As soon as I read about that NY Times/Jim Lahey no-knead bread, I
thought - what would Brother Juniper say? Peter Reinhart, also known as
Brother Juniper, is a bread baking maven, teacher and prolific author.
I worked with him when he was at the California Culinary Academy, (I
was a lowly staff person, not a chef mind you!) and I took a
demonstration class he gave on poolish, biga and other slow-rise
breads.

When I only had one child, I had time to mess around with Reinhart's
recipes, which were tasty and wonderful but took plenty of planning and
attention. Now I have two kids and they keep me busy -too busy to
bother with a two- or three-day bread process. (okay, there's grad
school too, my other excuse)

Well, out of curiousity I googled Brother Juniper and found his weblog:

http://peterreinhart.typepad.com/

He has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon. He is
a generous man and looks at bread-baking the way a great research
scientist would - it's all grist for the mill, (so to speak) - he loves
the new technique, he's delighted about the buzz, and he's going to
test some variations to see if it's worth adding a chapter to his
latest book in progress.

When my semester ends in ten days, I'm going to try the no-knead bread
with the kids. And I may bake a Brother Juniper slow-rise bread too,
for good measure.

On 22 Nov 2006 20:58:47 -0800, "Leila"
> wrote:

>He has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon.

Howdy,

There is nothing "new" about these no-knead techniques.

We've been commenting about them here for years, and I
suspect that folks have baked this way for a few thousand
years before that.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

Kenneth wrote:
> On 22 Nov 2006 20:58:47 -0800, "Leila"
> > wrote:
>
>
>> He has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon.
>
>
> There is nothing "new" about these no-knead techniques.
>
There is a difference between a phenomenon and a technique.

Over the past week or two, every bread forum I've been in has been
inundated with many, many posts about the technique. The level of
interest is the phenomenon. I think that a number of people who have
never baked have been emboldened to do so. That's also a phenomenon.

Yup, we've been talking about no-knead techniques for years around
here. But it never got quite the buzz of the NYT article.

Mike

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 07:30:31 -0700, Mike Avery
> wrote:

>>
>>> He has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon.
>>
>>
>> There is nothing "new" about these no-knead techniques.
>>
>There is a difference between a phenomenon and a technique.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for clarifying Leila's intent... <VBG>

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

Kenneth wrote:

>
> We've been commenting about them here for years, and I
> suspect that folks have baked this way for a few thousand
> years before that.
>

DITTO....indeed bakers in some developing countries (in the past )
indeed did it that way, the dough baked inside a clay pot .......but
raised with crude sourdoughs starter...
It just don't look appetizing to eat though....

chembake wrote:
> Kenneth wrote:
>
>> We've been commenting about them here for years, and I
>> suspect that folks have baked this way for a few thousand
>> years before that.
>>
>
> DITTO....indeed bakers in some developing countries (in the past )
> indeed did it that way, the dough baked inside a clay pot .......but
> raised with crude sourdoughs starter...
> It just don't look appetizing to eat though....

This may not be strictly "bread"-related but when I was in the RAF I was
stationed at a Middle East airfield in 1963-64. One of the typical
sights in the local market was a young lad with a crate of tinned,
condensed milk; a sack of flour; a smaller sack of salt; and a small,
mud-brick built, gas-fired oven. He sat cross-legged, mixed a small
amount of flour, milk and salt (no yeast), moulded it briefly into a
flattish, circular shape with his bare hands before opening the oven
door, casually tossing the dough into the oven and closing the oven
door. By the time he had mixed the next lot of dough the dough in the
oven was ready to bring out and add to the pile of cooked "loaves".
--
Bruce Fletcher
Stronsay, Orkney
<www.stronsay.co.uk/claremont>
(Remove teeth to reply)
"Some days you are the pigeon. Some days you are the statue"

In article .com>,
"Leila" > wrote:

> As soon as I read about that NY Times/Jim Lahey no-knead bread, I
> thought - what would Brother Juniper say? Peter Reinhart, also known as
> Brother Juniper, is a bread baking maven, teacher and prolific author.
> I worked with him when he was at the California Culinary Academy, (I
> was a lowly staff person, not a chef mind you!) and I took a
> demonstration class he gave on poolish, biga and other slow-rise
> breads.
>
> When I only had one child, I had time to mess around with Reinhart's
> recipes, which were tasty and wonderful but took plenty of planning and
> attention. Now I have two kids and they keep me busy -too busy to
> bother with a two- or three-day bread process. (okay, there's grad
> school too, my other excuse)
>
> Well, out of curiousity I googled Brother Juniper and found his weblog:
>
> http://peterreinhart.typepad.com/
>
> He has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon. He is
> a generous man and looks at bread-baking the way a great research
> scientist would - it's all grist for the mill, (so to speak) - he loves
> the new technique, he's delighted about the buzz, and he's going to
> test some variations to see if it's worth adding a chapter to his
> latest book in progress.
>
> When my semester ends in ten days, I'm going to try the no-knead bread
> with the kids. And I may bake a Brother Juniper slow-rise bread too,
> for good measure.

Iteration 2.0 is currently in its final rise, and the Le Creuset pot is
heating in the oven. Even though I used the same amount of water this
go-round, the dough was less slack. (Surprising, given the humidity
hereabouts.) It was much easier to shape today. My next-door-neighbor
is intrigued by the method and requested a loaf for today's cooperative
feast, along with some dinner rolls. Said rolls came out of the oven an
hour ago.

So what are you pursuing in grad school???

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

Delete the obvious to email me

Mike Avery wrote:
....
> Yup, we've been talking about no-knead techniques for years around
> here. But it never got quite the buzz of the NYT article.
>
> Mike

That'll be The Emperor's New Cothes effect.

