PastorDIC wrote:
> I know from the archives, and this list that amount of liquid in
> recipe will affect sourdough, but I've never heard anything about the
> humidity in the air.

> Does the humidity in the air affect sourdough bread baking?
>
Despite liking sourdough a lot, and despite the fact that more than 3/4
of my bread baking uses sourdough as its leaven, it seems at times that
there is too much awe of sourdough.

Sourdough is just a leaven. There are very few differences between
leavening with yeast and sourdough. The biggies a

1. You have to maintain your starter, though this is similar to how
pre-ferments are handled by many bakers.

2. Sourdough usually takes longer than yeasted bread to rise, though
producing yeasted breads using preferments can take days also.

3. Using sourdough produces a more complex flavor profile than using
straight yeast processes, though bread made with pre-ferments such as
poolish, biga or autolyse can also have similar characteristics, though
generally not to the same extent as is possible with sourdough.

4. Using sourdough generally makes the dough easier to handle, though
that is also true of other preferments, especially autolyse.

5. Sourdough produces at least 50 identified chemicals that act as
natural bread preservatives, greatly increasing the shelf life of
sourdough compared to straight yeast doughs. However, it's a bakers
mantra that the longer it takes to make bread, the longer it lasts.
This is also true to a lesser extent (you may be detecting a thread
here) when you use other preferments.

So.... what about humidity? The question is, is there something about
sourdough that is affected by humidity in some way that doesn't happen
with other bread making processes? The answer is, no.

I have baked in very humid environments, on the Gulf coast of Texas, and
in very dry environments in the mountains of Colorado. The big
difference is how much you have to protect the dough to prevent it from
drying out and forming a skin on it that will prevent a full rise. When
I lived on the gulf coast there wasn't a lot of reason to fret about
protecting the dough, 85% humidity was a dry day. In the mountains, I
have to oil the dough and cover it - 30% humidity is a wet day around here.

Mike

--
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system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...

Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
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