Secrets of Sourdough: Science on the SPOT | KQED
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- Опубліковано 30 січ 2025
- Since the Gold Rush days when prospectors baked loaves in their encampments, sourdough bread has been a beloved favorite of the Bay Area. But what is true sourdough bread? It's more than just the tangy flavor. Science on the SPOT visits with Maria Marco of UC Davis and baker Eduardo Morrell to learn more about the secret science of sourdough.
Are you experimenting with baking your own bread right now? What are your home tips?
The best tip I could give to beginners is to line the baskets with parchment paper and put the dough seam side down. Sourdough is usually highly hydrated dough and as such its a pain to work with if you dont have the experience. This way you can just transfer the dough into a baking vessel with the parchment paper.
Also, the more starter you use and the less it ferments the less tangy the bread will taste. My sourdough only gets noticeably sour when its 2-3 days old and didn't get eaten for some reason. Still makes wonderful bruscheta or grilled cheese. A staled sourdough grilled in a little bit of olive oil is amazing.
Great intro to baking KQED! As for tips. Don't give up people. Keep learning and trying no matter what.
@@mugensamurai Thanks for the reminder.
I let the dough rise for a really long time. In the fridge overnight and then most all of the next day. Before it goes in the oven I score it and spray it with water. I also put some ice and water in the oven to create steam, which makes the crust really nice. It's good to start the oven off hotter and then back off the heat to finish the bake too. I love baking sourdough bread. So good.
My starter is two months old. Gave half to my mother 3 weeks ago.
Got mine big n bubbly. So at
5 o'clock this morning I got my dough process started and I'm trying my hand at potatoe bread. Can't wait
In 2003 my husband Glenn and I went to a Bread Bakers Conference at the Headlands for the Arts with Allan Scott and met Eduardo, the head baker. He shared his Starter with me and I have been feeding and using my Starter, which I have named "Eduardo," since then. I teach sourdough bread classes in Paradise, CA and "Eduardo" is THE topic of my class. Every student takes some of "Eduardo" home with them, and, hopefully, I have instilled the love of making artisan sourdough bread to them. Most of my students continue to make bread and, in turn, they share "Eduardo" and the love of baking with others. Eduardo, you have enhanced my life and I thank you!
Lol...I just made a sourdough starter...my husband said I was becoming obsessed with my starter over its first week of growing....said I looked like a mad scientist...it was so fun. I want to teach my little grandson when he comes to visit this summer.
Bakers are such hard workers! It's amazing!
All cooks. My admiration goes out to anyone who works in cooking.
U have to have an appreciation 4 these Bakers
And it's fun, I can tell you that :)
They work hard because they Knead the dough! ;-)
Seems like good job security. People will always knead bread.
I'm a professional baker and I enjoyed this video presentation. Thank you! It's wonderful to see your passion for your craft. Keep making dough!
Finally someone saying Sourdough isn’t “Sour”. I got my first Starter in Alaska *1987) from a guy whose Grandfather had been a Gold Rush “Sourdough” and his family had kept that starter going all those years. I’ve kept mine going ever since and have given it to friends from the West Coast to the East Coast and it makes the best breads with Wonderful flavor ,but not the “Sour” taste of commercial . Great video. Thanks.
I own and run a gluten-free micro bakery here in Ontario. I am working on trying to devise a dough that has enough elasticity to do a sourdough version, but finding it very challenging. Seeing this video-and the amazing final product was inspirational! Back to the "drawing board" I go!
Just fed my starter. Loved the video and the way this Artisan baker makes his bread.
Angel from the Bay
My first job was a dishwasher in a restaurant that had it's own baker - an old Polish guy. He made yeast breads, but I wish I could go back in time and ask him to teach me everything he knew. Single handedly he turned out huge quantities of breads of all kinds and rolls. His forearms were like prize fighter's from heaving those mounds of dough.
Who clicks thumbs down on such a great and delicious video? Are there people who just troll like that on all videos? Or are they taking "offense" to this? Somehow? I don't get it. Anyway, I love this video, makes me very hungry. I want this bread right now and all the other fermented goodies.
That was so darned excellent!! Thank you for putting forth enjoyable knowledge. Bravo
I really appreciate bakers, they work so hard! I made my first Einkorn sourdough bread today :)
i really like the baskets for self molding
Bannetons
Yea, for the bakery, it is less work to make uniform shape & size ....Working 'smart'....I guess he's learned a few tricks over the years....haha....