Jim

Kenneth wrote:
> On 22 Nov 2006 20:58:47 -0800, "Leila"
> > wrote:
>
> >He has put up the nicest comment about the new bread phenomenon.
>
> Howdy,
>
> There is nothing "new" about these no-knead techniques.
>
> We've been commenting about them here for years, and I
> suspect that folks have baked this way for a few thousand
> years before that.

indeed the no-knead method seems to fit very well with the setup at
ancient egyptian bakeries discovered around the pyramids - and famously
recreated by Ed Wood

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/AR/93-94/93-94_Giza.html

laters
andy forbes


> All the best,
> --
> Kenneth
>
> If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

atty wrote:
....>
> indeed the no-knead method seems to fit very well with the setup at
> ancient egyptian bakeries discovered around the pyramids - and famously
> recreated by Ed Wood
>
> http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/AR/93-94/93-94_Giza.html
>
> laters
> andy forbes

Except there's paintings and statues of Egyptians kneading bread.

Let's not get too hasty. After all, it really doesn't matter how long
it's been going on. I'm sure anyone that had an interruption or phone
call in the middle of kneading would realise, as I did, that you really
don't need to knead so much if you just take a good break in the
middle. : -)
The first good book that I got said to take a couple of breaks in the
20 minute knead that it suggested, well, me being young and fit, at the
time, didn't think I needed a break. I didn't realise the break wasn't
for me. lol.

Jim

"TG" > wrote in message
oups.com...
>
> atty wrote:
> ...>
>> indeed the no-knead method seems to fit very well with the setup at
>> ancient egyptian bakeries discovered around the pyramids - and famously
>> recreated by Ed Wood
>>
>> http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/AR/93-94/93-94_Giza.html
>>
>> laters
>> andy forbes
>
> Except there's paintings and statues of Egyptians kneading bread.

Movies?
>
:-)

Mary

TG wrote:
> atty wrote:
> ...>
> > indeed the no-knead method seems to fit very well with the setup at
> > ancient egyptian bakeries discovered around the pyramids - and famously
> > recreated by Ed Wood
> >
> > http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/AR/93-94/93-94_Giza.html
> >
> > laters
> > andy forbes
>
> Except there's paintings and statues of Egyptians kneading bread.

I think you are probably right

in particular http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/ph...000027177.html

the two women kneeling at the back do indeed look to be kneading though
alternately can be interpreted as grinding as indeed is attributed at

http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/O0004972.html

"In the bakkery, men crush the grain with pestles, after which it is
ground to flour by two women. Men mix dough in tall tubs, and it is
shaped into loaves and cakes by others. The four black ovens are each
tended by a man with a poker."

certainly clearly a man is making up into small loaves whcih probably
NYT dough is too wet for. (interesting that brewery and bakery are
portrayed as neighbours so we can assume this bakery was using the same
yeast culture or barm? as the brewery)

however why imagine that anceint Egyptians only had one method of
baking? Ed Wood's Giza experiment involved recreating bakery shops
found on the plain of Giza around the Pyramids. These were both Old
Kingdom sites and much bigger than the bakery shop illustrated by the
model above. I quote from the report

" Our ancient bakeries were composed of low stone rubble and Nile clay
walls with a marl floor in rooms measuring about five and a quarter
meters (north to south) by two and a half meters (east to west). In
both rooms we found a cache of bell-shaped ceramic pots, long
recognized as bread molds in Egyptian archaeology and labeled with the
name bedja in the Old Kingdom tomb scenes. The ancient Egyptians began
to use bread molds of this type just about the time that the pharaonic
state emerged around 2900 b.c. They continued to use them until near
the end of the Old Kingdom, about 2200 b.c. While some have suggested
that pot-baked bread was for special occasions - festivals, temple
offerings, etc. - the Old Kingdom bread mold has been found as a major
component of ceramic corpora in sites of all kinds from Egypt's
traditional southern border at Elephantine to First Dynasty outposts in
southern Palestine. Egyptians in many different settings desired and
produced their pot baked bread.

Old Kingdom tomb scenes show the pots placed rim to rim as a kind of
portable oven for baking in open pits. Our bedja pots were unusually
large, as much as thirty-five centimeters in diameter and up to
thirty-five centimeters in depth. Put together in the manner of the
tomb scenes they would create an interior space seventy centimeters in
height. If the dough would swell to fill the entire space, this would
produce a huge loaf of bread. Indeed, certain tombs scenes show
offering bearers carrying huge conical bread loaves of the shape that
would be produced by our pots. As I reported previously, we seem to
have found all the essential tools required for the production
processes depicted by Old Kingdom scenes and figurines: Both bakeries
originally had three large ceramic vats in the northwestern corner,
presumably for mixing dough. We further presume that a fireplace in the
form of an open platform in the opposite southeastern corner was for
stack heating the pots, a preliminary step often illustrated in
figurines and wall art. Rows of holes at the bottom of a shallow trench
along the eastern wall must have been for holding the dough-filled pots
that were covered by another pot placed upside down. Hot coals and
embers in the trench provided the heat that baked the bread."

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/GIZ/N...ll92_fig8.html

most siginficantly here there deosn't appear to me to be any suitably
sized work surface to knead or rest the quantity of bread this site
obviously produced (this is just one chamber which is duplicated over a
300 metre site)

a bread mould pot
http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/GIZ/N...ll92_fig7.html

tell me this doesn't pretty closely match the NYT no knead method? (at
least to the point where anceient egyptians bake by making a pyrmamid
of these twinned pots in a pit and setting a bonfire around this) Looks
like possibly twin pot mould arrangement was used for both proofing and
baking.

http://oi.uchicago.edu/OI/PROJ/GIZ/N...ll92_fig9.html

here you can see that the dough is apparently so wet that it is being
poured from smaller pots into the moulds as a liquid, almost more of a
batter!?

what is actually more intersting to me is how much the move away from
this style of wet dough to a stiffer dough was dictated by the move
away in Europe from communal baking (as practised both in France and
England) where indivdual households make their own dough and then bake
in a communal oven to professional baking and then mechanization. Pre
mechanization in European bakeris there is much mention of dough being
made in large troughs and some indication of being mixed by a paddle,
possibly with its bottom attached to the bottom of trough again
indicating a very wet dough. Certainly a stiffer dough in troughs of
the size portrayed in various illustrations at
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online...fova1/hfr4.htm would be
impossible to imagine one man kneading or even mixing properly in the
modern sense. However the wetter the dough probably the more difficult
to move around and divide into equal portion loaves once out of dough
trough.

