Big Yeast Energy

Wild microbes make wildly delicious bread

I was recently thinking about relationships and how the pandemic forever altered a lot of how we relate to each other and move through the world. We’ll never be the same, and those of us who did survive this global human catastrophe are worse for wear.

But it’s not all bad. Many new relationships formed and developed during this period of isolation and fear as we all scrambled to feed our needs for connection, curiosity, adventure, and good relations. A lot of people in the US turned to the outdoors and food practices that were far from the mainstream.

I was one of those people, and the journey I began with making homemade bread is one I continue to be thankful for.

What is sourdough bread? Bread, despite all its varieties, is one of the simplest foods humans consume. Flour, water, leavening agent (starter that contains yeast), salt, and time. That’s it. Mass produced grocery store bread is made under tightly controlled conditions with select ingredients; the goal being to crank out as much product in the shortest amount of time as possible.

Sourdough bread is less controlled, slower, and less productive in terms of output. Rather than using packaged yeast, sourdough bread relies on wild microbes to do the work of giving bread its fluffy and airy texture. As a byproduct of the wild microbial action in the dough, sourdough bread takes on that characteristically pleasant sour taste.

Any sourdough bread you buy at a grocery store is going to be more expensive than factory produced sliced bread because sourdough takes more time to make and cannot be scaled to the same level as industrial bread. Sourdough also spoils faster on the shelf in part because the nutrients in the wheat that the wild microbes unlock are more bioavailable to other microbes.

Good sourdough never lasts long because all sorts of organisms find it delicious.

When the pandemic hit, I pivoted my growing interest in all things food and cooking to learning a set of skills and, potentially, reducing the time I spent shopping for food at the grocery store. I love the idea and practice of severing dependencies on industrial food production and making bread at home checked all the boxes.

I watched a fair number of YouTube videos on the subject and settled on this one as my favorite:

And by started, I mean, started and failed miserably.

The first thing I learned about making sourdough was the importance of using organic flour and filtered water. The chemicals in conventional flour and the chlorine in tap water are anti-microbial, so if you use those ingredients, you effectively kill the microbes that naturally occur in flour. No microbes, no starter, no sourdough bread.

Fortunately, I had a friend who is a prolific home baker who generously gave me some of his starter after he found out I was interested in taking up the practice of making sourdough. One of the best resources for good quality starter is someone you know who makes sourdough at home. We typically have starters that are resilient and can handle the learning that new sourdough makers go through to maintain the key ingredient.

So my friend gave me great instructions and I managed to keep that starter alive. I eventually figured out that a starter needs some portion of whole wheat flour in order to be healthy and productive. Simply using white bread flour has never worked well for me. Within a few weeks I had two health starters and was ready to start making bread.

Enter a series of complete and partial fails that, despite my disappointment, taught me so so many things about how to make good bread at home. I went back to YouTube to troubleshoot my issues and found another very helpful video that I would frequently come back to as a perfected my craft:

The thing about making sourdough is that each time you make it, there are multiple factors that have changed since the last time you baked that may impact the final product. Ambient temp and humidity changes can a dramatic effect even if you execute the exact same steps as in your last bake. There’s a sense of excitement and dread each time I near the end of making a loaf.

“Crap! What if this one is the worst I’ve ever made? I should have probably done X, Y, and or Z instead.”

Or

“What if this is the best loaf I’ve ever made? I knew doing Y, then Z, and finishing with X was the trick!”

As time went on, I got better and more consistent. All outcomes were delicious and I built a tremendous sense of overall self confidence in the kitchen that I hadn’t had before.

My eldest child and I share a similar intolerance to large quantities of gluten; too much bread and we are out of commission for the day. A few years before trying my hand at sourdough, I discovered that sour beer didn’t upset my stomach nearly as much as non-sour beer, and that got me thinking about sourdough bread.

Like all fermented foods, letting certain microbes break down food materials before eating makes nutrients more digestible. Eating a monoculture of microbes has all sorts of negative impacts on human health that fermented foods avoid because of the diverse micro-ecology living on the food. And sure enough, sourdough bread does not have nearly the impact on either of our guts that store-bought bread does.

After finding a sourdough sandwich bread recipe and experimenting with low gluten flours, my eldest now prefers what they call “Daddy’s bread” over anything from the store.

The thing I love most about sourdough is that it’s made possible by wild microbes. If you haven’t guessed by now, I love wild food; food that doesn’t require intense human cultivation.

