This Loaf Changed American Bread, with Chad Robertson

makers of the new countertop dough sheet are built to elevate every bake ahead.

“And when I hear Country Bread, I think of Yeold Country.”

(laughing) From King Arthur Bacon Company, this is Things Bakers Now. I'm David Tomarkin, King Arthur's editorial director. - And I'm Jessica Badalana, senior editor at King Arthur.

And today we're talking about the bread that changed the way Americans think about bread. - Uh-huh. - Specifically, this episode is all about San Francisco's Tartine Bakery, Chad Robertson,

and the country loaf that launched a thousand loafs. (bell rings) - That's not an exaggeration. It really is thousands and thousands of loafs. And I'm really glad we're talking about this,

because it's been 16 years since Chad wrote his seminal book, Tartine Bread. And in that time, we've seen a huge shift in how American Bread is made, it's talked about, is even just thought of.

- Yeah. - And we really can trace a lot of that back to Chad Robertson, and the bread he was making at Tartine. I think every since they opened in 2002.

- Yeah, I mean, this is the first time we've done an episode

that's sort of like laser focused on one place and one person. - Mm-hmm. - But it seemed like an obvious thing to do, especially when we saw that the anniversary, the book was coming up.

“It was sort of like, how can we not talk about this?”

'Cause it really did change everything. - Yeah. - And I was looking back at a 2016 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, that was written by my friend,

the Food Rider Jonathan Kaufman. And it was called Tartine Bread, turned into an American culinary movement. I mean, and that was like 10 years ago that we were talking about that.

And it was, I think he summed it up so well. He says in that article, "Just as the 1970s gave rise, the door stopped whole wheat loaf in the 1980s to shattering golden baguettes.

The 2010s belonged to the long-fermented country loaf, which is totally true. And some listeners, careful listeners of the podcasts who trap my every movement, will recall that I lived in San Francisco.

- Don't know your address. - They'll know my address. - That's right. - That's right. - I lived in San Francisco for almost 17 years.

And that whole time I was within walking distance of Tartine Bakery. - Oh my God. - I know. - It was a good run.

And I got to know Chad, and his then wife Liz Prude, who's also a phenomenal baker,

and has an amazing gluten-free sub-stack,

which you should check out. - When that bakery opened on Guerrero in 18th Street in San Francisco, there was not a ton happening on that block. And then it was like, then Delphino restaurant open

and then it's fine, right? Mark it on the block. And that was like like a really amazing stretch for eating. - And at that time, when Tartine first opened, Chad had arranged the bread schedule

to suit his life schedule. So they had a young child, he also loves to serve. And he was like, I don't like, I have to make this schedule work for me. And so a lot of bakers come in at three in the morning

“and they leave, you know, that's what the King Arthur”

bakers do. They come in at three in the morning, they leave at 11. But Chad would come in at a more civilized hour, which meant that the bread would not come out

of the oven until five p.m. And you know how, you and I've talked a lot about how we feel about lines. - Yeah. - But I would go and I would wait in that line

and you would get the bread hot from the oven. And I just like, I have such memories of like pressing this sort of like oversized, like chestnut colored, like warm loaf of bread to my chest as I walked home and just feeling like very smug.

(both laughing) - I was like carrying an infant, like a bread infant across the city. - Yes, you and I are famously against lines, but that is a line I would wait in.

- Yeah, it was, it's a line to wait in. And it was unlike any bread that I had had before. - Yeah. - Which is funny because if we describe this bread that's gonna sound like every loaf of sourdough

you can get like on so many corners across the country, and all around the world. - Yeah, yeah, around the world. - Yeah, so this loaf, this country loaf, for people that are not familiar with it,

it was, it's a big loaf of bread. You know, those country loafs were like a battard shape. Deeply, deeply browned, you know, with a very crackling crust. And then when you would cut it open,

you know, I would always try and wait until cooled off,

you know, to cut into it, but you never could, because that smell, it has like, you know, the big sort of open structure, almost like a custardy interior. I mean, people listening are like, oh yeah, I get that now at like 7/11.

But, you know, at that time, like nobody was doing, even in San Francisco, birthplace of sourdough, like nobody was doing bread quite like that. - Yeah. - And so those are the physical characteristics,

and the technical aspects are also sort of have been influential as well. It's a high hydration sourdough, which is, you know, in 2002 when tartine opened, I don't think those words. That phrased in and exist.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It probably didn't. It wasn't, you know, on the tip of our tongues, as it is now, it's long fermented. It's, you know, I think minimally handled, you know, you know, it's not needed, it's folded.

It's shaped with a really sort of interesting, like stitching method. I think that I don't know if that originated with Chad, and I guess we'll maybe hear later today when you talk to him.

But when you see videos of Chad making bread,

which of course they're like a million on YouTube,

and the stitching method of how he closes his loaves in the "Banotont" and "Sentrist Day." - Yeah, it is. And, you know, I mean, and now you see, like, you know, you see bread like that, like I think about,

like, I was laughing, there's like a seawolf and a seawolf, you know, the seawolf. So, I mean, you know, keep those straight, if you can. But a seawolf and Seattle, she wolf in New York, publicin and Chicago.