Maybe simply mechanization enabled the introduction of stiffer doughs
that could at once be kneaded mecahnically (speeding up proofing) and
were then more convenient for subsquent handling in a bakeshop . Of
course one also has to factor in the introduction, particularly in the
UK of harder wheats from the US, Canada and Australia.

laters
andy forbes

there is much intersting information on pre-mecahnical prfesional
baking, though not empirical in
chapter "COMPARATIVE DATA: THE BAKING PROCESS DURING THE 1840's" of
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online...fova1/hfrt.htm

chapter here http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online...fova1/hfr2.htm
about half way down page paragraph heading "Setting the sponge" and
then next "Making the dough"

at end of "Setting the Sponge" reads as follows

quote "After the "sponge" had finished rising and started to fall it
was, according to some formulas, ready for making dough. Other recipes
called for the stirring in of more warm water or "liquor" (water mixed
with certain ingredients) at this time and letting the "sponge" rise
one or more additional times, adding more "liqour" with each stirring.
Depending upon the amount of water added for each of these "sponges" in
relation to the whole quantity used in the dough, they were called
"quarter," "half," or "whole" sponges."

so clearly here we have some bakers with a very wet dough (a sponge)
and some who then knead in more flour - though again its hard to
imagine the degree of kneading that coudl subsquenlty be done
mechnically

incidentally there is much intersting info higher in the page re wood
fired oven management that augments simular information for those with
a wood fired oven like myself from Alan Scott and other modern wood
fired oven experts

yours
andy forbes

atty wrote:
...(interesting that brewery and bakery are
> portrayed as neighbours so we can assume this bakery was using the same
> yeast culture or barm? as the brewery)
> ..> laters
> andy forbes

Hi Andy,

There has been recent discoveries of large mixing machines driven by
donkeys made by the Romans. Anyway that aside. We know the Egyptians
made bread and must have mixed it in some way, 'kneading' is really a
semantic discussion. On that semantic topic.

Barm is a froth on fermenting malt liquor. The word isn't synonymous
with yeast culture. But now in the UK it is used, though not understood
by most, as the ferment that has mashed hops to keep the leaven sweet.
Here in the UK there isn't quite the same desire for sour breads. See
Barm. Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barm

Jim

TG wrote:
>
> Barm is a froth on fermenting malt liquor. The word isn't synonymous
> with yeast culture. But now in the UK it is used, though not understood
> by most, as the ferment that has mashed hops to keep the leaven sweet.
> Here in the UK there isn't quite the same desire for sour breads. See
> Barm. Wikipedia.

Did you mean mashed barley?

On 25 Nov 2006 08:58:20 -0800, "TG" >
wrote:

>Barm is a froth on fermenting malt liquor. The word isn't synonymous
>with yeast culture.

Howdy,

On the US side of the pond, "barm" is defined as the "yeasty
froth" that forms on the surface of beer and similar
beverages as they ferment.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

> Barm is a froth on fermenting malt liquor. The word isn't synonymous
> with yeast culture. But now in the UK it is used, though not understood
> by most, as the ferment that has mashed hops to keep the leaven sweet.
> Here in the UK there isn't quite the same desire for sour breads. See
> Barm. Wikipedia.

I was putting the word 'barm' in my mail in the sense used by
Elizabeth David in English Yeast Bakery to describe the practice in
early industrial towns and cities of the UK of continuing to bake in
the indivdual home but rather than keep one's own sourdough culture as
traditionally on a farm, go to the local berwery to get fresh yeast
culture - effectively a bi-product of brewing -though I don't know what
stage in brewing it was produced.

how much this was also practice of european mediaval towns prior to
industrailzation isn't clear, in any case the point is that from the
egyptian model, unless its just shortcut by the model maker, its clear
the yeast culture used by the baker hasn't diverged from that of the
brewer (it would have been impossible to keep seperate in such close
vicinity)

I am not certain at what date brewers started to become aware of and be
able to manipluate different yeast strains to be able to produce
different styles of beer (lager, bitter etc) but its cerainly ahead of
the official scientific description of yeast by Louise Pasteur, and
remains today way ahead of the identification of different strains of
yeast suitable for baking.

Somehow I have held the opinion for a while that 'baker's yeast' is in
fact a spin off discovery from 19th Century brewing industry of a yeast
dedicated solely to producing CO2 at the expense of anythign else, and
not a yeast strain originated in baking. Is this correct? anyone know?

laters
andy forbes

atty wrote:
> I was putting the word 'barm' in my mail in the sense used by
> Elizabeth David in English Yeast Bakery to describe the practice in
> early industrial towns and cities of the UK of continuing to bake in
> the indivdual home but rather than keep one's own sourdough culture as
> traditionally on a farm, go to the local berwery to get fresh yeast
> culture - effectively a bi-product of brewing -though I don't know what
> stage in brewing it was produced.
>
Yeast isn't a byproduct of brewing any more than it is a byproduct of
baking. A hopped diluted malt syrup, called a wort, has yeast added to
it. The yeast begin to multiply quickly, and soon after that the wort
begins to bubble. At that point, a foam forms on top of the beer. Once
the beer has begun active fermentation, the concentration of yeast is
probably high enough for baking purposes. British beers, or ales, use a
top fermenting yeast so the concentration of yeast at the surface is
quite high. It remains high for several days, after which the yeast
dies from the alcohol it has produced and begins to fall to the bottom
of the vat. (That is a somewhat simplified version.) At that point,
the beer is less useful as a source of barm.

> how much this was also practice of european mediaval towns prior to
> industrailzation isn't clear,

From everything I've read and seen, barm is pretty much a British
thing. Even in Britain, sourdough was more common. Classic British
beers are unhopped, which would make them more attractive to the baker.
German beers started using hops around 739, while British beers remained
unhopped until the 16th century. The addition of hops was not
universally welcomed.


