Fermenting Community One Loaf at a Time
When I began this experience of baking bread, I did not expect it to impact my life in such a positive way. Not only did I create a grounding routine in my hectic week by baking sourdough, but I also grew a community of bread lovers.
The 3 Fs
Friends
Goal: Join Fermented Friends club and make some bread loving friends.
Fermented Friends club was everything that I wanted it to be and more. Cool people learning about fermentation, guest speakers talking about various fermentation processes and the science behind it, and not to mention the homemade kombucha at every meeting.
Because of the rise in the popularity of sourdough during the pandemic, it seemed like half of the club had some experience working with and baking sourdough. This gave me the opportunity to share my knowledge, trade tips and tricks, and find other sourdough-loving people.
Baking sourdough became a source for bonding and making new friends. When you tell someone you bake sourdough, people usually are extremely fascinated and want to start their own starter, or they already bake themselves.
However, Fermented Friends talked about more than sourdough. I learned so much about brewing kombucha, something I've been interested in forever. This club brought together people who were fascinated by all things fermentation and who loved to share their interests.
Guest speaking about the science of brewing beer
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Food
Goal: Pass the roommate sourdough taste test and not burn our apartment down.
I learned how to bake bread by watching Claire Saffitz's sourdough video at 0.5x speed. However, watching someone bake bread only got me so far, I had to sink my fingers in some dough.
Baking bread was a whole process for me. I had recently moved to my new apartment whose appliances were still from the 70s. Every loaf I baked was in a makeshift dutch oven and an oven that smoked above 450 degrees. Sure conditions weren't the best but I made do and baked some pretty amazing bread.
I soon mastered the basic techniques of kneading, proofing, and shaping; and at the same time experimenting with new flavor combinations. One week it was rye flour with black olives, the next was a semolina loaf for my gluten-free friend.
Word began to get out among my friends that I baked sourdough. We started this trading system for food. I would bake someone a fresh loaf and in exchange, they would send me some soup. Not only was I tired of eating bread after week 5, but I also loved to share my cook with other people. I took bread requests, gave people some of my sourdough starters, and soon became the resident bread baker among my friends.
With all the knowledge I'd gained, I began writing up Sourdough 101. This highlighted key words that appeared in many recipes, standard baker's percentages, and common ingredients. This became my basic bread bible I followed each week.
Photos from my Sourdough Journey
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Findings
Goal: Develop my own sourdough recipe.
"Uh oh. What have I gotten myself into ..."
Everything I'd learned from Fermented Friends and my own bread baking seemed to lead up to my goal of developing my own recipe. Since so many recipes for sourdough using all of the possible techniques already existed, I wasn't going to create something new and unique. I wanted to adapt an existing recipe to its most basic easy-to-bake steps. I wanted it to be achievable in a bad kitchen like my own.
I chose to adapt Claire Safftiz's sourdough recipe from her cookbook Dessert Person. This recipe had all the basic steps however, I felt that I could improve on it from a college student living in a shitty apartment perspective.
So with that, I bought the biggest bag of flour I could find at Kroger and began to bake. And what I came up with is a simple 4 ingredient bread that can be made with even the most basic of materials.
Resources
The Perfect Loaf by Maurizio Leo
Make Beautiful Sourdough with Claire Saffitz
@sourdoughclub
Recipe Testing Process
My Sourdough Recipe
Adapted from Claire Saffitz