I think it makes bread that's very similar to that. In my hometown of Portland, Maine, bread in front, you know, that is the bread.

“Now, I think that's what people think of as like an artist”

and loaf of bread. - Right, I think it's what we call, and even in our book, Big Book of Bread, or, you know, we use this terminology. We call it a country loaf or country bread.

- Yeah. - And what I don't know is if that is that true, I mean, when I hear country bread, I think of yield, country, but more words that I can't believe this came out of my mouth.

But I think of a very old world style of bread. I think of old bread, I think of Europe, I think of the way preceded 2002. - Yeah. - And so I don't know, and I'm interested to listen to this episode.

(laughing) To find out how it came to be, did it really originate? A child or did it? Does his love have origins, you know, in Europe and France, where he trained?

- Well, and I should, you know, in full disclosure, I worked, you know, for a long time, I was just a fan of 13 crazy fan. And then I ended up working with Chad on his third book, "Tartine Book 3," which is sort of, you know,

like, I should back up for a second and say, like, the other thing that's interesting is that when Tartine Bread was published that book, like, talk about giving away the farm. Like, I mean, Chad explained in crazy detail,

just like every element of how he makes that bread, you know, starting with the starter and all the way to the finish loaf. And he basically, like, handed over the keys to the castle. So it's, you know, he was very eyes wide open

in, like, I'm sharing this method and, you know, this method is gonna influence people. And what was interesting about that first book is that they had regular people testing,

which is always a great thing to do

in any cookbook and people rarely do it, but people would never bake the loaf of bread before, you know, were brought on as testers. So it was like somebody who played music in the cafe who was sort of curious about it.

And so he really developed this method with home bakers in mind, like, how can you get a loaf of bread like this at home? And just had enormous success with that. So, you know, building off of that book,

he went on to write this Tartine Book 3, which sort of then pushed the envelope, it was like, breads that have, like, more inclusions, have soaked grains, have sprouted grains, have, you know, I wouldn't say, unusual flowers,

but, you know, outside of just, like, white flower, whole wheat flower, and you worked on that. - And I worked on that book with Chad, and why was I talking about that?

“Just to brag that, like, were Chad and I are best friends?”

- Well, you know what you speak? - Well, I just know, to say that,

I think Chad would be the first one to say,

he did not invent this bread. I mean, I think he manipulated the method, but, you know, I mean, he had mentors that he is very open to crediting, and I think yes, this, like, what he pulled from

was like a European tradition, and then, like, tweaked it, you know, to his own schedule, to his own taste preferences. And I do recall, like, I would talk to Chad, not too long ago, and he was like, when I started trying to sell like an $8 loaf of this,

like, bread that basically looked burned, he was like, people were like, what is this guy doing? Like, why would I, you know, so I think it's funny just to see now, like, on the other side of it.

- Yeah, so we can play more. - Chad, for $20, it loves a bread, I'll see. - Exactly. But it is interesting to think about the origins of this cartoon loaf, you know,

and like you said, he wanted to say, he invented it,

“he trained in Europe, but everything circular, right?”

I mean, I remember interviewing Dan Leader, who played the same speaker and kind of started bread alone in upstate New York, there's lots of books, and he was researching one of his books traveling

and Italy, France, Spain, all around Europe.

“Even in Asia, I think, and what he's told me”

was that in every single bakery, no matter how small the town, how small the bakery were, it was in the mountains of the Alps, wherever. He saw copies of Tar Team Bread every single shelf. I mean, the influence cannot be overstated.

And that's fascinating, right? I mean, the same places that train Chad are now, you know, taking some notes from him. - Yeah, and you know, in the Bay Area, there's a lot of chatter about the shape and East diaspora,

like the cooks that, you know, worked as shape and East for a period of time. I worked as a reservationist at shape and East for a year, which was like, I described it as the worst job in the best place, but that's story for another.

I mean, you try taking calls of people looking for a table at 7 p.m. on a Saturday, just like, no, no, no. - But breaking hearts, yeah. - Exactly. - But they talk about the cooks that left shape and East

to open their own restaurants and like, you know, that web of food people that, you know, went across the country, and you know, like five just off the American side. - Yeah, absolutely.

- Yeah, exactly. And then the same is true, I think, of this diaspora of bakers that train to Tar Team, then went on to open their own bakeries around the country or like run the bread programs at established restaurants.

You know, and they took that sort of Tartine method and Tartine ethos with them. So you see it kind of spreads like, you know, wildfire.

“And I think like that's why you have good bread”

and really random places now. - I love that. - That weren't, you know, used to be like, you can get good bread in New York, you can get good bread in San Francisco,

but like now in lots of small towns where people have trained up at Tartine, they've gone to open bakeries that are awesome. - Yeah. - And we have Chad to think.

I mean, we have our team to think, I think. - And I think you're gonna thank him in person on this episode. - Yeah, I was thrilled because I hadn't had a chance to talk to Chad in a long time.

And I told him I wanted, you know, we wanted to do this episode and did he want to talk to us? So it's a fun chat. - I cannot wait to hear this conversation.

- Chad, it's such a treat to get to talk to you again.