> its clear the yeast culture used by the baker hasn't diverged from that of the
> brewer (it would have been impossible to keep seperate in such close
> vicinity)
>
Its not that clear to me. Were bakeries and breweries close? And
what's close? How much yeast escapes the fermenting beer? Or the
rising bread? I am inclined to think that not much would escape the
bread. Moreover, the lactobacillus in sourdough would adversely affect
the beer, so it seems unlikely that the brewers - or their patrons -
would long allow that to continue.
> I am not certain at what date brewers started to become aware of and be
> able to manipluate different yeast strains to be able to produce
> different styles of beer (lager, bitter etc) but its cerainly ahead of
> the official scientific description of yeast by Louise Pasteur, and
> remains today way ahead of the identification of different strains of
> yeast suitable for baking.
>
>
Lager beer is supposed to have started around 1820 to 1830. The
commercial yeast industry began in Austria around 1846 according to the
Lesaffre web page. Pasteur explained how yeast worked around 1859. As
to brewers yeast being used for baking, lager yeasts tend to work too
slowly to be useful. I tried using lager yeast years and years ago...
and the dough hadn't moved three days later. Ale yeast is workable.

> Somehow I have held the opinion for a while that 'baker's yeast' is in
> fact a spin off discovery from 19th Century brewing industry of a yeast
> dedicated solely to producing CO2 at the expense of anythign else, and
> not a yeast strain originated in baking. Is this correct? anyone know?
>
While yeast does not confer the same, or as intense a, taste as
sourdough, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the yeast is selected to
produce carbon dioxide at the expense of everything else. Bakers yeast
does impart tastes that many people like, and professional bakers select
the yeast they will use on the basis of taste as much as anything else.
I'm also not sure how much fermentation can be played with to produce
more co2 or less alcohol. I doubt there is much wiggle room there.
Some differences... bakers yeast has a very low tolerance for alcohol,
it works very quickly, and it does not settle out well when in
solution. Brewers yeasts, including wine yeasts, have higher alcohol
tolerance, work more slowly, and do settle out well leaving the brew
clear. Bakers and brewers yeasts are carefully selected for their
purposes, and don't work very well in the other's capacity.

Mike
--

....The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...

Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

Mike, thanks for all the useful info re brewing and baking yeasts. I do
have a micro-brewery mate in Spain who is convinced his yeasts are
superior for all purposes including baking but never took him up on his
offer to try out.

I do find it a peculiar and a bit kind of sad that a quick search on
the internet reveals many specific strains for brewing but other than
Ed Woods site only about two commercially available strains for baking

> > its clear the yeast culture used by the baker hasn't diverged from that of the
> > brewer (it would have been impossible to keep seperate in such close
> > vicinity)
> >
> Its not that clear to me. Were bakeries and breweries close?

the discussion arose from looking at this Ancient Egytian model

http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/ph...000027175.html

here's another overhead shot I think of same model
http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/ex...lture/brewing/

the bakery is identified as the room at the bottom here

laters
andy forbes

atty wrote:
> I do find it a peculiar and a bit kind of sad that a quick search on
> the internet reveals many specific strains for brewing but other than
> Ed Woods site only about two commercially available strains for baking
>
Sourdough is a different critter than yeast. However, Dr. Wood's site
has a good number of cultures. King Arthur offers at least two
sourdough starters, Mr. Baker offers a culture, as does Northwestern.
Gold Rush offers a culture (that I can not recommend) and I have seen a
few others here and there. One of the best remains the free 1847 Oregon
Trail starter available at no cost from the Friends of Carl web site.

As to yeast, Fleischmann and Red Star have yeasts. SAF and Lesaffre
have a number of strains. SAF has 3 strains of instant yeast and a wide
variety of fresh and liquid yeasts for the trade.

I suspect that the key is that the differences in different strains of
brewing yeasts are more pronounced than the differences in bakers
yeasts, and that brewers are more willing to explore the differences -
and pay for them. One other factor that can't be overstated is that the
life cycle of bakers yeast is much shorter than that of brewers yeast.
Even a fast ale will brew for 3 to 5 days. A lager will ferment for
weeks to months. A wine kit will ferment for about 2 weeks, while other
wines will ferment for very long periods of time. These longer
fermentation times give the differences between the yeasts more time to
manifest
>
>
>> Its not that clear to me. Were bakeries and breweries close?
>>
>
> the discussion arose from looking at this Ancient Egytian model
>
> http://www.insecula.com/us/oeuvre/ph...000027175.html
>
> here's another overhead shot I think of same model
> http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/ex...lture/brewing/
>
> the bakery is identified as the room at the bottom here
>
Interesting. The unasked, and unanswered, question would relate to the
quality of the beer and bread. Was the beer and bread made for the
nobility, or just to keep the slaves fed and reasonably content?

Mike

--
....The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...

Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

> Interesting. The unasked, and unanswered, question would relate to the
> quality of the beer and bread. Was the beer and bread made for the
> nobility, or just to keep the slaves fed and reasonably content?

again thanks for the brewing yeast info - I get your point about
brewing yeasts take longer therefore different yeasts more likely to
get identified. In terms of anceint practice I think a lot rests on
whether one thinks they kept and cultivated specific yeast cultures or
simply relied on products and processes attracting different truly
'wild' yeasts.

A side issue that I have often wondered about is whether certain woods
when used to make baking utensils may have property of storing
cultures, in the instance of the medieval dough/kneading troughs for
example. A swedish sourdough baking friend of mine has told me the
traditonal method there to store a culture is to dip a birch
twig/branch in one's dough or poolish - and then innoculate subsquent
batch by stirring it with this branch.