Beautiful bread! I just love his bakery set-up
I started my sourdough starter about 15 years ago and keep replenishing it. it gives it a good taste and a big rise when baking, you can make a fair starter in about 16 hours that will give you a good rise, overnight starter is good with some whole wheat or rye flour in it., great stuff
Love the science behind it and how you integrated it into your bread making. Cheers..
This is an amazing video ! I love the mix of SCIENCE and ART your are showing us !!! Great!
I've been a baker and pastry chef during my career. Seeing this makes me miss it, although I still bake at home for myself. What a cool old mixer! I've never seen on like that. I also love the antique scale he uses.
Excellent Video ! I could watch it all day... Thank You !
This was the video that made me want to start making my own sourdough. I've been doing it for about six months now, and I couldn't be happier.
Have you still kept up with it 6 years later mah dude?
who gives this thumbs down??? may be some one who wanted more teaching on how to exactly do it - but that was not the purpose of the video
keep baking man!!!! loved it!
+kleineroteHex Baking isn't all that difficult. Start with good 100% natural and organic ingredients, different flours absorb water differently so this might take some trial and error but eventually you'll figure out the hydration %, finally....the dough is never just a dough...its alive, its an entity...treat it accordingly and the most important thing......Hearth ovens, are the only ovens.
Read the first sentence of my previous comment, I too bake bread using commercial flour, active dry yeast packets and a small conventional oven(with an improvised tile hearth) from time to time, Bread making is centuries old(don't think I can make it sound any more difficult/easier than it is) Although there's flavor profiles you cannot replicate in a domestic oven(rather than a traditional wood fired hearth oven) and certainly not, especially if you don't have that super hot hearth for a good oven spring. If people are so easily dissuaded by some random dude on the internet...I wonder where mankind's heading. Don't blame my interest in the subject if you have trouble picking up new information about something.
+ Nirmal Sirur - 'baking isn't all the difficult' then proceeds to tell people they need to go out of their way and spend lots of money to buy ingredients that aren't technically needed, except to fit into a narrow idea of what is acceptable by food snobs.
kleineroteHex awesome video! Pure passion!!
Your kitchen is absolutely beautiful! I love everything about this video. Thank you!
what a beautiful video, one of the best I've ever seen about sourdough!
i like it when there is something like this in youtube :)
This is a very nice video! I would love to work in a place like this. Right now I'm experimenting with bread and just starting to think about sourdough. I wish I knew more about how this person makes the culture.
"digestible", that's the key. I can make nice flavorful loaves and pizza crusts with commercial yeast and a pre-ferment, but they leave me with a stomach ache or ill feeling. When I let a natural dough ferment overnight in the fridge, even for pizza dough, not only is it sweet, malty and delicious, but very digestible with no sick feeling stomach or intestinal issues. So many people are cutting gluten or bread in general out of their diets and find themselves feeling much better. I think you can still eat bread in moderation and feel great, you just need to let it ferment for 24 hours and let those wild enzymes do their work. Humans ate naturally fermented bread for thousands of years without issue, until commercial yeast and high speed, profit driven baking started a few decades ago.
Same here. Heavy breads like bagel give me instant acid reflux, but the artisan bread I make myself with dough that is fermented overnight on the counter - I can eat a whole loaf in a sitting without any problem.
Very interesting. ..❤
elephantcup a
I have found that what I thought was a gluten allergy was actually my body's reaction to pesticides in the flour. If I eat bread from the standard supermarket, then my intestines seek revenge on me. If I eat only bread made with 100% organic flour, then my intestines are happy.
@@Automedon2 Well, sourdough is only flour, water and salt, Its no wonder its a lot more digestible. Its as natural as it gets. As opposed to store bought bread, which will have at least 10+ ingredients to prolong its shelf life and make it easier to make.
these are gorgeous works of art
I love this video, it makes bread a natural thing, not a complicated project.
I started growing my first sourdough today. I've made dutch oven breads up til now with commercial yeast but now expanding out into artisan sourdough breads. The journey begins...although 1 week to wait...for the first batch to be ready...bread in this vid looks superb...he is right....its a bit of biology and chemistry and physics rolled into one...the physics end being the stretching and turning of the bread
Truly brilliant! Only those who share the same passion in the creation of bread can truly understand this chap! How I would love to work for you...for free! Let us break bread!