“It has been a while, it has been a while.”

- So I'm intrigued, it's such a treat from me as well. - I feel like you are a household name among spakers now, but for those who don't know as much about your background, just tell us a little bit about how you sort of got

started with baking what your influences were and then how you came to open that original Tartine. - Yeah, so I was at the cornering as a dude in Tide Park, New York, studying to the chef and cutting and then I just, well, it was like,

it was one of my instructors was telling our class about this guy, this crazy baker,

making really incredible bread like no one was making anywhere.

And it was Richard Bordon, it was maybe an hour to hop from the school and so we sort of went there all weekend to check it out and I literally, I was very young and this guy was totally, you know, he was like the coolest guy, just, you know,

his baby's on his back and his razor blade cutting the bread and it was in a big brick barn with the Hustotonic River running behind it and it was all very new to me 'cause I was born in Texas and that was my first time on East Coast and I literally asked for a job that day

on the field trip and one of the bakers took me outside he was having a smoke break and he was like, when do you wanna start like gal? No, I need to figure it out, he's like, I wanna go do something else.

We've been there for years, he was like a gypsy baker and it's really great, Diker. Anyway, Richard, he's still a very good friend, I saw him last week and just an amazing baker. He still works every day.

He was like, he was like, I can't pay you until you're useful but I have a room for you in my house and that sounded totally reasonable to me. - Yeah, I mean, you were in 19 years old. It was reasonable, I was still in school.

So, you know, I switched to night classes like I could go work and I just got up to like three in the morning, drove there, I was so obsessed, I was dreaming about bread, so I hardly slept but it just didn't matter, I just just so obsessed with bread.

So I never tasted, I mean, that was the first time

I tasted sourdough, but when I was like 20, wow, my life. So, and you know, a lot of people hadn't had that kind of bread really at that time is chemical, but then he worked a lot and Denmark and Belgium and them all over Europe and France. So, yeah, I ended up finishing school

and worked for Richard for a couple of years and then he kind of told me to leave and go learn it from someone else and I didn't want to leave but it was good advice. I said, okay, I'll leave, I want to go learn from the guy

that got you that he always talked about

He's in Brittany now, but so I ended up going to France and working with Patrick for half a year and then Patrick's best friend who had a bakery and the sub-fraps, his name was Daniel Collin

and both of these guys were just incredible bakers.

So, and I remember I wrote a letter from France to Craig Concert, who had just one like the Coup de Monde that was in the 1990s, maybe mid-90s. And I was like, hey, I've been in France working for a year, I want to work for like the best baker in America

and like I got with no response at all. So, I came home, I came back, I was very frustrated. But I wrote a letter to this guy, Alan Scott, who is no longer with us, but rest of peace just such an incredible human being, Tasmanian man

and he was living in Marin and West Marin and building his wood fire ovens around the country and he had a deal where you could come and stay, living in a farmhouse that you helped do chores and all that, and there was--

- I see a pattern of olping, yeah. - Yeah, I'm probably like no money, no money. Maybe it was basically-- - Yeah, it hasn't really changed that much, but I'm used to now. And so, I was, and there was a stone mill

and so I was milling flour, and then the oven was in the backyard and then Molina slapped me sell the bread, which was back yard illegal bread, but the people's store,

which was still there, that was my first bread account.

And I do want to say, also, Alan was Alan loaned me, the money to start the first bakery, which was in Point Reyes, which was just down the road from Marshalls, where Alan was and gave me forever to pay it back to him, because I didn't have any money.

And the people that built our oven were all students

“of CCAC, which was CCAC, which I think closed,”

but it was back in the halls of the arts, is that, yeah. - It was California College of the Arts and Crafts, which I thought was such a cool name, and they dropped a lot. But anyway, it was just, it was a beautiful thing. And yeah, it was a lot of fun, baking flour.

- And then you transitioned from baking in Point Reyes to the spot in Tartine, which opened in 2002. - Yeah, there was a little, there was a little jump into Mill Valley, that was a short chapter, but it was interesting, we were getting close to the city.

And it was kind of impossible to go into San Francisco. There was during the first.com bubble, if anyone remembers that. - Yeah. - And there was just, you know, rent was crazy.

There was no, there was no vacancy. - Yeah. - But then right after the bubble burst, they really came in. I remember I was having dinner with the co-founder, my ex. Let's prove it, we were eating a delfino,

which was just this little hall in the wall, neighborhood, restaurant that everyone loved. - Yeah. - And we were walking back to our car. It was on that corner.

There was a bakery called Lady Baltimore, it was a cake bakery. And there was one gentleman there that looked kind of lonely and sad, and Liz was like, you go get the car, I'm gonna go in and ask this guy if he would sell.

And I was like, that's crazy. And when I came back together, he was like, here's his number, he wants to talk. And so we had the place, he wanted to retire. So, wow, it's kind of how that happened.

- I think you are probably, I mean, the... Tartine bakery, you Liz, you're a former partner, did the pastry side, you did the bread side, but I mean, it's hard now

because it's been, you know, 20, four years. It's sort of hard to remember what the bakery scene was like back then, what the bread scene was like,

“but back then, but I mean, I think you quickly became known”

for this Tartine country loaf, right? Like, the Tartine country loaf became like, you know, one of the signature products of the bakery, in addition to, you know, some of the pastries. So I want you to talk a little bit about that.