I have seen several references here

http://ancienthistory.about.com/libr...y/aa070897.htm

and elsewhere that some Ancient egyptian and sumerian beer was actually
made from mashed up bread, whether baked especially for the purpose of
brewing or not is unclear. There is also much debate which came top as
the product of early serriculture development, bread or beer

I did get the job of baking ancient Egyptian bread for the a film for
the British museum once

http://tam.southspace.org.uk/patrick...ish% 20Museum

my most expensive bread ever, £50 for two small loaves! Unfortunately
they arrived on set too late and appear to have been substituted with
pitta bread form the local kebab shop.

laters
andy f

> Mike
>
> --
> ...The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
> system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...
>
> Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
> part time baker ICQ 16241692
> networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
> wordsmith

> I did get the job of baking ancient Egyptian bread for the a film for
> the British museum once
>
> http://tam.southspace.org.uk/patrick...ish% 20Museum
>
> my most expensive bread ever, £50 for two small loaves! Unfortunately
> they arrived on set too late and appear to have been substituted with
> pitta bread form the local kebab shop.

actually looking at
http://tam.southspace.org.uk/patrick/images/vm/vm11.jpg mayeb this is
my bread on set (sorry for my exageration of its price)

they were meant to be recreation of this fossilised ancient egyptian
loaf http://tam.southspace.org.uk/patrick/images/vm/vm11.jpg

I used Doves Farm Spelt - and they didn't taste very interesting and a
bit burnt

laters
andy

> laters
> andy f
>
> > Mike
> >
> > --
> > ...The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
> > system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...
> >
> > Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
> > part time baker ICQ 16241692
> > networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
> > wordsmith

> they were meant to be recreation of this fossilised ancient egyptian
> loaf http://tam.southspace.org.uk/patrick/images/vm/vm11.jpg

sorry, meant this one
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/breads5.jpg

from http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/bread.htm

laters
andy f

> I used Doves Farm Spelt - and they didn't taste very interesting and a
> bit burnt
>
> laters
> andy
>
> > laters
> > andy f
> >
> > > Mike
> > >
> > > --
> > > ...The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
> > > system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...
> > >
> > > Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
> > > part time baker ICQ 16241692
> > > networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
> > > wordsmith

> and elsewhere that some Ancient egyptian and sumerian beer was actually
> made from mashed up bread, whether baked especially for the purpose of
> brewing or not is unclear.

from the makers of Kirin beer

http://www.kirin.co.jp/english/r_d/egypt/recipe.html

laters
atty

Will wrote:

> TG wrote:
> >
> > Barm is a froth on fermenting malt liquor. The word isn't synonymous
> > with yeast culture. But now in the UK it is used, though not understood
> > by most, as the ferment that has mashed hops to keep the leaven sweet.
> > Here in the UK there isn't quite the same desire for sour breads. See
> > Barm. Wikipedia.
>
> Did you mean mashed barley?

Hi Will,

No, I did mean hops, sorry Will, I'm no brewer, perhaps I should have
said mashed grain with the addition of hops. This kind of true barm
'cake' or bread isn't easy to find these days. I'm lucky in that my dad
sold hundreds of them a day so it was commercially viable to make
proper ones.

I just want to underline here that until Pasteur the only brewing
medium was a naturally 'caught' variety. Some beer is still made this
way but not easy to find.

Jim

Kenneth wrote:

> On 25 Nov 2006 08:58:20 -0800, "TG" >
> wrote:
>
> >Barm is a froth on fermenting malt liquor. .
>
> Howdy,
>
> On the US side of the pond, "barm" is defined as the "yeasty
> froth" that forms on the surface of beer and similar
> beverages as they ferment.
>
> All the best,
> --
> Kenneth
Hi Kenneth

: -) is that not the same thing?

Jim

atty wrote:
> A side issue that I have often wondered about is whether certain woods
> when used to make baking utensils may have property of storing
> cultures, in the instance of the medieval dough/kneading troughs for
> example. A swedish sourdough baking friend of mine has told me the
> traditonal method there to store a culture is to dip a birch
> twig/branch in one's dough or poolish - and then innoculate subsquent
> batch by stirring it with this branch.
>
I think it was in "The Village Baker" that the author mentioned an older
woman of eastern European extraction who wanted to buy some flour from
him. If memory serves, he gave it to her, and she gave him a loaf of
her sourdough bread and showed him how she made it. She used the same
kneading board every time, and it seems the culture was in the wood. I
have to wonder how well she cleaned her kneading board with the
excruciating care the health department would have wanted..... and was
it the board or the residue on the board that propagated the culture.

Mike

--
....The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...

Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

"Mike Avery" > wrote in message
>
> ... Classic British beers are unhopped, which would make them more
> attractive to the baker. German beers started using hops around 739,
> while British beers remained unhopped until the 16th century.

Not so, hops were used in English beer in 1400. Before then ale was made,
which contained no hops. Until the C16th hops were imported from the Low
Countries.

Mary

Mary Fisher wrote:
> "Mike Avery" > wrote in message
>
>> ... Classic British beers are unhopped, which would make them more
>> attractive to the baker. German beers started using hops around 739,
>> while British beers remained unhopped until the 16th century.
>>
>
> Not so, hops were used in English beer in 1400. Before then ale was made,
> which contained no hops. Until the C16th hops were imported from the Low
> Countries.
>
There seems to be some debate over the matter. The dates I used were
from Wikipedia, though other sources agree with yours.

Originally, the distinction between ale and beer was the absence or
presence of hops. That distinction has faded as there are ales that
have hops, and some beers (notably German Alt biers) that do not. The
key distinction at this point seems to be that Ales are made with a top
fermenting yeast, while beers are made with bottom fermenting yeast.

Another distinction - most beers are lagered, or stored, to improve
their taste, while most ales are not.

Mike

--
....The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...

Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

Incidentally currently reading 'Crsut and Crumb' by Peter Reinhart

here he actually uses the word 'barm' throughout the book to describe a
style of quite wet acidic starter (compared to a levian) which he
acknowledges as being derived from Elizabeth David's use of the word.
However whereas Elizabeth David clearly uses the word as a yeast
culture taken from 'high yeast' in a beer brew and then used for
baking, Reinhart has dropped any direct connection to brewing.