Excellent video!!!! I learnt a lot today...thanks for sharing everyone's knowledge!!!!
Great video presentation. Love it. Thank you!
The smell in there from all the baked bread must be heaven...
I watched this video at least 10 times. Thank you!
People were making sourdough long before the Gold Rush. In France the sourdough concept is called "levain" and has been used for hundreds of years. The famous Boudin Bakery of SF were French immigrant bakers.
Sourdough was found in Egypt and Pompeii, from thousands of years ago.
What an awesome bakery and beautiful video ~~ Thank you! ~~ ♡♥♡
This feller is a credit to his craft. True magick. Breadmaking-microcosmic allegory right there. Awesome.
jim blim ,I like your comment and you smile in the sunshine ,greetings from New Zealand
I have discovered a breadmaker in me. I do not understand it fully, but it seems to me when I bake homemade breads they make me feel good and happy. Is there a gene for this? Why some people such as myself are into bread and bread making? :)
What an AMAZING video...thank you ! We're also bakers of sourdough..Cheer you !!! Have fun with your love bread !
So nice when science and art meet. How cool that Eduardo embraces and enjoys the science behind his art. His work is a beautiful amalgm of creativity, science and history. What a great guy! I'm a microbiologist and love making my own sourdough starters at home. Microorganisms are the most incredible and diverse entities, which mostly bring us health and benefits, but the bad bugs that make us sick (pathogens) give bacteria a bad rep. The overwhelming majority of bacteria, though, are not pathogens. Eduardo's work reminds us of that.
I make sour dough bread from starter I started almost a year ago now. It was really, really sour for the first month but after that doesn't have a strong sour or tangy taste any more. I've learned over the years time how to keep my culture strong. There was a point it was getting weak till I learned to keep the dough out for three or four hours after feeding it new flour before placing it back in the frig. I mix with bottled or distilled water as to not kill my yeast with the chlorinated city water. The real hardest part with making bread is having the right consistency. I often make it too moist so it rises and flattens over the edge of the bread pan but most the time I get it right. The sour dough way isn't the exact science I had down prior to when I used the quick rise yeast before. I'm just trying not to get lazy with caring for my culture so I don't have to go back to the quick rise yeast.
Try not to use a bread pan. Shape the bread by hand, using a bannetton if you have one, and cook either on a stone or in a covered vessel like a Dutch Oven. Although heavy is best, I have a thin steel pot with a lid from Germany that must be about 60 years old. It bakes bread beautifully!
One thing I recently learned you can do is dry out some of your starter. Then if something goes terribly wrong and the one you are caring for dies, you can rehydrate the dried one and move on without totally starting over!
My starter is about 18 months old and sometimes it goes without feeding for 3 weeks. In those occasions I just feed it twice the day before and leave it in room temperature. It gets alive and feisty in no time. And I always feed it before baking. I bake mine in a dutch oven and it comes out flawlessly every time.
Thank you for such such a feel good and educational video.
This is an excellent video! Thank you for sharing it with us!
Three weeks ago I had never baked a sourdough. Now, I have two different, self made starters ready to go. I have never had bread like this before, and I absolutely love it. At $1.50 pr. loaf it can't be beat. I've given some away and gotten great feedback on them. Encouraging! It's just for fun, but goes great with beer brewing. Lactobacillus is used in beer brewing as well, but I'm not sure if the Sanfranciscensis species is though.
I would love to visit your establishment. Have been been making sourdough bread for over 6 months. I can't seem to get it to rise very well but I'm always happy with the flavour. Making sourdough bread is very satisfying.
What flour are you using?
What an amazing video, love the simplicity of how Real Sourdough is made! Love the kneading machine and the bread baskets that gave the bread that unique look.
I remember my grandmother making a sourdough starter using old grape skins, flour, sugar, and water in a glass jar covered with cheesecloth. She used it to make our homemade pizzas, and pancakes.
Excellent vid. having made my own bread for some years am going to hit the sourdough route. Great oven....