Like, what you set out to make, and whether you felt like that was, like the Tartine country loaf was something sort of like, new, like, did you invent a style of bread? Do you feel like you're sort of tying these threads together

from the people you'd worked with and the threads you tried? - Yeah, I mean, I was definitely influenced by the people I worked for. I had a lot of influences that weren't really mainstream, French or European, taking,

'cause I started to work for, like, French hippies,

which was really fun and amazing.

So yeah, when I came in, and also it's like, Pachney does a perfect, you know, French bagad, and all their breads are very classic.

“I think it's still the most part, and very well done,”

and, you know, they kind of had that covered.

- And so I mean, I don't say, like, the country bread I made,

it wasn't like a totally new bread, but it was definitely an expression of my favorite qualities from the four, I have like four teachers, Richard, Patrick Danielle, and then Dave Miller, who also worked for Richard and is up in Chico,

and he knows everything fresh, 100% old grain, really what does, totally, all their breads are totally different, but like I love them all, and I kind of took the parts that I liked most about each one and try to put them all into that country loaf.

- And for people who haven't had the country loaf, I mean, it's sort of wild thing about now, because I think there are so many, and we'll talk about this in a little bit, like, there's a lot of country loaf-esque bread out there now.

“Like, I think when you say to a person now,”

like, I'm gonna buy a loaf of sourdough bread,

what they think of is something that resembles the country loaf.

So just, would you describe like the qualities of that loaf for people that haven't had it? - Yeah, I mean, you know, we bake, I see a lot of people bake a lot darker than we do now, but at the time, people considered our bread

very caramelized, very dark. And I guess the way I would describe is, you know, open, sort of, custardy crumb, a pretty extreme, like, contrast between the crust and the crumb, along slow rise,

which now is pretty common. Thankfully, it makes it more digestible, it makes it keep longer, high hydration, like I said before. - Yeah, I mean, not too sour, it kind of depends.

Sometimes you go, well, too sour, when San Francisco would get really hot or three weeks out of the yard, it's hard to keep it the way I want. But, you know, it's funny, like, looking back, I feel like what the tartine country loaf

it kind of came to be, like, very much like an old school San Francisco sourdough, like a board of naves, or, you know, like extra-dark, extra-sour, like, again, we're not really going for extra-sour, but I see pictures of, like, these bakeries

from the, you know, early 1900s, in San Francisco, and I feel like the country loaf is kind of a modern version of all that, even though I wasn't trying to do that, and it ended up being that.

And I've always said, like, you know, when people say,

"Why does San Francisco have such famous for bread and, unlike the weather, honestly, is the biggest factor because it's almost always, like, good sourdough weather, and so on." - That's interesting, yeah.

I mean, it's like, you know, people are always talking about,

“like, it's the water, it's the, but I think that's true.”

Like, it's never too hot, it's never too cold, and we talk a lot about, like, you know, sort of coddling your sourdough dough, right? Like, maintaining the temperature, like paying attention to it through the whole.

But, I mean, that's where San Francisco excels, it's sort of being, like, consistent, you know, really for months and months. And you, I mean, part of that long fermentation, obviously, was because you liked the flavor,

and, you know, the texture of these long fermented breads, but part of it, I mean, I made the joke early about surface bread. Like, you liked to serve, and you wanted to make a bread schedule that sort of fit a little bit better with your life schedule, you had a young child, like, and--

- I mean, it's a surface story, but, yeah. (laughing) - I'll give you the real version, and it is related to surfing, but, like, the long rise, and the long rise led to a, so the long rise was because

I needed to sleep at some point, I was just,

“it's just you, yeah, just me, yeah, no mixer, no retarder,”

so nothing to cool the bread down. - This is when you're in the point race, yeah. - Yeah, for six years, six or seven years, and, you know, chopping what every day, which I love, I still love it.

And then, like, I would, yeah, I was sleeping in shifts, it was like four hours of three hours, and then another four hours whenever I could get it, and it's not strange. I wouldn't survive now, just having that at all.

Not even close, but it definitely took a toll, but I was making it happen, but then, during the winter, I was like, man, maybe I can open these windows, and it'll cool down enough, and it did, you know, cool down to, like, 45, 50,

and that would give me, like, you know, a solid seven hours or something, okay? - Yeah. - But initially, the bread was too sour when I did that, so then I then, I mean, that long rise was necessitated

by me needing sleep, and then the long rise sort of forced me to develop a very young, Levant, a young starter kind of style, because if I used, like, a mature starter, which was the, you know, most traditional way

and common way that people were using them, that long after that long rise at that temp anyway, which is all I could do with opening the windows, and it didn't meet too sour of a fine thing. - I see. - I see.

- So, I would start with a very, not sour,

By the end, it would have acid level that I wanted.

