequently.
00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:29.200
My mother-in-law, um, she loves garage sailing.
00:01:29.359 --> 00:01:32.159
So she was like, Well, did you want me to get you a bread maker?
00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.680
And maybe the gadget person I am said, yes.
00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:41.359
Dumped the ingredients in, hit the buttons, and out came a passable loaf of bread.
00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:44.640
So I just kind of started messing with it a little bit more.
00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:48.079
And I'm like, well, you know, what if I wanted to use my own pan?
00:01:48.239 --> 00:01:58.079
And so then I started looking into, well, when do I need to interrupt the bread machine so that I can take the dough out and you know put it in its own pan and you know, have something that doesn't look like a bread machine loaf.
00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:01.920
Then Nathan took a five-day artisan bread making class in Louisville.
00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:09.360
We learned all about sourdough and whole grains and rye, and I mean it was it was a blast.
00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:16.319
Pretty sure I got started the way it seems like a lot of people are getting started nowadays from the bone appetite YouTube channel.
00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:20.639
Joan Stewart works in Basecamp Customer Support and lives in Portland, Oregon.
00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:22.800
I've eaten her bread and it's amazing.
00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:27.599
Joan is also the one who introduced me to the Bone Appetite expanded universe.
00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:29.439
This was a couple years ago.
00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:32.879
This was uh when they maybe first started getting a little bit popular.
00:02:33.199 --> 00:02:41.840
They had a video of uh It's Alive with Brad Leone, and they had one of their test kitchen guests, Claire Safetz on, and they made sourdough bread together.
00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:43.680
It was a very fun, funny video.
00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:44.400
Look it up.
00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:49.360
It's a little bit of delight from a simpler time, but didn't seem that complicated.
00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:56.000
The ingredients were really simple, and so I looked up online like how to start your own sourdough starter.
00:02:56.319 --> 00:03:01.039
My first and and you know go-to recipe was from bread magazine.
00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:04.960
From there, it's just been pretty steady for the past two years.
00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:07.599
To get going, you need a sourdough starter.
00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:12.719
Now that so many folks are making bread, I feel like you might have a friend or neighbor who can give you some.
00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:17.039
Local restaurants and bakeries in my town are also selling and giving away starter.
00:03:17.199 --> 00:03:21.759
But if that's not an option for you right now, or you just want to make your own, here's how you do it.
00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:26.479
So it takes about a week before you have a functioning sourdough starter.
00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:28.560
You need a jar or some Tupperware.
00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:34.879
If it's got clearish or translucent sides so that you can kind of see inside, that's that's best, but not required.
00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:39.439
You need flour, you need water, and you need a spoon or a spatula.
00:03:39.599 --> 00:03:41.280
So day one, really easy.
00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:44.960
You start with a one-to-one mixture of flour and water.
00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:49.280
It really honestly doesn't matter which type of flour you use, they will all work.
00:03:49.439 --> 00:03:52.800
So one-to-one flour mixture by weight if you have a scale.
00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:58.879
If you don't have a scale, one gram of water is one milliliter.
00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:05.280
So you can do the conversions, mix it until it's smooth, cover it, and you set it aside in a warmish place.
00:04:05.439 --> 00:04:08.479
You know, that everyone's like, it has to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:13.599
That's going to be like the most optimal where you get the most bacterial and yeast growth.
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:22.079
But if you don't have a temperature-controlled spot in your house, like you know, I don't, I don't have a spot that's consistently 80 degrees.
00:04:22.399 --> 00:04:28.399
So if you tuck it under a cabinet near a dishwasher, sometimes that is nice and warm.
00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:32.560
A cabinet next to a stove can also retain a bunch of heat.
00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:39.199
The next day, we start by throwing away half of it, and then we add the one-to-one flour mixture.
00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:42.399
So again, mix it till it's smooth, set it aside.
00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:46.480
Days three through seven are again the exact same thing.
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:48.959
You throw away half and then you re-add.
00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:51.839
You're slowly growing the amount of starter that you have.
00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:54.560
So you want to make sure that your container is big enough.
00:04:54.959 --> 00:04:56.319
You have to get rid of some of it.
