welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen
uh today we're going to start a process
that might take about a week
and i'm going to make some bread using
um
these grapes that i've just picked off
of our grapevines outside
and what's inside this box
and i know from brewing beer and making
wine that a great place to find wild
yeast
is on the outsides of grapes the grapes
themselves and the grape
vines so it's the end of september here
and there really isn't much left out on
the vines we've picked most of the ones
that we wanted to eat
and the animals have got the rest but
there is a lot of yeast
hiding on the outsides of these grapes
and on the vine itself
so just like we did when we made the
ginger bug we're going to try and
coax the yeast and all of the other
microbes that are living
on the outsides of these vines and
grapes back to life
this is similar to but different from
making a
sourdough a sourdough starter it's
pretty much exactly the same in that in
sourdough you're looking to get a whole
bunch of different microbes and yeast
together
that will both add flavor and
leavening to the bread or or make it
rise and
making it rise is the yeast and the
flavor is all of the other microbes
so this is an art not a science i'm not
sure what's here i'm not sure if this
will even taste good and if it does
taste good then we're going to try to
keep it
going as long as we can so we can keep
using it for multiple bakes of bread
so that was that was about
600 mls of water and now that i've got
that in there i'm gonna add just a
spoonful of sugar
and i'm going to mix this up i'm going
to leave it on the counter
with a lid on but the lid is just going
to be on here really loosely so that any
gases can escape
so i'll give it a swirl mix it all up
and hopefully over the next three or
four days we'll start to see activity
inside we'll start to see bubbles
forming and we'll know that the yeast is
taking hold
and then we'll bake some bread
okay so here we are a few days have gone
by and i've got a pretty
nice growth of yeast in here with the
grapevine
and it smells really good too there's a
lot going on in there so for anyone who
has ever made
our ginger bug there are a lot of
pitfalls
and the biggest pitfall is you don't
know what's going to happen
this is a wild organism that we've
gathered from outside we have no idea
what's going on in here we know that
it's
mostly yeast but we also know that
there's some other bacteria happening
the idea is that the yeast and maybe
some lactobacillus
get going quickly they drop the ph so
none of the bad microbes can live
inside here now over here just for fun i
took
some regular old raisins from the
cupboard
and i put them in a jar with some water
exactly the same treated them the same
and we've got some good yeast growth
there as well so just for fun
i'm going to make two loaves of bread
one with each
wild yeast see how the difference
in flavor is see how they rise
differently
see what happens this is all an
experiment so we're going to do
is make two loaves of bread using what's
called a poolish
and so a poolish is just a pre-ferment
we've taken
some of the flour that we're going to
use for the bread
and the water some of the water that
we're going to use for the bread
we're going to mix it up ahead of time
we're going to leave it overnight
that gives the yeast a chance to really
get going
it starts to build flavor and gluten
structure
all at once so i've got 250 grams of
flour
and 250 grams or 250 milliliters
of water i'm going to do the same in
both
and i'm going to leave this for
somewhere between
12 and 18 hours and i can't give you an
exact
time frame because this is wild yeast
and i've never collected this wild yeast
before
i have no idea how it's going to react
it could be super aggressive
and be ready almost immediately or
it could be really lazy yeast and take
longer to get going
we're going to figure that out so we
just mix it together and get something
that's kind of a
wet slurry
okay so i'm going to put a lid on both
of these and then i'll leave them on the
counter at room temperature overnight
i'll watch them closely uh in the
morning to see when it's time to move on
now these i will add a little bit more
water to them and a little bit of sugar
and i will just treat them as i would
any sourdough starter
but i won't know if i'm going to keep
them until we taste the bread tomorrow
because they might be horrible
overnight these seem to have bubbled up
really nicely
so let's open them up and take a look
this is the point where when you're
using wild yeast you need to start to
make
some more decisions about how you're
going to proceed
the first one is did it bubble up at all
and this one did bubble up quite nicely
and so did the one with the raisins
not as much activity from the the wild
yeast harvested from around the raisins
as i get
from the one that i did with the
grapevines
next decision you need to make is does
it smell good should you even proceed
should you even go forward because if it
smells horrible
it's going to taste horrible probably
and there's no need to move forward with
your bread so
both of these smell pretty nice fairly
neutral
fairly neutral next decision is is there
enough activity in here do you
think that there's enough yeast activity
to carry through an entire loaf of bread
and i think in both cases
there's enough um maybe not quite enough
with the raisins but i'm willing to bet
that there is
if there isn't there's no shame in
adding
a teaspoon or half a teaspoon of
commercial yeast into this mixture just
to give it a little bit of lift
now we're going to move on with the rest
of the ingredients so there's more
water
i'm gonna add some salt
and the rest of the flour same goes into
that one
and i'm just gonna mix this with my hand
your hand is the best method and you
just want to sort of grab it and squeeze
it through your fingers
until it's all completely mixed and once
i get both of these mixed together i'm
going to leave them on the countertop
here
and over the next hour i'm going to
fold them two or three times
and if you want a more detailed
explanation of the folding
you can check out another one of our
videos and i'll link to it below where i
go into it in a little more detail
folding is as simple as it sounds i've
got a wet hand
and we just go underneath and fold it
over top
give it a little bit of a turn and just
go around
folding it just like that and so i'll do
this
once around put the lid back on and i'll
come back in about 10 minutes and i'll
do it again
and i'll do that three times in the
first hour and then i will let it rise
until it's doubled in bulk
now while i let this dough rise we'll
open this box
so this is a challenger bread pan um
i emailed challenger and said you know