“- So, my surfing story is a myth busted,”

but it's so romantic, no, I love that story, because when Eric and I start, Eric is a good friend, Wolfinger, who photographed the book,

and made that whole first book, you know,

together he lived upstairs, and we were just literally surfing, making bread, doing recipes, shooting the book for a whole year. And, basically, like, also, in the beginning, at Tartine, the pastries were all,

everything was baked in one in the bread oven, which is kind of how we trained in France, and I thought that was cool. It's not very practical, you know, do that anymore, but it would take like two or three hours

for the oven to come up to the bread temp, after the pastries, so that was why the bread came out in the afternoon, and that was why we surfed in the morning, and that was sort of the trade-off. So, it is true, but there's a little more,

there's a little more. - A little more new ones. - A little more new ones too. - Yeah, that's interesting. - I was thinking too, I mean, in full disclosure, you know, you and I worked together on your Tartine book,

three, which came out, gosh, I don't know, 10 or 11, 12, 13 years ago. - Yeah, 13 or 13 years ago, right after the three years

after the first book, yeah.

- And, you know, I was sort of able to see up close, like a little bit of your evolution of your bread-baking process, you know, as you sort of shifted towards using, you know, more ancient grains, more sprouted grains, like playing around with the idea of, you know, porridge breads,

and you know, sort of other innovations, but I mean, I was sort of reflecting on that, like that was 13 years ago. So like, you know, what sort of journey have you been on since then, like, what gets you fired up

when you think about bread-baking now? - Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. Like, the last few years I've been traveling and working with other bakers, like in South America and Mexico and just using like Spain,

like using totally different flowers, 'cause they're the other thing that, you know, there's a lot more awareness now about different types of weed, different types of grains, and all the bread stuff, of course, and fermentation.

That gets me really fired up. - Yeah. - Like learning, because I will say, like, when I started baking there were lots of sort of rules that you would read, there were only a few books out there

and they were very specific rules that sort of, the authorities on bread sort of put out there in the '90s and pretty much all those have proved to not be true. - And I'm not saying, like, these people were proved wrong,

but I'm just saying, like, actually while I'm working and like, wow, I was told this in this book and this is not-- - And it's not bearing out in your baking. That's interesting. - Yeah.

- Our colleague Martin Phillips likes to say, you know, that bread has no horizon line,

but you're always kind of chasing the sun,

“and I mean, that's true, and that's what makes it--”

- That's why I'm very good quote. - It makes it so fun, and I think you have done so much for homebakers, just like, you know, things that people were not doing 25 years ago, like now are sort of commonplace. - So it's-- - I appreciate that, and I love seeing it.

I love seeing it. It's like I said, I get more inspiration from it. It's just really wonderful. - You're the best, Chad. Thanks for joining us.

- Thank you, Jess. So it's so nice to talk. - This episode is brought to you by Broad and Taylor. Broad and Taylor is an independent family-owned company that builds tools for all bread breakers at every level

to transform complex baking challenges into simple pleasures. - I love Broad and Taylor. I mean, they are so passionate about bread and baking when I talk to those folks. It really feels like I'm talking to someone

at King Arthur, too. There's that synergy there, 'cause we only have one thing on our mind. It's baking, baking, baking. (laughing)

- I love their tools. They really truly are an asset for every home baker, and you and I both have quite a few of them in our own kitchens. You know, my favorite, I think, is the countertop proofer. I don't know, you're into the baking steel,

but they have a lot of great tools. - I love the baking, too. - Whether you're a first time baker or you're like, in deep like us, there's something for you at BroadandTaylor.com.

That's BROD, A-N-D, T-A-Y-L-O-R, dot com. This episode is brought to you by our sourdough starter. If this conversation has you ready to hit the kitchen, but you don't want to make your own starter,

“which I mean, you should try, 'cause it's a fun exercise,”

but if you don't want to, you can order ready-made fresh starter, directly from us, place it on our website, and we'll send you an adorable little jar of starter from the King Arthur Bakery, couldn't be easier. You can make Chad's classic Tartino

on our website or in the big book of bread. You can find sourdough starter by searching sourdough starter on our shop site at KingArthurBaking.com. - Yeah. - Well, it's time for our next segment,

ask the bakers for ask the bakers. We wanna hear from you if you have a baking question for us. Head to KingArthurBaking.com/podcast or a court of voice message, and we may end up using it on the show. That's KingArthurBaking.com/podcast.

- And of course, if you have a baking question

that simply can't wait, you can always reach out

to our bakers hotline, do you have phone, email, or online chat, just go to KingArthurBaking.com/bakers.hotline. That's bakers.hotline, or call us at 855-371-2253. That's 2253 as in bake. - You know, probably on balance,

we have gotten the most listener questions over the course of all of these seasons about sourdough bread. - Yeah. - People have a lot of questions. - Yeah. - We have a few answers. - A lot of questions, we've, yeah, we've,

we've, we've, some of the same questions, you know, more than once. So we picked, you know, we picked some of the most commonly asked questions. And we're gonna take a stab at answering them.

So let's hear our first one. - Hi, this is Carla Lali calling. I recently asked my audience on food processing. My newsletter on sub-stack, a burning question about sourdough starter.

Why do people lie about how sensitive it is? For the past two years of stuck mine in the fridge

for 10 months of the time, I never feed it.

