"fermentation" news and stories

Photo: you can count on me, Flickr.

National Pickle Day may yet be a couple of months away, but now's the time to start perfecting your technique, as did Flickr user "You Can Count on Me." Though the pickles themselves aren't even pictured, their zingy brine looks promising, with masses of fiery floating peppercorns and sprigs of dill.

Treasured for their tangy flavor alone, pickles boast both a historic background and surprising health benefits. Vitamin-C rich pickles were packed on Christopher Columbus's fateful voyage to help the seamen fight scurvy -- and actually take their name from the ship's stocker, Amerigo Vespucci. Today, the fermented fruits are considered extra nutritious for allowing bacteria the time to create additional vitamins and are in fact more easily digested than their non-treated counterparts. So get pickling!

Check out more pickle trivia at the Science of Pickles and try the pictured recipe from blog Everybody Likes Sandwiches.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured in Feast Your Eyes.

• Fermentation is one of the oldest methods of food preservation known to man. Homemade sauerkraut is a simple way to dip a toe into this age-old technique. Here are some recipes: Old-Fashioned Fresh Sauerkraut, Spareribs and Sauerkraut, Sauerkraut and Red Beet Borscht, Reuben Sandwiches and Riesling-braised Sauerkraut and Apples.
  
• An update on Leslie Cole's personal batch of kraut.
• Next time you have a dinner party, instead of worrying about making dinner and dessert, just buy a U-Bake pie.
• Two Tarts, purveyors of tiny cookies at Portland-area farmers markets, have opened a retail store on 23rd Ave.
• Katherine Miller takes her extra rooster to the Northwest Winter Classic poultry show, in the hopes that she'll find him a new home.
• Leslie Cole attends the Wild About Game cook-off and tastes multiple dishes that include wild game.
• The diminutive Forelle pear is currently in season and has wonderful, cinnamon-y flavor that pairs well with cheese and sweets.
• Try making a Dijon Tuna Burger as a change of pace from your regular beef or turkey burgers.
• This week in the Market Basket, you'll find two vinegars and a balsamic spread.
• Kathleen Bauer reports from the Tigard Farmers Market.

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If you bake a lot of bread, you've almost certainly come across directions to fold the dough. In times past, bread recipes instructed you to punch down the dough after it had fermented, though now bakers are generally directed to "deflate" the dough. Folding accomplishes the same goals as deflating, but with some added benefits.

Folding is a technique that's more often used with wetter, or more hydrated, bread doughs, as well as doughs that have been underdeveloped for some reason or other. Doing this procedure does two things: it redistributes air/gasses and evens out temperature, and it aligns/develops the gluten structure. Deflating only accomplishes the redistribution element of folding, but that's really all that's needed for less hydrated doughs. Folding is always used as part of the fermentation stage. Generally, you'll proof the dough for an hour (first rise), fold it, then let it proof (rise) for another hour or so. An under-developed, wet dough can be fermented for many hours with multiple folds.

Now that's artisan bread.

To fold, first flour your work surface fairly well. Turn your dough out onto it and pat out most of the gas. I like to work left to right, top to bottom, but use whatever directions work for you as long as you hit all points of the compass. Take the first side, stretch it out and fold it onto the middle of the dough. Repeat this for the opposing side, then do the same thing to the top and bottom. To finish, get you hands under the dough and turn it over so that the smooth side is on top. Then put it back into whatever proofing container you're using and let the dough finish proofing. Check out the gallery below for images matching the directions.

When bakers talk about retarding, they're not being insulting. They're talking about slowing down the fermentation process.

Retarding is the process in which a baker uses refrigeration to slow down yeast activity. This has a couple of benefits, one of which is to get better flavor out of the finished bread. The longer the yeast can ferment, the more organic acid is produced, which makes the bread taste better and also leads to a longer shelf life.

The other benefit of retarding dough is to give the baker more time to work. For a home baker, if something comes up to where you just don't have time to finish your bread, uou can refrigerate your dough just after mixing or just after the final shaping.

Mix the dough as usual, then refrigerate for up to 12 hours, after which you can let it come back to room temperature and continue the first fermentation. After the first fermentation and shaping, the dough can be refrigerated again (for up to 12 hours). Just allow the dough to come back to room temp and finish the final fermentation and then bake as usual. Just make sure that the dough is well covered in plastic before refrigeration to prevent a skin from forming.

The word proof has a lot of meanings. It can refer to alcohol content, a mathematical procedure, or evidence. However, in the world of baking, proof refers to rising dough.

Home bakers, and recipes aimed at home bakers, refer to it as "rising," but professionals call it "proofing." Proofing is a part of the bread making process where fermentation takes place, causing the dough to expand, grow, or rise (whichever term you prefer). Depending on who you ask, proofing can include the first period of fermentation, which is usually called the bulk fermentation. Most of the time, though, proofing is the second stage of fermentation, called the "second rise" by home bakers. This is the period after the final shaping when the dough is left to expand to it's proper size before baking.

Proofing is an important stage in baking (of course each stage is important in its own way) for three reasons. First off, more fermentation occurs for that much more flavor. The fermentation then causes gas production which makes the dough expand to a larger size. Also the gluten is able to relax which allows oven spring to take place.