00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:01.439
So sharing it with others helps, um, but you can also find ways to use it.
00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:05.759
Uh, there's a lot of great recipes online of like using your sourdough discard.
00:05:06.079 --> 00:05:09.839
And if worse comes to worse, you can just toss it in the garbage, I guess.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:18.160
Which is sad, but you know, sometimes you don't you don't have everything you need to use every part of the sourdough starter buffalo.
00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:26.560
You should have this nice bubbly kind of I don't want to say frothy, but a very kind of creamy flour mixture.
00:05:26.639 --> 00:05:32.560
Um, and that is your starter, and you're gonna feed that every day if you keep it out of the refrigerator.
00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:36.800
If you put it in the refrigerator for long-term storage, you only need to feed it once a week.
00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:44.000
Once a week, I take it out of the fridge and put it out on the counter for a couple hours to let it kind of come to room temperature.
00:05:44.240 --> 00:05:50.319
And then I take about maybe 50 grams of it, put it in a new container.
00:05:50.639 --> 00:06:04.879
I actually bought like those sort of I think they're core takeout containers from uh a restaurant supply store and uh a hundred grams of uh warm water filtered and a hundred grams of flour.
00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:11.519
And then I'll add a little bit of rye now, which makes it a little bit more active, gives it a different flavor, which I like.
00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:24.480
I th I think like professional people have a very much more scientific uh way of doing it, and I'm more like I'll just kind of do what I feel as long as the numbers kind of match up, it's okay.
00:06:25.199 --> 00:06:28.000
It is alive and it is something that you need to continually feed.
00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:32.000
I happen to forget to feed mine a couple days, but it's okay.
00:06:32.160 --> 00:06:33.519
It'll still be alive.
00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:36.879
You can recover with a couple regular feedings.
00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:38.959
So it's very, very forgiving.
00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:40.800
There's nothing to be scared of.
00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:42.319
It's really hard to mess up.
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.199
Joan's been maintaining her starter for two years now.
00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:49.360
It's stayed alive even through trips out of town and other small interruptions.
00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:53.759
I find a week is a good cycle for me so I don't lose track of it.
00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.959
But it can go up to, for me, like up to two weeks.
00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:00.639
You you just have to, I don't know, you just have to believe.
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:09.600
Uh uh develops this kind of liquid on top, and that's basically like spent fuel for the starter.
00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:13.759
So you just kind of pour that off and feed it again, and it comes back to life.
00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:18.959
You'd be really surprised like how long it can go without feeding in the fridge.
00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:19.839
In the fridge.
00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:24.399
The only thing I'd really heard about sourdough starter was that some people name theirs.
00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:29.199
I named mine Edna Mode because we're gonna make incredible bread.
00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:36.560
A lot of people you'll hear talk about I have a heritage sourdough starter from San Francisco, or this one's been alive for 300 years, you know.
00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:45.040
And that's really cool that you kind of know where it came from, but local wild yeast will take over whatever sourdough starter you have.
00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:48.959
You know, the local yeast takes over because there's a lot more of it.
00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:50.560
Um, and it's all around.
00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:52.319
So Edna Moe lives in the now.
00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:54.720
Joan Starter does not have a name.
00:07:55.040 --> 00:08:10.000
I don't really give inanimate objects names, which I guess like in terms of like the hierarchy of things that exist in my home, is it's more animate than any other thing that I have, like my computer.
00:08:10.399 --> 00:08:12.000
I mean, I have my cat.
00:08:12.079 --> 00:08:12.959
That that has a name.
00:08:13.600 --> 00:08:14.720
Okay, so where were we?
00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:15.519
That's right.
00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:18.319
Making the starter and seeing if it's ready to bake with.
00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:30.319
When it's at its ripest, you can take just a little bit like a pinch, like the tiniest like teaspoon, even maybe like a quarter teaspoon, and put it in a bowl of water and it should float.
00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:34.320
That's usually how I tell that it's ready to be used for bread.
00:08:34.799 --> 00:08:36.960
Also, uh does it float because it's a witch?
00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:40.720
Yeah, and then I have to kill it.
00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:41.120
Yeah.
00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:43.200
We are ready to make bread now.