I've made sourdough starters a few times but it never had that "San Francisco" tang. So I bought a SF sourdough starter and as an experiment I made another starter from scratch at home in Chicago. Both are very active and as it turns out the SF starter is more sour than my own so I guess that's why SF sourdough is so well known, they have the special native yeast in the air. But now I have it to and have my own Chicago style sourdough, not as tangy but still awfully good.
gotta admire someone who routinely wakes up to do a 16 hour work day, but still be passionate about what they do.
Who else can just SMELL the bread when it shows him baking it? Mmmmmmm! I am hungry...
oh my gosh, how much starter do you use every day and how do you maintain that large an amount of starter? beautiful loaves of bread and awesome video- very relaxing to watch!
Wow! I so wish I could purchase your bread at my local farmers market
quality video, thanks for this
I like the casual tap on the bottom to check for doneness at 7:29..
Nine year old video and it’s beautiful to watch
Yummm, thank you for sharing. Please pass the butter 😊
What size banneton was using really good video !
Made my first two loaves today with my very own wild starter! It is delicious! Just starting, watch out!! If I could just get my spouse to build a wood oven...
I love this!
Learning how to make my yeast starter in a cold house - challenging. Also I read that Semolina flour is a healthier flour. I baked my first loaf but the yeast wasn't strong enough so it didn't rise like it was supposed to but the crust tasted delicious. My starter now is starting to bubble so I am going to keep my eye on it and see how it changes. Looking forward to cutting my first slice.
I've taken a thick handtowel and doubled it over and wrapped it around the jar for a little extra warmth. I noticed my started picked right up after I did that.
My house is so cold I tried all kinds of things but I didn't think about doubling the hand towel. I finally found a place where my starter is happy - a cabinet above the oven. So I baked my first loaf a couple of days ago and the bread tastes so delicious. I now have plenty of starter for a next loaf so I will just leave it there fermenting and my loaf should taste even better. I love the idea of baking my own bread. My starter didn't really rise like the videos but it got really thick and bubbly so I used it anyway and the dough raised twice so I was happy
citicat2. Add more flour and water every time you use some and your starter will last forever in the fridge. A girlfriend's mother had some that had been passed down in the family for 70 years.
Get some pineapple juice because less acidic and add to flour and start your yeast. Use water but not chlorinated but it'll take longer, but 4-10 days and you can start making real sourdough. You don't have to knead if you wait and do a few steps to activate gluten. Keep feeding your yeast and make bread when you want. Use any flour and blend for bread if you like. Your yeast will get as sour as you make it but that's where the flavor comes from, the bacteria, same with cheese. Eat your healthy yeast, molds, fungus and fermented foods and make them in your kitchen.
That bread looks amazing!
Amazing. Thanks for posting
If you live near Bath or Bristol, there are loads of places, in fact most cities have a couple of artisanal bakers. Increasingly people are demanding more than 'toast bread' made using the Chorleywood method, and even supermarkets are jumping on the wagon. Make your own sourdough it's easy, my current main starter is about 5 years old now and starting to get a rel personality!!
WOW! I love it! Where were you all my life?! ;)
Wow, you are awesome. The whole video has a sense of beauty.
wonderful story of a passionate artist
Oh so very informative. Didn't know sourdough bread bought in the store isn't actually sourdough. Eduardo, those are some very beautiful sunflower seed bread loaves.
great video! thx! can someone tell me where/when the fermentation of the flour takes place? Is the growing of the dough the result of fermentation? if yes, how long does the dough have to riese to ferment compleately? thx?
The fermenting happens because you add a starter culture to the bread mix and then leave it for several hours. You need to make the starter culture first - at least 2 weeks before you want to use it to make bread - before that, the yeast growth really isn't able to support raising bread.
Once you have made the starter culture and are ready to make bread, how long it takes depends on the temperature where you live. Warmer weather and the yeast are more active. 12 - 24 hours is not unusual.
Great video, thank you!
loved this video...
Very nice video, awesome looking bread. Way to do things right!
Thank you. Wonderful work
Actually they tested sourdoughs from across the world fairly recently and found Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis was the dominant leaven across the board, it is so named as it was first isolated there, where there is a particular tradition of making sourdough, there are always going to be small regional variations which affect flavour, but the primary constituant is remarkably constant.
love that mixer
NICE! Very informative.
I’m trying to make my own leaven now, but is not bubbling and this is day 4. I don’t even feed the leaven every day in my attempt to increase the yeast. Do I keep it warmer than room temperature?
beautiful edit, story , and finished output (bread) ! wish i can buy some of that ! keep up the work.. follow up story on this baker? now have brick and mortar shop?