Dominant human culture is obsessed with control, which is really just a delusion of power so many of us (foolishly) covet. Like the Potawatomi story of Skywoman Falling, I much prefer to move through this world with the humility of the first human to come to Turtle Island; with a spirit and practice of learning and thankfulness for the way older relatives have helped make for us.

Microbes such as the ones that allow us to gain nuriousment from wheat have been around for billions of years. They are ancient and so are the plants we consume along side said microbes. They have been in relation with each other for so long and we should be thankful that their gifts are ones we can use to nourish our own bodies and lives.

Sourdough allows us to enter into this web of relations with humility, patience, and an eye towards learning from our older microbial relatives. Industrial bread demands that these elders change much of who they are to fit our desire to exploit and over produce beyond their capacity. And for what? So that the price of something precious and essential can be marketed to the masses for a select few to get materially rich.

Like I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, I’m working on putting together some sourdough videos of my own and sharing with you my system of bread making that’s fun and that will save you money. It’s going to take some time to get that content ready to share, but, like a delicious loaf of sourdough, I think it will be well worth the wait. Stay tuned!

Cheers!

P.S. I’m also happy to share any of my 3 starters with you, so if you’re ready to start your sourdough journey now, just email me and I’ll put a sample in the mail with instructions on how to use those wild yeasties.

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New Video Content

THE BEEF CONTINUES

I’m not done speaking truth to the power that is MeatEater. This time I speak back to the head man himself, Steven Rinella, and finish with some conclusions about how I think the conversation on race and hunting has gone in the mainstream thus far.

I’m working on the final part of this miniseries, where I plan to talk about the three books that have made me a better hunter. Interestingly enough, none of these books are about hunting, but about understanding how whiteness transformed landscapes on this continent and implemented systems that continue to marginalize certain folks today. The landscape of hunting spaces is the landscape of American spaces.

Look for Part 3 to drop at the end of the month!

BIG YEAST ENERGY ON INSTAGRAM

If you’re looking to follow my sourdough making journey then check out this account I started during the pandemic. I don’t regularly post here these days, but I have achieved a lot of my beginning journey here. Quality bread porn for sure!

Wild Food Update

JUST THE TIP

It’s spruce tip season! The new growth of spruce and fir trees are one of the most underrated wild foods out there and one of the easiest to collect. These bright green feathery needles are packed with vitamin C and other minerals that offer a tremendous amount of nutrition.

So naturally you should make a super sweet syrup out of them! I followed Hank Shaw’s recipe and made nearly a quart of the stuff to put in mixed drinks throughout the warming months to come.

Video on this entire process will be out this summer!

Recommendation

REQUIRED READING FOR EVERY AMERICAN

Okay, I won’t make you wait weeks to tell you about one of the books that’s made me a better hunter. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States was recommended to me by a former student and deer friend who studies buffalo restoration on tribal lands and it’s been one of the best book recommendations I’ve ever received.

Once I started reading this book, it was hard to put down. The United States of America, how it functions, and what many of its citizens believe about the nation’s inherent goodness and progress make so much sense in the light of what Dunbar-Ortiz describes Indigenous people experienced/are still experiencing from US empire.

It’s hard reading, depressing, rage-inducing, but ultimately I feel so much more prepared to navigate this country and its mythology now that I know so much of the history we never teach young people. I think this book should be required reading for every person living in the US.

I wonder if the folks from MeatEater have read it?

Business Update

The online content business world is super white. Which is fine, but it can be a bit discouraging for someone like me who’s looking to build a business in a space saturated with the norms of whiteness.

So I’m always geeked when I see Black creators who are getting it done, because it’s confirmation that despite being one of the few out here in the wild food entrepreneurial game, it’s possible for folks who look like me to make a way and be successful.

I recently found Chris Franklin’s account and was immediately intrigued because..well…look at him:

Yeah, it’s okay if you did a double take and thought I had posted a video about using drones in filmmaking. I really don’t see a lot of folks who look this much like me with successful channels on YouTube, so I was extra extra geeked to find Chris’s channel.

Aside from the representation boost of this past week, I spent a lot of time scheduling business tasks last Sunday evening and while I’m regretting the lost sleep of that night, I’m grateful for JP’s (Jonathan of the Past) insight into what I needed to make sure I started out the summer on the right foot.

By July I plan to be 2 weeks ahead on content for the channel, which I want to grow to a full month of banked content by the start of fall semester. This bank of content will be crucial to maintain consistency for this fall and my submission of my tenure application at EMU.

Gotta keep up the day job!

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

-Jonathan