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Sourdough As Good As Gold

Sourdough As Good As Gold image Sourdough As Good As Gold image
Parent Issue
Month
September
Year
1991
Copyright
Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held By
Agenda Publications
OCR Text

Many people mistakenly believe that sourdough bread originated in the California Gold Rush days. Actually, it was the word "sourdough" that became legendary as it became synonymous with "prospector." The fortyniners always seemed to have a container of sourdough with them providing a simple and economical way to prepare a meal. Since freezing winter weather could kill a starter, its continued life became a constant concern of the "sourdough." He would keep it wrapped in his pack all day and even slept with it at night. The loss of a starter in midwinter was catastrophic as it is nearly impossible to coax wild airbome yeast to grow in a cold climate. A sourdough's bread starter was considered as valuable as gold.

Sourdough still is as good as gold to the prospectors of The Depot Town Sourdough Bakery. The year was 1990-not the 1890s- when sourdough found its re-emergence in the Ypsilanti community-supported bakery. The enrichment is not bags of gold dust, but in quality of life and commitment to the community.

The new bakery specializes in whole wheat sourdough bread. The sourdough-baking process was inspired by the bakery's only fulltime baker, Torn Kenny. Kenny was introduced to sourdough by a former co-worker who, in his battle with lymphoma, ate only natural foods. In a quest to learn the technique Kenny then travelled throughout New England visiting bakerics that made sourdough bread, to observe and study their methods. After learning the differences between the sourdough process and bread baked with manufactured yeast, Kenny returned to Ann Arbor determined to introduce the method locally.

With assistance from the Wildflour Bakery collective in Ann Arbor, the sourdough bakery found a home in the historic Millworks Building in Ypsilanti. The building is located on River Street in Depot Town and also houses the Ypsilanti Food Cooperative.

The Sourdough Bakery operates under a back-to-basics philosophy. lts only modern appliances are a refrigerator, a 1939 Hobart mixer, and a stone mill to grind the wheat. The most traditional piece of equipment, and perhaps the steepest mountain to climb in getting the bakery started, was the construction of the wood-fired brick oven. The oven was built by Kenny, volunteers, and California brick oven builder Alan Scott. Local mason Rich Whiting was hired to build the chimney.

The preparation of the oven for baking takes nearly four hours of firing. Wood for the oven is brought by a volunteer who collects discarded Ann Arbor News pallettes. When the oven reaches 650 degrees, the ashes are swept and mopped out and up to 60 loaves can be placed inside to bake for 30 minutes. Two "bakes" can be achieved from one firing, and a refire takes only an hour and a half. The bakery has the capacity to bake up to 600 loaves in a 24-hour period, but the current demand is 450 loaves a week.

Bread baked in this brick oven is very different than conventionally baked loaves. The brick retains the heat from the wood fire, allowing radiant heat to surround the loaves on all sides. Conventional oven heat, in contrast, comes from either the top or bottom only and moisture escapes through a flue. Since the brick oven is a sealed chamber when the door is closed it actually becomes a pressure cooker. This enables the bread to expand while retaining moisture. Because steam rising off the bread can't escape, the bread is more flavorful. Bread pans are not used, so the loaves are peasant style or round.

A distant connection can be made between the brick oven now used by the bakery and the introduction of bread, by ancient peoples. One scenario bakers entertain is that a group of people were chased away from the flat cakes they were about to cook on hot stones. When they were finally able to retum, they found that the flour and water had fermented, accidentally creating the self-rising bread known as sourdough.

Many sourdough starters can be traced back through generations, but that used by the Depot Town Sourdough Bakery was started anew for that purpose. Anticipating the opening of the bakery , Kenny grew his "mother starter" two years in advance. He made a ball of dough with organic stoneground wheat flour and well water, then buried it in a bag with more organic flour and kept it at 62 degrees. Every day the dough ball was cut in half and fed more flour. Once fermentation began and the bacteria became active in eating the gluten (or protein) part of the flour, it was wrapped in a cotton cloth, put in a sealed container and stored at 40 degrees. "For many people this bread is easier to digest since the bacteria slowly break down the gluten, unlike fast-acting yeast, which only partly does the job," says Kenny.

An offspring was grown from the mother starter and both are used on alternating baking days. In case disaster strikes one or both of the starters, there are several additional starters in suspended animation in the freezer.

The night before baking, a new starter is grown from the mother starter. In 12 hours this four-pound starter becomes the 40-pound starter needed for the next day's baking. In the morning, when the baker comes in, the oven is fired up and the starter is measured out for the first batch of bread and put in the mixer. Flour, water and salt are the only added ingredients.

Kenny has been involved in the local baking industry for the past 16 years, seven years of which he spent baking at Wildflour Community Bakery. Many Wildflour Bakery philosophies have been carried over to the operation of the Sourdough Bakery. It is community-run, not-for-profit, and volunteers are a cornerstone of the bakery 's success. A working collective comprised of Kenny, part-time baker Nancy Alcumbrack, and volunteers Frances Tashnick, Kathy Voytas-Schmidt and Bob Heald, meets biweekly to discuss daily business.

The bakery also has community meetings three times a year. The bakery collective wekome visitors and is looking toward the future possibility of bread-making demonstrations in public schools, educational intemships and workshops. And though the growth of the bakery is steady, there are no plans for an explosion in distribution and sales. "The bakery really has no interest in going outside the community for sales and support. We'd like to grow within the community and give back to it by supplying more bread and employing more people," says Kenny.

The Depot Town SourdoughBakerymakes four tantalizing varieties of sourdough bread: whole wheat, rye, cinnamon raisin and cinnamon raisin walnut. You can find them at: Ypsilanti Farmer' s Market, Ann Arbor Farmer's Market, People's Food Co-operative, Packard Food Co-op, Ypsilanti Food Co-op, Produce Station, Zingerman's, Arbor Farms and The Depot Town Sourdough Bakery. For more information contact Tom Kenny at The Depot Town Sourdough Bakery, 310 N. River Street, #1, Ypsilanti, or phone 487-8110.

-by Karen Ryan

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Subjects
Old News
Agenda