That's a good question! We'll have to do some research.
can you explain to me how do you put the steam in the oven? what's that tool?
I know!
I liked that cool steaming tool.
Like...how does it not evaporate too quickly?.?
When baking sourdough in my home oven I use a shallow tray filled with rolled up tea towels and about a liter of boiling water. You can pour a half a cup of boiling water into the bottom of your oven too (carefully) but better yet just use a Dutch Oven with a lid and let the trapped moisture in the dough do the work. Don't forget to take the lid off for the last 5 to 10 minutes
In business, self-contained products that don't need many outside sources, are cheaper to produce and therefore produce more profit for the business selling that particular product. Instead of purchasing yeast from a large factory, flour from another, lactic acid from yet another, a small bakery can use "old school" methods to get everything they need from flour and water. Then they can sell this as artisan bread and make more profit.
Morell’s artisan approach is highlighted in the recently published “D.I.Y. Delicious” by local cookbook author Vanessa Barrington, and was featured on KQED’s science program QUEST
What are you using to steam the breads in the oven?
water
For anyone who is considering this as a hobby, DO IT! I've had a starter going for about 5 months now and make sourdough all the time. Made sourdough baguettes last night. Making and slicing sandwich bread is also way easier than you think. Its great busy work and better than TV.
I have been baking sourdough bread now for about 6 months and I am still learning .. I am interested in trying some different sourdough starters . do you have any suggestions ?
Vaginal discharge has been used historically.
Juan Pedro Yummy!
I would lay in a recliner in this kitchen while they worked so I could smell the fragrance from the baking bread.
John Galt Right?! And I'd be right there with you. I love the smell of bread baking.
The key here is "recliner". lol
I worked 50 years in the bakery, I have never seen a mixing like that.
the smell would be incredible :) thanks for sharing
Sourdough!! =) My most favorite bread, love it. Actually is the only bread I do eat when I eat bread. ;)
Jonathan, can small bakeries produce malt based on the same simple methods you are talking about?
what wood are the bowls at 2:57 made of? I once bought one of these but the type of wood was unknown.
rattan or cane
LOL...I feel betrayed! As a proud San Franciscan who thought those old-time local bakeries (Toscana, Parisian, Larraburu, etc.) were making authentic sourdough french which you couldn't get anywhere else but in the Bay Area. Now you say they added "stuff" to their dough to give it its flavor? HORRORS!
Now I live in Oregon-and what they call sourdough is anything but. I can't get true sourdough bread in any local super. So I"m making my very first loaves of home-made sourdough in my own kitchen and using genuinely wild (though thoroughly Oregonian) yeasts. I kind of stumbled into this little piece, looking for tips. Anyway, I'm ready to bake, so.....here goes! :)
Yeah it was a bit arrogant of them to call it San Francisco when it's an ancient technique (unless they are referring to the actual Saint Francis, of course)
Great job sir keep it going
When I started baking my own sourdough. I stated to realise how boring other breads taste
😂😂😂 Hear, hear!
It is absolutely true
Sourdough is also agreeable to your bodily system. People w/ moderate celiac disease can consume properly fermented wheat bread that is sourdough.
Great video! So where did the yeast/bacteria for sour dough first come from?
The flour mostly, some say it’s in the air. Maybe it’s both.
you are an inspiration!!!
That dough looks appetizing enough to me.
5:23, what a breathtaking work place!!
You said the San Francisco bakers were adding some kind of acid to achieve a sour taste. As I recall, though, the bags the loaf came in listed only flour, salt and yeast on the bag. Nothing else.
My current sourdough starter is 12 years old. I have had wonderful success with it, but I've wondered why it never tasted like the bread I bought on the Wharf in the City. Now I know.
Yup, most sourdough bread in SF is not real sourdough. Sadly, as someone who lived there for many years, most don't know what it tastes like
12 years?! I must admit, I'm a tad bit jealous! When I was married my ex liked sourdough, but wouldn't tolerate the 'aroma' in the house, especially in winter. Then after my divorce, my daughter didn't like sourdough, so I stopped making it :( Now many years later, she loves it, as does my grandson. time to get a starter started again!!
wonderful !!! thank you for sharing