Food and Wine sourdough article

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

Sorry if someone has already posted this. I found it fascinating. We've been on vacation for a couple weeks - well, my kids and in-laws were - my wife and I were working in Maine.

The first recipe I ever used sourdough for only used sourdough and no commercial yeast. Didn't realize that was such a big deal.

The bread we tried in Maine was very disappointing.

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[chocomouse]

Aaron, did you try bread at "When Pigs Fly"? A small bakery in the Portland area. I love their breads. One of their bakeries also has a pizzeria, and makes excellent pizzas.

[aaronatthedoublef]

CM, that was the disappointing bread we bought at the farmer's market. We didn't try their pizza after we had their bread.

[Mike Nolan]

I have the Poilâne book, I was disappointed to find that in her recipe for recreating their famous miche, she uses a combination of an overnight levain and commercial yeast, something I'm sure they don't do in their bakery.

Farmer's markets aren't the best venues for keeping bread in peak condition, a local artisan baker has told me that they don't bring all their breads to the farmer's market because some just don't travel well. (Personally I find their sourdough too sour, though.)

There was a post, on the BBGA forum, I think, recently lamenting that San Francisco sourdough has gone 'commercial' as most of the bakeries have been bought by corporations rather than passed from one artisan baker-owner to another. I think Chad Robertson is still one of those baker-owners, though.

But with the pandemic and the way airlines treat you, I don't know if I'll ever be back to San Francisco to check out the Tartine bakery. (And I've just about given up on my goal of doing a boulangerie crawl through Paris.)

[BakerAunt]

Welcome back, Aaron. I hope that you got at least a little "vacation" during your time in Maine.

We now have someone at our Farmers Market who does some artisan breads--mostly small loaves, buns, and bagels. I've not tried any of it, as I bake my own and was not tempted. He started selling it last year at the winter market, and people must like it, as he is still selling it. He and his wife also sell organic vegetables and he makes and sells artisan chocolates.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Poilane is one of the paragons of the "true sourdough" pain au levain in the article so it is interesting that her own cookbook recipe includes commercial yeast.

The article also draws distinctions between hard and liquid starter and commercial starter. I have not tried starter from KAF so I don't know how it compares. Over on the BBGA there were plenty of bakers giving away starter. I still want to try saving some old bread dough to use as starter for new dough.

[Mike Nolan]

The 'old dough' method was used primarily by people baking frequently, every day or two. I'm not sure what refrigerating old dough would do, I've had refrigerated dough become unusable after about a week.

I don't recall where I read it, but I have read that it takes quite a few iterations of using old dough before it produces a consistent product. In that respect, it is similar to the process of creating a sourdough starter.

My guess is the Poilâne recipes are aimed more at occasional bakers than ones who maintain a sourdough starter for years, like the Poilâne bakery does (theirs goes back to the 1930's, I believe.) I was disappointed and surprised that the book didn't offer alternate instructions for those who have a starter to work with.

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