And it's fine. Two days of feeding and we're back in business. All these stories about people who take their starters on vacation or feed their starter year round, even though they really only bake in the fall and winter.

Why are people so history on it about this? I thought I'd call and get your take. Thanks. Bye. - I don't know about you, but when Carla Lali put this

on her sub-stack, I got millions of people sending it to me,

“you know, like, did you see this, did you see this?”

- Yes, I saw it. So I'm so glad she called in. Tantra, I have a lot of thoughts on this. - Yes. - Personally, first of all, Carla Lali, great.

Follow her sub-stack if you're not following your processing, definitely get in there. - She's new book coming out, new book coming out. - Yeah, food is a feeling. And her feeling is, yeah, she's got a lot of feelings.

- She should be a guest for a lot of thoughts. - So we've also a lot of thoughts on feelings. So I love that she uses the word histrionic, one of my favorite words to describe, especially for people sometimes.

And it's true, so there is a lot of chatter, sometimes about sourdough starters and how I will say the obsessive sometimes people can get about feeding them. I think there are a few things going on here.

First of all, let's just bust a myth right away.

You can keep your sourdough starter in the fridge for a long time. - Yes. - They are very hard to tell.

“I've pulled starters out, I think I've mentioned on the show.”

I haven't about five or six starters in my fridge of various ages. I have pulled out starters that are, I mean, they look like, they look like biological disasters. - Yeah. - And they are the almost solid of the bottom,

and there's a really big layer of black hooch on top. - Yep. - I support out, dig out a little bit, feed it. And it's true, it does revive. - It does revive.

- And I remember when I started here at King Arthur, I was so inspired by a recipe on our website for Panda Capagna, which positioned almost exclusively at that time as a bread you could make with discard, without having to feed your sourdough starter.

- What's interesting is that that recipe is on the big book of bread, and we positioned it much differently. We advised that you feed your starter, which was a decision that you and Martin, I'm putting you on the sponsor. - Yeah, I don't think you're interested in it.

- But it's interesting to talk about why we did that, because I think that answers this question about why we talk about feeding starters, even though you don't have to, it's a good idea to do it. - Right, so if you are keeping, I mean,

some of this were retreading old territory. If you're keeping your starter at room temperature,

“you've got to feed it, you have to feed it every day.”

Like, you know getting around that. If you're not making all the time, yes, you can put it in your fridge. And what we advise best practice is to feed it like, take it out of the fridge, feed it once a week.

Let it sit at room temperature for a couple of hours, put it back in the fridge. Can you go longer? Definitely can go longer. I would say, you know, there is a difference,

and Martin is very, like makes this distinction.

starter that will work, I'm using your quotes,

like that, you know, like will cause your dough to rise and starter that's an optimal health. - Absolutely.

“- And the only way you can really, like you would really be able”

to see that is to do like a side-by-side comparison. Like, and I don't doubt that like Karla takes her, starter out of the fridge. She gives it a couple of feeds at room temperature, and it works fine.

It raises, you know, it raises a loaf of bread, right? - I think it's key is she said two days. - Two days. - And that's true. Like, and that could be two feedings a day. - Sure, let's try that.

Like take it out of, you know, the fridge, give it two or four feeds, bake a loaf of bread with it, see. But then like keep it on the, could you put on your counter, feed it every day,

and then bake that same loaf of bread,

you know, a week later after daily feedings, and just see, because my guess would be that, you know, after you give your starter a little more TLC at room temperature, it's just going to be like, more vivacious, and less also notably less acidic.

Because I think that, you know, I'm not expecting, like a regular person goes to get a pH monitor. I mean, you could, if you're, like, super curious, but, you know, as you give your starter more feedings, it's going to become less acidic,

less acidic starter, I think, performs better. - Mm-hmm.

“- You know, so the only way to really know”

would be to do, like, aside by side tests. But I think, you know, I think that Carla is right, that do need to take your starter on vacation, definitely not. Like, do you need to have somebody come near,

like, you know, it's not a pet. Like, people like, it's a pet, it's not a pet. - It's absolutely true. I can, I am living proof. Well, I've done this in my house.

I have been converted from someone who kept his starter in the fridge for months at a time, pulled it out, revived it, made bread with it, and someone who lives in a house now with a regularly fed starter.

I'm not the one feeding it, but I have access to it. And it is, the difference is palpable. It is a stronger starter. It gives you a better rise. It gives you better bread.

The difference is not that big of a deal, and so you can definitely get great bread at a neglected starter. Carla, thank you for keeping this discourse alive and calling it. - Let's go to our next question.

- Hi there, I can't believe I finally found this podcast.

Oh my God, my dreams come true. Period. So, I have been making sourdough for, you know, like everybody else in 2020, and I have made hundreds of loaves, and I paid very detailed attention to the workflow

on it, timing, et cetera, et cetera, but now, I find myself getting kind of used as some shortcuts. So, for instance, my questions are living or no living. - What is the benefit? - Also, auto-leasing, or just throwing that self in

with the starter and a flower and water right away. Period. Yeah, I love to hear your thoughts, thanks. (beep) - Well, these are two enormous questions

that we could build entire episodes around, and we're probably, well, because this is our most, you know, our most appreciative listener, her dancing crew. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And also, a topic that people can talk about endlessly, I mean, truly, and so many nuances to it.

