I just reached a very satisfying conclusion to my project to capture and cultivate wild yeast for making bread. I’ve done quite a bit of bread baking recently, but always just with packets of fast action dried yeast - and that’s fine, but I just wanted a bit more of an adventure.
I’ve documented the whole project here - in summary though, yeah - it was highly satisfactory - it made a nice crusty loaf that we all enjoyed eating.
I haven’t a clue exactly *what *strains of yeast I’ve captured - except that they work fairly well (perhaps identifying them will form part of a future project) - I’m going to keep this sourdough culture going so that I can use it again and again in future.
The funny thing is you’ve probably captured an uniquely local mix of yeast. I’ve always found it fascinating that a lot of famous French cheeses etc can only be made in certain local caves/areas because of the spores hanging in the air only locally.
I wonder if the next batch of bread will taste differently, now that you’ve subjected your yeast culture to the fridge.
I bake professionally, and the OP’s project is something I’ve never attempted. I envy the success. Mangetout, let us know how easy/hard it is to keep the culture going, and if it changes over time. My email is available, if you have further tips you are willing to share.
Congratulations - looks like an excellent result. (For those who don’t want to capture their own culture, Sourdoughs International is well worth a visit.)
Have you tried the technique of cooking the loaf inside a dutch oven (or similar lidded & heatproof container)? You make the dough a bit on the wet side, pre-heat your oven (and the dutch oven) to 450F, then cook for about 30 minutes covered, followed by another 30 or so uncovered at around 300F. This has revolutionized home breadmaking for me - crusts are consistently as good as those from a serious artisan bakery.
I’ve always wanted to try baking my own sourdough bread. I remember once checking out places that sold starter, and reading about how chancy it was to try to capture your own culture.
I’ve been making sourdough on and off for years (it can be hard to keep up the momentum when there’s great sourdough bread available at grocery stores here in the San Francisco Bay Area), and also brew my own beer. Not surprisingly, there’s a lot in common between the two.
The description and photos on your linked page look exactly like what we get here using yeasts that are either commercially available, or carefully selected from known-good starters. The layer of clear liquid on the top, the bubbling, and the “beer smell” are all exactly right! You seem to have hit the jackpot on the first attempt, which means that the gods of zymurgy are smiling on you.
I wonder if your location is helping you get the right wild yeasts? Aren’t you near the Solent, a cool salt-water estuary known (IIRC??) for its fog, rather like San Francisco? I’ve known people who have tried sourdough in various parts of the world, and it seems to have often turned out crusty enough, but not wonderfully sour.
[I’m interested in your experiment for selfish reasons, too: at some point this year I will be returning from SF to the UK, and I’m **not** prepared to give up good sourdough. I don’t mind making it myself, but it’s great that you’re blazing the trail with your experiments. Kudos!]
Huh, so this post got me reading about sourdoughs a bit, something which I had no prior knowledge of. So when you catch a wild yeast, is the result going to be unique (even if imperceptibly so), because of the randomness of the catching process? That seems exciting.
Reading around a bit, it seems to be the case that most of the yeast that is captured in this way is already in the flour - in the same way that grape and other fruit skins have their natural yeast flora, wheat plants apparently have the same sort of thing.
I would imagine that my culture will change over time, as the dominant strains will outcompete the others, but it will be interesting…
“Reading around a bit, it seems to be the case that most of the yeast that is captured in this way is already in the flour - in the same way that grape and other fruit skins have their natural yeast flora, wheat plants apparently have the same sort of thing”
Likely so,but locale does have variation.A cousin several hours away uses the same hard winter wheat,same brand,yet has a differently flavoured sourdough.
I used to think I noticed this with ciders (wild yeast fermentation) but now that almost every one pasteurises it's hard to say.
Mangetout, I am inspired. When I ws a boy my grandmother had her jar of wild yeast that she used to make bread, but she caught it at Bennett’s Point, a small salt-water estuary nearby. I’ve often thought about catching some wild yeast that might live here, in the Great Salkehatchie Swamp, but I could never quite remember how Granny did it. You have posted your story and now I am going to follow your example and catch some of the wily wild yeast in the Great Salkehatchie Swamp. But first I have to make another gallon of yogurt.
Bravo Mangetout ! You need not have bon appétit to enjoy that good looking bread. But how could you drown that delicacy in garlic and chive ? :eek:
Did you forget the salt ?
True. Lots of other things vary slightly by region, so why not yeast. It’s interesting to speculate on the possible boundary conditions constraining populations - multicellular animals and plants are often constrained by geological features or stretches of environment unsuitable for them - I wonder what, if anything, does this with yeast…
Fear not - I did try some on a clean palate first, then moved on to the cheese, the ham, the pickle, etc…
I didn’t - I just neglected to mention it. My bog-standard bread dough is a (UK)pound of flour, a little over half a (UK)pint of water and a teaspoon of salt. If I’m using packet yeast, I boost it with sugar.
Mine was pretty mild too - it smelled quite sourish while proving and also while baking, but the bread itself was not astonishingly different to taste from ordinary bread.
It is my understanding that the starter culture will often improve the longer it is kept going - the population will become less diverse, but will settle on the yeasts and their symbiotic bacteria that are most suited to the niche, and this usually happens to be those that impart the sour notes.
So…
Try keeping a culture going for a while (refreshing it periodically by taking a piece and giving it fresh flour and water).
How periodically would that be, given that you keep the yeast in the fridge at presumably 4-5 degrees celsius? Once a week? How often if you deep-freeze it?
I also remember buying fresh yeast from the baker. I think that was factory-made, but it was a brown compact loaf made of a slightly sticky paste, and you could buy say 10-20 grammes of it.
If you’re keeping it at room temperature, daily, but unless you’re using it every day, that’s going to be wasteful, so I intend to refresh weekly - leaving it unrefrigerated in the container overnight immediately after refreshing - so it can get going properly - then putting it in the fridge in the morning.
For freezing, I think the best method will be:
-Refresh
-Leave unrefrigerated overnight, to build up a good population
-Knead to remove bubbles
-Wrap tightly, freeze
Then refresh again on thawing and carry on.
Yes, I’ve seen fresh yeast for sale here like that - I think that’s quite a concentrated baker’s yeast culture, grown on flour and sugar water.