00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:47.519
Nathan and Joan use slightly different methods, but they end up at the same place.
00:08:47.759 --> 00:08:49.440
And that place is Flavortown.
00:08:49.759 --> 00:08:50.720
We'll start with Nathan.
00:08:51.279 --> 00:08:57.039
I'm gonna pretend I'm doing like the basic sourdough recipe that you find variations of everywhere.
00:08:57.279 --> 00:09:09.840
So you want to take about 30 grams or about an ounce of your starter, and then you want to say, okay, the total I'm going to need is roughly 200 grams of starter.
00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:17.679
So I need to add the same amount of flour and water to that starter mixture so that I can make my leaven.
00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:23.120
We want to have a little bit of left over so that we can actually add that back to our sourdough starter.
00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:25.519
Let's go with a 240 gram total.
00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:29.039
So we need 105 grams each of flour and water.
00:09:29.279 --> 00:09:33.120
We add that to our starter and we let that sit for 10 hours.
00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:35.360
And then you're ready to make bread.
00:09:35.519 --> 00:09:55.840
So you take 200 grams of the leaven that you just made, you put that in a bowl with roughly 700 grams of water, mix it with your hands so that the leaven is kind of broken up and mixed in with the water, and then you add your 1,000 grams of flour to that, and you just kind of mix it with your hands until it's this big shaggy mess.
00:09:56.159 --> 00:10:01.039
Okay, so once we get everything mixed up and there's no dry ingredients left.
00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:05.600
We scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula or something and we let it sit for 10 minutes.
00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:08.799
After 10 minutes, we want to put some salt on it.
00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:13.919
Once you have that kind of scrape down and you've gone all the way around, you kind of have to just reach in with your hands again.
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:21.679
And you grab one edge of it and you tuck it to the middle, and you rotate the bowl a little bit, you grab an edge and tuck it to the middle, and you do that 30 times.
00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.240
Give it a good mix so that the salt is very evenly distributed.
00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:30.320
One time I didn't quite do that, and that was that was interesting.
00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:32.240
There's just like a little pocket of salt there.
00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:37.120
After you do the 30 times, you set it aside again for another 10 minutes, and it like it relaxes.
00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:40.559
After it relaxes, you grab it again and you do the exact same thing.
00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:45.759
You do that three times, you know, knead and then rest for 10 minutes, knead and then rest for 10 minutes.
00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:50.799
And the last one, you don't let it rest for 10 minutes, you let it sit for basically half an hour.
00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.039
Because at this point, your dough is nice and kneaded.
00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:58.080
The gluten change should be forming in there, and now it's starting to do a little bit of a rise.
00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:00.559
So after half an hour, we do a fold.
00:11:00.720 --> 00:11:08.799
You reach in and you lift the whole thing out, and then you fold it over, and then you do that three times, and then you let it sit for another half an hour again.
00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:12.559
After you do those folds, then you're ready to form the loaves.
00:11:12.799 --> 00:11:21.120
Basically, we will dump it out onto a lightly floured counter and chop it in half because you've been making two loaves worth of dough.
00:11:21.279 --> 00:11:24.960
You fold it, you get it formed into a nice kind of a tight bun.
00:11:25.039 --> 00:11:33.759
If you're doing a boule, which is the round loaf, if you're doing a loaf pan, you'll actually use a slightly different process to get it more into the loaf shape.
00:11:33.919 --> 00:11:43.679
And then you put it in either a banneton, which is really just a reed bowl or bamboo bowl that you floured and it just rests in there overnight.
00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:45.919
I don't have fancy bread baskets.
00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:53.120
I actually use colanders that I got from the Vietnamese grocery store, which give a great, a great result.
00:11:53.279 --> 00:12:02.399
If you just use a like a kitchen, nice clean kitchen towel in a plastic colander from an Asian grocery store, you'll get a great result.
00:12:02.799 --> 00:12:11.440
So after I've shaped them, I'll flower the towel and put the loaves in there and then stick it in the fridge for one to two days.
00:12:11.600 --> 00:12:14.559
The longer you wait, the more flavor there is.
00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:19.759
You'll notice that while Nathan has his dose it overnight, Joan leaves hers alone for a couple days.