“Okay, well, let's just do our best to peel the onion, okay?”

- Start with living, I guess. - Okay. - To me, this is a, this is a really interesting question. It sort of speaks to what our understanding of living is.

- What's the tell people, tell listeners what living is? - Living or live on? - Live on. - I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, we're on it. - I'm not the one to decide, it's a pre-ferment.

A pre-ferment is just a small amount of culture or starter, flower, and water that is mixed before you incorporate the rest of the flower and water into the dough. - And usually about 12 hours ahead.

- Yeah, and you mix it ahead and you give it head start. And it really is there to, you know, start fermenting, start a fermentation process, start the hydration process, and it builds a lot of flavor that then when you incorporate it into, the larger batch of dough

is distributed through the flavor. - And what's part, no, we say, it's a bullion cube of flavor. - Yeah, that's right. - It's a way to explain the thing about it. It's also nice because that process of making a pre-ferment

is essentially like giving your culture, your sourdough starter, like an additional feed, right? So, you know, say you're feeding your starter once a day, and it's like, okay, it's time to feed my starter. Well, like you can make that pre-ferment

and, you know, juice up your starter that way. So it helps to build the strength of the starter also. - Yeah, yeah. The question of, look, Le Mansor,

because, to me, it's just very specific to the recipes.

Some bread recipes have it, some bread recipes don't. To me, it's not something that I would throw into any bread recipe that doesn't have it already. It's supposed to be good. - You could, you could.

- But, I personally wouldn't mess with the formula that way because I trust that the formula was written to work without it. And if you were going to do that, I mean, 'cause you could, say, you were like, I want to add a pre-ferment to this.

Then you would, that's fine to do,

“but you have to make sure that you account”

for the amount of flour and the amount of water that you're putting the pre-ferment in the total quantity of flour and water in the recipe. - You have to accurately subtract it. - Yeah, otherwise it's not my strong suit.

- Yeah, because I wasn't gonna have too much flour too much water. - Yeah.

- And now, to the auto-leas question,

this is a two-parter, real doozy of a question. So, since she's a true fan, I'm gonna answer both parts of the question. - So, we thought and talked a lot about auto-leas when we were writing the big book of bread.

So, auto-leas for listeners who don't know is, you combine some of the flour and some of the water in a recipe and you just let it sit for about 30 minutes. And then you add the salt and the starter. The reason that some bakers like to do that

is that it pre-hydrates a portion of the flour and it helps with the extensibility of the dough. So, like, how stretchy it is. I think if you are making the conclusion that we drew

“after doing some, you know, considerable testing”

and thinking about it is that we think that that process is probably more vital in a larger bakery setting when you're making like more loaves of bread. And then we didn't find that it made a huge difference when you're making a loaf or two.

And what is the risk of it is that you forget to add those things. - Like forget to add the salt to the bigger bread. - Exactly. - Which in which case game over?

- Game over. - Because there is not the start to tusk any, but there is nothing worse than unsalted bread. - It's just foul. - It's terrible.

In our testing, what we determined and the compromise that we said alone is something like, we call auto-leas light. So we actually mix everything together. So flour, water, starter, salt.

But then we, in some of the recipes, we do build in a rest period. And that rest period is helpful because, you know, yes, salt has some impact on extensibility. But we found that it wasn't like a huge difference

and that benefit from resting did allow the, you know, the flour to hydrate. It did make it a little stretchier, easier to work with. So that's where we sort of settled. So there are some recipes in the big book of bread

that use this auto-leas light, which is basically like mix everything together, but then let it rest. And it's not a true auto-leas because the starter and salt would be omitted in a true auto-leas.

- It's a salt-leas. - It's a salt-leas, yes, exactly. And I think it gets some of the benefits of an auto-leas without the risk of like, oh, you've forgotten to add things.

And also, like, without drawing up the process even more because sometimes the auto-leas is like, let it sit for an hour and then, you know, start with your recipe. - Yeah, yeah. - And, you know, I know there are

die-hards out there who are listening this

that are like, I always auto-leas, like, you fool.

“And that's fine, like, I think if that's what you want to do,”

like, it's not gonna hurt. And in some cases it will help, like, I do think auto-leas can be useful in like, does that have like a higher percentage of whole-grain flour because those benefit from like the extra hydration time

and you want that extra extensibility that's like not inherent to the flour, you know, or if you're making a bread that has high gluten flour in it like, then I think an auto-leas might be indicated more than, you know, it wouldn't other cases,

but I don't think there's like, you know, there's no hard and fast rule about it. - Yeah. - Thank God. - So, is I hate rules? - So we are a little auto-leas skeptical

when it comes to small batches, a bread for the home baker. But if you want to do it, go for it. - Yeah, let's go to our next question. - Good evening. I'm calling to find out if you have any ideas

for making my sour dough bread, or sour dough yeast, a bit more pungent because I would like it to taste even more sour and I'm not sure how to go about that. If you have any ideas, I would certainly be open to them. Thank you again.