Reinahart also asserts there are just two main baking strains of yeast,
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (commercial Baker's Yeast) and Saccharomyces
exiguus.

Quote

"S. exiguus isa wild yeast that lives on plants, fruits and grains. It
is the whilte bloom on grapes, plums and other fruit, and it also lives
on the outside of wheat berries. S. exiguus is slower acting and not as
aggressive as the commercially produced cerevisiae"

I am confused by this particularly as elsewehere in the book he
acknowledges Ed Wood as a collector of 'strains of yeast', not much
good if there are only two. Maybe he is simply misusing the term
'strain' - can one have strains of strains? surely not (scietifically
speaking)

quote from Ed Wood's website for instance re his Original San Fransisco
Sourdough culture

"The wild yeast was originally classified as a strain of Saccharomyces
exiguus, called Torulopsis holmii. It has been reclassified as Candida
milleri and again reclassified as Candida humilis. "

glad of any enlightenment

also interested in any commentary from anybody as to the siginficance
of the haploid or mating method of reproduction of yeast (as opposed to
sporation and budding) in relation to sourdough baking - various baking
books don't really mention as it was very poorly understood
sceintifically if at all till recently (as I understand it)

http://www.phys.ksu.edu/gene/a2f3.html

yours
andy Forbes

> I am confused by this particularly as elsewhere in the book he
> acknowledges Ed Wood as a collector of 'strains of yeast', not much
> good if there are only two. Maybe he is simply misusing the term
> 'strain' - can one have strains of strains? surely not (scientifically
> speaking)
>

seem to have answered my own question with a bit more research

maybe misquoted Reinhart somewhat, he does however refer to "two main
yeasts" for baking. 'Strains' are indeed scientifically speaking
variations of a particular yeast (species)

however this interesting paper
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...9785&tools=bot

does make it clear that from various San Fransisco bakeries' 'mother
sponges' the researchers identified additional yeast species as well as
four strains of S. exiguus

"The growth requirements of several yeasts isolated from San Francisco
sour
dough mother sponges were compared with those of bakers' yeast. The
sour
dough yeasts studied were one strain of Saccharomyces uvarum, one
strain of S.
inusitatus, and four strains of S. exiguus. S. inusitatus was the only
yeast found
to have an amino acid requirement, namely, methionine. All of the
yeasts had
an absolute requirement for pantothenic acid and a partial requirement
for
biotin. Inositol was stimulatory to all except bakers' yeast. All
strains of S.
exiguus required niacin and thiamine. Interestingly, S. inusitatus, the
only
yeast that required methionine, also needed folic acid. For optimal
growth of S.
exiguus in a molasses medium, supplementation with thiamine was
required."

what I can't really tell from this paper is whether they are saying one
'mother sponge' had a mixture of yeasts in it or that they found
amongst the bakeries at least 6 different San Fransisco Sourdough
cultures

re. the above research summary

pantothenic=vitamin B5
thiamine=vitamin B1
niacin=Vitamin B3

the best source of all these and inositol in bread baking is wheat and
other grain bran, particularly for thiamine. Substitution of polished
rice for wholegrain rice in Asian diet can result in B1 deficiency and
therefore cause the disease beriberi.

laters
andy forbes

Hi Andy,

atty wrote:
> Incidentally currently reading 'Crsut and Crumb' by Peter Reinhart
>
> here he actually uses the word 'barm' throughout the book to describe a
> style of quite wet acidic starter (compared to a levian) which he
> acknowledges as being derived from Elizabeth David's use of the word.
> However whereas Elizabeth David clearly uses the word as a yeast
> culture taken from 'high yeast' in a beer brew and then used for
> baking, Reinhart has dropped any direct connection to brewing.

My understanding from Reinhart, I'll have to check, is that he uses the
word as the original English word for leaven.
It begs the question if this is the case why we don't still use the
word except in South Lancashire for a *particular* type of roll.
The Wiki entry on Barm agrees with other entries of the word in other
dictionaries as being a scum on top of fermenting liquid. Don't forget
here that before Pasteur this still would be a naturally occurring
culture.

> Reinahart also asserts there are just two main baking strains of yeast,
> Saccharomyces cerevisiae (commercial Baker's Yeast) and Saccharomyces
> exiguus.
>
> Quote
>
> "S. exiguus isa wild yeast that lives on plants, fruits and grains. It
> is the whilte bloom on grapes, plums and other fruit, and it also lives
> on the outside of wheat berries. S. exiguus is slower acting and not as
> aggressive as the commercially produced cerevisiae"
>
> I am confused by this particularly as elsewehere in the book he
> acknowledges Ed Wood as a collector of 'strains of yeast', not much
> good if there are only two. Maybe he is simply misusing the term
> 'strain' - can one have strains of strains? surely not (scietifically
> speaking)

You're confusing strain with species. Strain is a general term. In
horticulture we never used the word, Genus - species - then
sub-species, variants or cultivars. In Biology a strain is a genetic
variant or subtype of some organism.

So although something could be in the same species or even sub-species
it could still be a different strain because it had, say better acid
tolerance.

>
> quote from Ed Wood's website for instance re his Original San Fransisco
> Sourdough culture

Don't forget that a starter culture is a mixture of different
organisms, so although two different cultures could contain essentially
the same organisms one might contain and extra variant with better
tolerance to some factor.

