![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yeast Diary - Day 1
Apr. 13th, 2020 08:41 pmThanks to the coronavirus quarantine, people have been stuck indoors and trying to avoid going out. That means that the whole concept of cooking has changed, for some people dramatically.
In the before-time, people would run down to the store and maybe get something pre-made. Fried chicken perhaps, or a couple of side dishes. You could always go back midweek if you needed to. But in these heady days of going out every week, or every couple of weeks, for supplies, that's just not viable. Not to mention, you've got a lot more time to cook when you're not commuting. So more people have been making stuff from scratch than in a couple of generations at least.
That means ingredients are now a premium. Notably: yeast.
And that's a huge problem for me, since I bake my own bread and really wanted to try making homemade "pizza pockets" (read: small calzones) this week. So what do?
Make my own yeast!
There's a Twitter thread that went viral from a yeast geneticist, who explains in kind of a rough way how to make your own. It seems like i don't have much of a choice, so I decided to try it out. And just because I don't really trust myself to do it right (justified, given I've failed at sourdough pretty badly in the past), I'm also trying a recipe from a different source. The latter recommends keeping track of what I'm doing, so here goes.
JAR 1
Combined roughly 3 tablespoons unbleached white flour, water and raisins in a jar, which I placed in the hutch over Roomie's desk. It's the warmest place in the house, so it should be fine there. the jar seals with a latch, which I may undo, since I've read you need to give the air a chance to escape. So if it's slightly, uh...ajar, that should be fine.
Nothing to report on today in any case. It's basically lumpy white mud.
JAR 2
A mason jar with a plastic screw lid. Combined 4 tablespoons raisins with a tablespoon of maple syrup, and 3/4 filled the jar with lukewarm water. The top is loosely screwed on so gas should be able to escape easily.
At this point, I have soggy raisins.
OVERVIEW
Nervous about the whole experiment. I harbour something of a resentment toward sourdough for being much more finicky, difficult, complicated, and far outside my comfort zone than it has any right to be. Although from what I've read, fruit-based yeasts which aren't real sourdough are a bit closer in results to the store-bought type. We'll see in a few days, hopefully.
In the before-time, people would run down to the store and maybe get something pre-made. Fried chicken perhaps, or a couple of side dishes. You could always go back midweek if you needed to. But in these heady days of going out every week, or every couple of weeks, for supplies, that's just not viable. Not to mention, you've got a lot more time to cook when you're not commuting. So more people have been making stuff from scratch than in a couple of generations at least.
That means ingredients are now a premium. Notably: yeast.
And that's a huge problem for me, since I bake my own bread and really wanted to try making homemade "pizza pockets" (read: small calzones) this week. So what do?
Make my own yeast!
There's a Twitter thread that went viral from a yeast geneticist, who explains in kind of a rough way how to make your own. It seems like i don't have much of a choice, so I decided to try it out. And just because I don't really trust myself to do it right (justified, given I've failed at sourdough pretty badly in the past), I'm also trying a recipe from a different source. The latter recommends keeping track of what I'm doing, so here goes.
JAR 1
Combined roughly 3 tablespoons unbleached white flour, water and raisins in a jar, which I placed in the hutch over Roomie's desk. It's the warmest place in the house, so it should be fine there. the jar seals with a latch, which I may undo, since I've read you need to give the air a chance to escape. So if it's slightly, uh...ajar, that should be fine.
Nothing to report on today in any case. It's basically lumpy white mud.
JAR 2
A mason jar with a plastic screw lid. Combined 4 tablespoons raisins with a tablespoon of maple syrup, and 3/4 filled the jar with lukewarm water. The top is loosely screwed on so gas should be able to escape easily.
At this point, I have soggy raisins.
OVERVIEW
Nervous about the whole experiment. I harbour something of a resentment toward sourdough for being much more finicky, difficult, complicated, and far outside my comfort zone than it has any right to be. Although from what I've read, fruit-based yeasts which aren't real sourdough are a bit closer in results to the store-bought type. We'll see in a few days, hopefully.