what i really like this i've been
following you on instagram
i really like this pen i like the look
of the pan i like what it does
i'd love to get my hands on one so that
i could try it out so they sent me one
they sent this to me for free
they're not paying me to talk about it
and they don't have any sort of
editorial control over what i say they
sent it to me and said you're going to
love it
you're going to love it you're going to
love it and they trust that
i'm going to love it so this is a modern
cast iron take on a french cloche
clash which is a
similarly shaped thing made out of clay
that's unglazed and so you would soak
the top
part of the clay in water put your bread
in put it in the oven and then that
would steam and it would sort of
recreate a professional
bread baking oven or even a wood fired
oven for that matter
where you kind of get that steam build
up this is cast iron
so it's like having a dutch oven except
it's got really cool handles
and the bottom is thin so you can get
the bread in there without
threat of burning your hands or without
the same threat of burning your hands
and i kind of like the idea of using it
because it's oblong
and i won't be restricted to round
loaves of bread like i am
with my dutch oven
huh the owner sent me a nice little note
too handwritten that's kind of nice
thanks jim so i'm going to get this
ready to go into the oven and i'm going
to bake our two loaves of bread today
one right after the other using this
give it a run through and check it out
but i got to tell you on first
blush i'm really liking this it seems
extremely well made
the handles are in a great place to get
it off when it's in the oven okay so
enough waxing poetic
let's get back to business hey jules hey
glenn
so hey friends we're not we're not
tasting the bread just yet
um well maybe not that one this one's
okay
uh not a monumental fail but i did get
new
banatons and you coat the inside with
flour
to keep the dough from sticking but
because they're new they weren't
fully coated they stuck stuck badly
oh that would explain this shape the
shape and then
trying out a new a new piece of cooking
tried out two new things at once two
things at once
so many things at once always a mistake
um the next time you see us
these loaves will be much better because
sometimes you fail
you just have to get back on the horse
and try again so
ten more seconds and i'll be right back
with you okay
take two a little bit of flour on the
board
and we'll scrape this dough out
and we'll try and shape it
and so i've made sure that i've got
enough flour
in the banatons this time i think so
hopefully
they won't stick now
shaping is a bit of a problem because
i'm not used to shaping this
shape of loaf so we'll see how i make
out it is a very sticky dough
fold over fold
over and then
back and then
back and pinching down and then into the
banditon
seam side up and i better mark it
this is the one made from the grape
yeast
and we'll cover those over for the final
rise now the challenger
bread baker has been preheating in the
oven and it is
hot so pull that out
take the lid off and our loaf of bread
has proved and i've done the i've done
the finger poke test
now let's see if i can get it in here
better than i did
last time did it stick
oh it came off so
i've got a lamb and i'm going to score
the top of the bread with the lamb so
that we can get some nice ears
lid back on the bread baker
and into the oven for 30 minutes
now it's time to take off the lid
oh look at that loaf of bread looks
amazing and back into the oven for the
final bake
i think we are done so i'm just going to
check
the temperature and we are
just over 200 degrees fahrenheit so this
loaf is good to go
set it aside to cool put the lid back on
the
baker and stick it back in the oven to
heat up before i do the next loaf
okay the bread baker is reheated time
for loaf number two let's see
how we do this time
boom oh looking pretty good so i've got
the long
and we'll score it
and i'll score it on both sides i kind
of like the look of that
lid back on and back into the oven
time to take off the lid
looking good back in
there we go another amazing looking loaf
of bread
so let that one cool down too
hey jules oh that looks pretty good
glenn it does look pretty good hey
friends
so um wait a second so this one is the
raisin or the bread made with the yeast
from the wild raisin oh yeah the wild
yeast from the raisins
okay and this one is from
the grapevines okay it looks great
it does look great okay so i'm going to
keep which one you want to go first well
i'm going to put one on both hands
okay and take a look at them they're
both they look very similar
both got big airy bits um so that's my
range so once i once i figured out my
problems
well problems relating to these two
loaves of bread
i think i think i've nailed it this time
it's got good weight it's
the time okay let's try it okay
so it's got a nice crispy crust to it
yeah it's super it's chewy in the way
that it's supposed the way it's supposed
to be chewy
it's got um it's got good flavor i like
the flavor
and the flavor comes from the yeast not
from
the grapes or the grape vine it's really
it's that wild yeast that's giving the
flavor
and that's going to be the same with the
raisin it's the we're not going to get
any sweetness from the raisin we're not
going to get any raisin
flavor what we're going to get is
wild yeast sort of meat
slightly different flavor between the
two i'm not as convinced about the
flavor difference
but if there is it's subtle
but this is really nice bread very nice
bread and an alternate way to get hold
of some yeast
things i've learned from this journey
you can harvest yeast from almost
anywhere there are four or five fruits
that you don't want to use and i will
list them below
because they have a certain enzyme that
goes against the formation of gluten
and they will release that enzyme and it
will destroy your loaf of bread
so you don't want to use them i will
list them below but you can pretty much
go
to any fruit in your backyard or dried
fruit that you might have in your
cupboard
do that same thing and harvest the yeast
it's always going to be different what
works for you one time may not work for
you the next time because you are
dealing with
wild living cultures
this uh this this challenger bread baker
i'm absolutely in love with it
right i am absolutely in love with it um
i think that that is
is a worthy addition to our kitchen
and when you buy banatons don't be
surprised if the first time you use them
the dough sticks
completely make sure you really flour
them well before you use them
so give wild yeast a try
you know go out there and see what you
can come up with thanks for stopping by
see you again soon
you