>
> "The wild yeast was originally classified as a strain of Saccharomyces
> exiguus, called Torulopsis holmii. It has been reclassified as Candida
> milleri and again reclassified as Candida humilis. "

I think that is just a bad use of that gray word 'strain'. Here we're
told that it is now calssified as a different genus altogether.
>
> glad of any enlightenment

Oh, if only I could make you enlightened, I wouldn't stop at just you,
: -), if only *I* were. lol

> also interested in any commentary from anybody as to the siginficance
> of the haploid or mating method of reproduction of yeast (as opposed to
> sporation and budding) in relation to sourdough baking - various baking
> books don't really mention as it was very poorly understood
> sceintifically if at all till recently (as I understand it)

Can't help you there Andy but it still won't help you make better
bread. : -)

> http://www.phys.ksu.edu/gene/a2f3.html
>
> yours
> andy Forbes

atty wrote:
> Incidentally currently reading 'Crsut and Crumb' by Peter Reinhart
>
> ...Reinahart also asserts ...
>
> ...I am confused by this
>
> ...glad of any enlightenment
>

Peter Reinhart is a fine writer and a poet. To date however, his
science opinions have been muddled at best. Do not depend on his
writings to help you understand the science of microbiology.

> also interested in any commentary from anybody as to the siginficance
> of the haploid or mating method of reproduction of yeast (as opposed to
> sporation and budding) in relation to sourdough baking - various baking
> books don't really mention as it was very poorly understood
> sceintifically if at all till recently (as I understand it)
>
>

Here, you may just as well read the poets for all the good it will do
you. Even real scientists seem to contradict themselves. Bake some
bread and don't worry about things that professionals can not explain in
a consistent manner to the ordinary folk. That is a sure sign that they
are confused as well.

Regards,

Charles

atty wrote:
> Incidentally currently reading 'Crsut and Crumb' by Peter Reinhart
>
I think "The Bread Builders" by Scott and Wing is much better from the
scientific, and baking, point of view, even though it only has one
recipe in it.

Some food for thought - almost all of which it *TOTALLY* irrelevant for
the practical baker. According to Scott and Wing, as well as Dr.
Michael Gaenzle (a well known sourdough researcher, formerly with the
Bread and Cereal Institute in Germany and now with a university in
Canada), there are something like 3 strains of yeast and 5 strains of
lactobacillus that can make reasonably stable sourdough cultures.

The lactobacillus bacteria produces most of the taste in sourdough
breads, and contributes to the rise to some degree. Different authors
say as little as 30% to as much as 50%. Without the bacteria, you have
a poolish or biga - a yeast based culture. In practice, the bacteria
WILL eventually find their way into a yeast culture, which is why yeast
bakeries keep making fresh poolish and biga rather than propagating it.
The bacteria also produce acidity. Enough acidity to kill most strains
of yeast. According to Dr. Wood, about 50 other compounds produced by
the bacteria have been identified that inhibit other bacteria. In
short, the bacteria produces antibiotics that they are immune to.

In the real world,. we don't have pure cultures. If you sent off your
culture to a biological lab and ask them, "what's in here?" they will
report that one strain of yeast and one strain of bacteria are dominant,
but many other strains are present. The "in the real world" comment is
because from what I read, most bakers in Germany buy a fresh culture
from a biological supply house every week. Delivery is on Friday, they
inoculate a large vat of flour and water at 100 to 120% hydration, and
then on Sunday they start using their new starter. The starter is a mix
of a pure yeast strain and a pure lactobacillus bacteria strain. I
don't know of any other country where this is common procedure and
attribute it to a German fascination with precision, even if the
precision isn't always necessary. (Side note... I am a German, so
please don't get your feathers ruffled about what you perceive as
anti-German comments.)

As long as the feeding conditions are consistent, and reasonably close
to optimum, the same bacteria and yeast will remain dominant. If the
baker changes how the culture is fed and handled, funny things can happen.

Dr. Gaenzle has said that in the end, all cultures he has tested from
around the world become about the same as the San Francisco sourdough
culture as characterized by Dr. Sugihara in his landmark papers. He has
also said that he has cultures that have been in the lab for 50 years
without changing.

Now then... a quick summary before we continue. It isn't just the yeast
that makes sourdough sourdough. It's a symbiosis between any one of 3
or so yeasts and 5 or so bacteria. This suggests that there are
something like 15 potentially stable cultures. It isn't clear what the
lesser strains in a culture do with regards to providing taste and such,
or how much difference sub-strains make. And, to the home baker, that
isn't very important.

So, what sort of funny things can happen when you don't feed your
starter well? In my classes I tell students that a starter is like a
child. If you don't feed a child for a while, they get cranky. If you
don't feed them for a longer while, they sicken and die. One thing that
happens is that different strains of yeast or bacteria can take over.
One thing I have had happen twice, and have heard of all too often, is
that some strains of bacteria can digest protein. So, if they starches
in the starter are exhausted, the protein eating bacteria have a
survival advantage and take over the culture. This causes the culture,
and bread dough, to become far too slack. If you start aggressively
feeding such a culture, it will seem to start behaving correctly again.
However, my experience is that the next time you skip a feeding, the
protein eating bacteria will come back again. The best bet here is to
discard the starter and get a new one. When a starter has a pronounced
acetone (or fingernail polish remover) smell, that is a sign you may
have a changed culture.

On a less serious note, a culture can change it's flavor and rise
characteristics, although that can also be due to a change in the flour
it is fed.

For a practical baker, my suggestions are simpler. As long as your
starter is at room temperature, feed your starter no less than twice a
day. Feed your starter enough to double its size with each feeding.
Discard some of the starter so you don't wind up with vast quantities of
starter. Feed your starter 1 part of water to 1 part of flour by weight
or 2 parts of water to 3 parts of water by volume. When you aren't
baking regularly, refrigerate your starter. Put your starter in the
refrigerator immediately after you feed it. When you revive your
refrigerated starter, make sure you give it at least 3 good feedings
before you use it.

Hope that helps,
Mike

--
....The irony is that Bill Gates claims to be making a stable operating
system and Linus Torvalds claims to be trying to take over the world...

Mike Avery mavery at mail dot otherwhen dot com
part time baker ICQ 16241692
networking guru AIM, yahoo and skype mavery81230
wordsmith

> I can't find the reference, but either in his blog or the recipe tester
> materials he's sent out for his forthcoming whole-grains book, Peter has
> stopped using the word barm, explaining that he's doing so because he
> misunderstood the original meaning of the word.

fair enough, he attributes his use in Crust and Crumb most immediately
to an English microbiologist friend of his Monica Spiller quote "and
Monica felt it her British duty to review the good name".