00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:22.639
Again, there's a lot of variations on the basic recipe.
00:12:22.799 --> 00:12:24.080
Let's get this bread in the oven.
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:27.840
A Dutch oven is going to give you the easiest results by far.
00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:29.759
It's so stupid easy.
00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:38.799
If you happen to have a cast-iron Dutch oven, pull the lid off, preheat your oven to like 400 degrees, and put the Dutch oven in there for about 30 minutes.
00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:39.840
So it's hot.
00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:40.799
It's really hot.
00:12:40.879 --> 00:12:42.000
So be very, very careful.
00:12:42.559 --> 00:12:50.720
I usually use a Dutch oven or I have a really hard bottom, like really thick wall sort of stock pot sort of thing.
00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:54.000
It's not a stock pot, just very, very thick pot.
00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:58.240
And I preheat that for maybe half an hour to an hour.
00:12:58.480 --> 00:13:06.320
I uh take the loaf out of the fridge, pop it on a plate, make sure I cut it with the, I think it's called a lame or a knife.
00:13:06.399 --> 00:13:08.720
It's like a little razor blade you use to cut shapes in.
00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:14.720
And that's to um help the loaf rise and kind of the shape that you want it.
00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:18.960
Because otherwise it's just kind of gonna explode in any direction it wants to.
00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:23.200
Not explode, but it's kind of like gonna poof up and like it'll break where it breaks.
00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:28.559
The cuts sort of like give you a nice shape and like let you kind of control where that's gonna go.
00:13:28.879 --> 00:13:34.240
Pop it in the Dutch oven, cover it, bake it at 500 for about 20 minutes.
00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:38.159
After 20 minutes, I'll uncover it and bake it for another 20 minutes.
00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:41.519
Nathan does 45 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:43.440
They both end up with beautiful bread.
00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:45.759
Sometimes they don't, and that's okay too.
00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:48.559
Be patient, especially when you're first starting.
00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:49.360
Like, keep going.
00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:52.000
Don't be discouraged if the loaf looks weird.
00:13:52.320 --> 00:13:56.799
It just takes time for you to get comfortable with the whole process.
00:13:57.120 --> 00:13:57.840
Have fun.
00:13:58.000 --> 00:13:59.840
Like enjoy, enjoy the process.
00:13:59.919 --> 00:14:01.360
And it's just a good time.
00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:04.320
Even if it doesn't turn out to be a beautiful, wonderful loaf.
00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:07.440
Like if you just slice it and toast it, it's still fine.
00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:08.000
It's great.
00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:08.879
You've got toast.
00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:10.399
Yes, a sandwich is good.
00:14:10.480 --> 00:14:18.879
You know, and I'm not knocking a sandwich, but especially the sourdough uh that I've been making these days, it's a very springy, wet loaf.
00:14:19.039 --> 00:14:28.000
And when you toast it, the outside gets wonderfully crunchy, but the inside keeps that kind of chewiness and it just holds butter so well.
00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:30.000
It's just by far my favorite.
00:14:30.320 --> 00:14:31.600
What kind of butter do you like?
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:33.360
Almost any butter is fine.
00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:35.200
Like I said, we're a Costco family.
00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:40.639
So I mean, our routine butter that we get, it's the Kirkland salted butter in the little blue boxes.
00:14:40.799 --> 00:14:43.759
A shout out to Colin here, my coworker from Ireland.
00:14:43.919 --> 00:14:47.120
He and I both share a deep abiding love for Kerrygold butter.
00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:48.480
Which they also have at Costco.
00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:50.240
Which they also have at Costco, yes.
00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:51.679
And I also have some upstairs.
00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:53.679
It's amazing butter.
00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:56.559
I noticed that it's distributed from someplace in Illinois, though.
00:14:56.799 --> 00:14:57.600
Oh, no kidding.
00:14:57.840 --> 00:14:59.840
Yeah, so I'm a little I have questions.
00:15:00.159 --> 00:15:07.519
Well, after they lift the shelter in place in my town, then I will drive out, making try to drive by the factory, see what's going on.
00:15:07.919 --> 00:15:09.440
Just some investigative reporting.
