Daily MoS: Let’s Get That Bread

As did so many of us, I attempted to make a sourdough starter at the beginning of the apocalypse- er, pandemic. I have celiac disease, so making a gluten free sourdough starter was tricky. I made a few… not inedible… loaves of bread. At the very least, they weren’t any worse than gluten free bread that used yeast to rise, and I had… bread… for the apocalypse.

I’m pretty sure it’s not worth it for this gluten free mess. But I was curious what was in these jars everyone was growing and instagramming and naming and picking out tiny hats for.

Today in your Moment of Science… let’s get that bread.

Sourdough was likely one of the earliest types of leavened breads. Though we haven’t ruled it out with cameras and such, it strains credulity at best to think prehistoric man ran to the store for a packet of Fleischmann’s. Though we do have some chemical ways to manipulate bread to rise, such as baking soda that produces carbon dioxide upon heating, biologics do most of the heavy leavening.

The process by which yeast causes bread to rise is simple fermentation, same as the Bacchus granted miracle that gave us wine (here’s where we get to the weird part where I found myself googling “why doesn’t bread get us drunk,” yes I’m 37 and I have a masters degree). Yeast, a single cell fungi, eats sugar and craps out alcohol and carbon dioxide. Which makes it at least as productive as some members of congress from Florida. It’s also why you often see sugar listed as an ingredient in bread; it’s yeast food, not a sugar industry plot to hook you on sugar… probably. And though deep in my heart I knew the answer, I asked… what happens to the alcohol in this process? Of course, it gets baked off, and we’re just left with those wonderful CO2 bubbles, trapped in a grain matrix.

But… sourdough? You add flour and water, keep doing that, and eventually bread makes itself. It’s like magic, but eventually you can shove some bacon into it.

The composition of sourdough varies one to the next. The sour flavor comes from amalgamations of over fifty known lactic acid producing bacteria (from the genus Lactobacillus) in combination with over 20 yeast species (from genuses Saccharomyces and Candida) in the blend. And how do they get there? The bacteria and yeast are naturally occurring in the grain, and making a sourdough starter is essentially growing yourself a whole culture of bacteria and yeast. The slow process of feeding and developing your starter in a warm place for several days to grow it into a bubbly moist jar of sourdough starter? You’re cultivating yourself an entire universe of bacteria, fungus, and their beer farts.

Those beer farts make your bread rise.

At least you won’t be alone- or hungry- for the apocalypse.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your high carb daily Moment of Science.

Liked it? Learned something? Made you think? Take a second to support SciBabe on Patreon!