Incidentally though Reinhart probably rightly rates Elizabeth David's
English Yeast Bakery book highly in promulgating what he describes as
the 'Bread Revolution" and great as the book is on many accounts, David
appears ignorant of sourdough bakery (in the sense of keeping a culture
etc etc) making only a few small passing mentions and quoting re
"American sourdough" recipe "I find the whole process rather
unrewarding".

laters
atty

> I don't believe you'll see the word "barm" in his next book. He's used it in
> the past to mean "mother starter."
> --
> Jeff Miller

hi TG
> > also interested in any commentary from anybody as to the siginficance
> > of the haploid or mating method of reproduction of yeast (as opposed to
> > sporation and budding) in relation to sourdough baking - various baking
> > books don't really mention as it was very poorly understood
> > sceintifically if at all till recently (as I understand it)
>
> Can't help you there Andy but it still won't help you make better
> bread. : -)

clearly if you know that scientifically most of the yeasts present in
San Fransisco Sourdough cultures need thiamine, then it suggests, as
would be case in France with Type 75 flour for 'rustic style soudough'
its good to use flour with at least some bran remaining

on haploid or mating reproduction of yeast

> > http://www.phys.ksu.edu/gene/a2f3.html

as you can see in the diagram quoted above two spores of opposite sex
need to meet (and find energy source) in order to progress to the
budding/exponential mode of yeast reproduction. If one is interested
in trying to re-capture yeasts from locations where baking happened in
past times, as I am from this Catalan oven 2nd gallery here
http://www.myplot.org/oven/, as Ed Wood speculates whether he managed
to do on the Giza plain, then understanding this yeast phase seems a
good idea. Can yeast species cross breed at all in this haploid phase,
or only sex between strains of one yeast, or only between one strain?

micro movement, particularly in this haploid phase of reproduction,
with spores manoveuring or at least revolving some internal structures
into position for sex is being increasingly observed by researchers. Is
it possible that this is critical in the No Knead method? I saw someone
here questioning how on earth gluten would get aligned and developed
without kneading and this just might be part of explanation.

additionally if you check this paper and other similar recent research
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...medid=12429834
you will see that yeast colonies can send signals to each other
inhibiting growth in the direction of each other. Can this be one clue
to the increase in variety of bubble size in the various no knead
methods? Maybe the lack of kneading plus extreme wetness plus the small
quantity of original inoculation used and long fermentation would
suggest colonies can get going in a way that thoroughly dispersed by
kneading, stiffer and more yeast saturated doughs don't do. Maybe
particularly big bubbles are particularly big colonies that have seen
off with these signals competing adjacent colonies

so you see maybe new scientific understanding has some role in making
better bread

laters
atty

hi mike

thanks for another informative mail

> attribute it to a German fascination with precision, even if the
> precision isn't always necessary. (Side note... I am a German, so
> please don't get your feathers ruffled about what you perceive as
> anti-German comments.)

I think Joe Ortiz in The Village Baker talks of German bakers building
up dough batches from thumb sized piece of saved dough over several
days - I certainly had an enormous loaf from the best baker in Linz
Austria http://www.baeckerei-brandl.at recently which I then took to
France and fed 6 people with for over a fortnight when it was still
good for toast at the very least - whether as a result of such methods
I don't know - I am no great practitioner of rye or rye mix baking.

I checked today in the FAQ and found this
http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/whatisth...logyofsan.html which lists
the 'zoo' of yeasts and lactobacilli identified in a German
sourdough/rye culture (Certainly I never add rye to my mother starter
unless I want to change its behavior radically - at one stage I used to
keep two, a rye fed and a non-rye fed starter).

do you believe yeast strains of yeast can be captured from spores
hanging around locations where baking previously took place? One doctor
friend of mine suggested if I could find a neolithic baking site it
should be possible to recreate their baking culture and that he thought
any resulting yeast would be a very valuable (literally as in £ and $)
scientific discovery.

yours
atty

On November 28, 2006, Mike Avery wrote:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.f...f658299aa26448

The last paragraph in the above appears to contain a typo:

>...Feed your starter 1 part of water to 1 part of flour by weight
>or 2 parts of water to 3 parts of water by volume....

I believe that Mike meant 2 parts water to 3 parts flour by volume...

Ray

atty wrote:

> do you believe yeast strains of yeast can be captured from spores
> hanging around locations where baking previously took place? One doctor
> friend of mine suggested if I could find a neolithic baking site it
> should be possible to recreate their baking culture and that he thought
> any resulting yeast would be a very valuable (literally as in £ and $)
> scientific discovery.
>
> yours
> atty

Hi Andy,

isn' t that whay Ed Wood did?

I just wrote a really great : -) post to you on the other topic, damn
thing error'd when I was previewing it. I'll try to write again later.
Note to self, copy all before going to next page.

Jim

TG wrote:
> atty wrote:
>
> > do you believe yeast strains of yeast can be captured from spores
> > hanging around locations where baking previously took place? One doctor
> > friend of mine suggested if I could find a neolithic baking site it
> > should be possible to recreate their baking culture and that he thought
> > any resulting yeast would be a very valuable (literally as in £ and $)
> > scientific discovery.
> >
> > yours
> > atty
>
> Hi Andy,
>
> isn' t that whay Ed Wood did?

he put his culture trap on the balcony of his hotel, which if you know
the hotel in question is several kilometres from the site he was at -
rather hit and miss at best. My doc was thinking of something a bit
closer to where dough would have been made up. I thought I knew a
deserted neolithic hilltop compound above the catalan oven I referred
to elsewhere. However when I revisited recently my memory had
considerably embroidered its extent, turned out to be little more than
an overnight animal pen and/or a Carlist war lookout post.

laters
atty

> I just wrote a really great : -) post to you on the other topic, damn
> thing error'd when I was previewing it. I'll try to write again later.
> Note to self, copy all before going to next page.
>
> Jim