00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:19.279
What do you think learning how to make bread and making bread and making it part of your routine does for your brain and your mental and emotional health?
00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:24.159
Being a software engineer, I sit at a desk all day, every day.
00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:26.799
I work with things that aren't here, right?
00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.039
I work with actually things that don't exist.
00:15:29.279 --> 00:15:30.320
Servers in the cloud.
00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:31.840
Like I spin up a computer.
00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:33.519
That computer doesn't really exist.
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:37.440
It's really just a piece of a different computer that I'm telling it to do something.
00:15:37.759 --> 00:15:51.679
So coming out of that world into doing physical things, you know, with my hands, I take these raw materials, these raw ingredients, and I work a process which I mean, I am still an engineer, so I love process.
00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:54.480
I work a process that if I do this, I'm going to get bread.
00:15:54.559 --> 00:15:56.080
And sure enough, I get bread.
00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:58.080
And it's just, it's just great.
00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:12.000
It is so very satisfying to make something with your hands and a little bit of your brain and have it turn out to be something that feels so sustaining and wonderful for the next couple days.
00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:19.679
I love giving loaves of bread as gifts or or just like bringing it to a gathering.
00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:22.879
I just made a loaf for a friend who's sick.
00:16:23.039 --> 00:16:26.240
It's in the waiting in the fridge now, and I'm gonna give it to her tonight.
00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:36.559
My day was made the other day by my 14-year-old because I told him previously, I'm like, look, my goal is to get so good at making bread that you prefer my bread over store-bought bread.
00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:38.720
And that happened the other day.
00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:41.120
He's like, Dad, do you have any more of your bread?
00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:42.720
I'm like, you finished it all.
00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:45.440
He's like, Oh, it's so good.
00:16:45.919 --> 00:16:48.720
And that to me, I mean, that's love.
00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:52.480
I do get a lot of satisfaction knowing that I'm getting better.
00:16:52.879 --> 00:17:00.720
Sometimes it's a surprise when I open the lid of the bread mid-baking, and then it's like it's the oven spring is really good and it's really puffed up.
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:03.039
And I was like, oh, I didn't even know it was gonna be that good.
00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:05.200
I was just thinking it would be okay.
00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:07.440
And then it's really good.
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:16.480
Rework is produced by Weyland Wong and me, Sean Hildner.
00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:18.480
Music for the show is by Clip Art.
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:28.880
If you've been baking bread at home and you want to share your photos with us or any stories you have, please send them to us at Rework Podcast on Twitter or hello at rework.fm.
00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:40.160
Okay, you want to tell me about your dream?
00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:41.279
Ugh, okay.
00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:49.279
So the week that we are releasing this episode is, I believe, the week we were supposed to have our spring meetup at Basecamp, right?
00:17:49.359 --> 00:17:50.160
Did I get the date right?
00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:50.559
Mm-hmm.
00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:50.880
Yep.
00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:54.480
And I have not had a work dream in a really long time.
00:17:54.799 --> 00:17:59.200
But last night I dreamt that it was the meetup and we were still having it.
00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:08.720
But Jason and David said that we had to put protocols in place where it would be safer and more socially distanced, but we were still gonna have it.
00:18:08.880 --> 00:18:12.640
And so the new protocol was that the meetup was at my house.
00:18:12.960 --> 00:18:13.920
Yep, that checks out.
00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:15.119
This makes total sense.
00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:26.160
So I had everyone from Base Camp at my house, sitting around my extremely too small dining room table, spilling into the living room, milling around the kitchen.
00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:36.160
And the other thing was that for some reason I kept driving co-workers to Whole Foods one at a time, maybe because that was the most socially distanced way.
00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.759
And so I drove Joan, who's in this episode.
00:18:39.920 --> 00:18:44.400
I in my dream, I drove Joan to Whole Foods, and I also drove Lexi to Whole Foods.
00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:47.599
Lexi is another coworker of ours who's been on the podcast before.
00:18:48.079 --> 00:18:52.319
Well, I can't thank you enough for both hosting and taxiing people around town.
00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:52.880
I love it.
00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:53.920
That was my dream.
00:18:54.160 --> 00:18:56.640
I gotta go stress eat some chocolate chip cookies now.