Good night. (beep) - So, I care of? - Thank you, Kira. So, Kira, obviously it's not done to heal the shots

and I'm like, this is very simple way to do this. All you do is you cut a slice of sour dough. You cut a slice of lime. Suck on the line, eat the bite of sour dough. It works wonders.

- It's sour, I think.

because I think it's interesting.

Sometimes people will eat a piece of sour dough bread and they're like, it doesn't taste very sour. And, you know, that sort of tanginess that you get in some sour dough bread is not necessarily a whole mark of sour dough bread and that's why,

these are sometimes people like, oh, I don't like sour dough bread. - Two tangy and you're like, well, not necessarily. - So you can definitely... - It's been really something San Francisco sour dough.

- Yeah, well, yeah. And we've talked about the San Francisco sour dough and how some of those commercial lows actually have citric acid added to them to make them tangyere.

So, I mean, you could do that. What I recommend doing that, definitely not. 'Cause I don't think that gives you the best results. - There are things that you can manipulate to get a more sour bread.

“And I think chief among them is giving your bread”

like long, cold fermentation.

So the longer it sits in bulk fermentation in a cold environment, the more sour it's gonna become. - Yeah, and so we mentioned earlier, the recipe for classic panel of on in the big book of bread. We also have recipes like that on the site.

And this is an interesting recipe to talk about in terms of sourness because that recipe gives you an option. You have a pre-ferment, which is gonna give you lots of flavor. You let that go overnight, you shape. You know, you do the bigger mix, bulk, shape,

and you can bake immediately the next day. Or you can give it a cold retard in the fridge. - Yeah. - And that's when you're gonna make the difference between a loaf that is, has a lot of flavor

and loaf that's gonna have even more flavor, and even more sourness to it. - Yeah, and you can even go longer. I mean, there's a direct fold at which your dough loses strength and becomes sort of flabby

and won't rise as well. But you can push that cold fermentation for quite a long time. And I've accidentally done it.

“Like when we were doing testing for the big book of bread,”

like I would find dough and like, oh, this is like a very particular problem I know, but I would forget about doughs and then you're like, well, I might as well just bake it and it happens.

And yeah, the ones that sat around longer just got 10 year and 10 year. So that is what I would recommend. If you have a recipe that you love, rather than just like, you know, baking it immediately,

take that dough, you know, in shape and in spanneton, cover it, tuck in the fridge overnight, and then bake it the next morning. And you'll see, I mean, or the next evening, even, and you'll see a difference in the flavor.

- And that is a trick you can apply to a recipe that may not necessarily have it. You could experiment with that, right? I mean, so we, I was talking a little bit earlier about how I wouldn't necessarily just me personally.

I wouldn't add a pre-ferment to a recipe that doesn't call for it. That's just me. - Yeah. - But I would, again, talking about me, I would experiment with holding

a loaf in a cold environment overnight to experiment with, I think, that's pretty low risk. - Yes, low risk. And it's, I mean, the refrigeration slows fermentation, and so much, like, two of a crawl, right?

And so you don't really have to worry about like overproving your bread in that time. If you left on the counter, like, you would have to worry about it, but in the fridge, it's just like, at a snail's pace.

So, I think it is pretty low risk. - So in this scenario where you've taken a loaf and you've, you know, stuck in the fridge for 12 hours. More than the recipe says, would you let it warm up for an hour

before you put it in the oven? Would you take it out while you're oven preheated? So would you go do it straight from it? - It sort of depends. I mean, I would probably just evaluate the dough

when it comes out, like, you know, and we talk a lot about what you're looking for. Like, I sort of would like wiggle the banana and like, it should look marshmallowy and it should be bubbly.

“And, you know, I think sometimes you can just tell”

by looking at it, that it's ready to go. And sometimes it also depends on how far

you have pushed the first fermentation, right?

- Before you put it before you put it in the fridge. So, like, if you feel like, oh, I've gone to maximal fermentation there, which frankly most home bakers don't do. So, then you might just take it straight out of the, it's also, I will say,

just I find it easier to score a cold from the fridge, for bread to get like a nice score that will help the loaf release in the oven. So, you know, oftentimes I will try and push the first fermentation, get it in the banana ton,

and then put it in the fridge and then the next day just turn it out right away without letting it warm up. Because it's easier to score. - It definitely is easier to handle cold. I have a really cold refrigerator.

So, sometimes I experience an opposite problem where it, like, it's slow sound fermentation to some. - So much. - That I feel like I want to give it, I want it to wake up a little bit before I bake it.

So, I'll take it out, you know, put it on my counter while my oven preheats. - Okay. - It's like this 45 minutes or so. It's not like I'm giving it a huge amount of time,

but just to give it that last little boost, but you really just have to pay attention and look at how your loaf feels.

- And that was a really sweet call, and lots of sweet calls. And now we're gonna go into the sour part of the podcast. - The sour dough, the sour. - Because every episode we love to check in with Jessica

to see what wildly surprising and full-throwed ideas in her head, I say that we call lovingly, just opinions.

“Jessica, what is your just opinion about sour dough?”

- Well, it's interesting because I think, you know, at the top of the show, we were talking about how that tartine loaf just took off, you know, and suddenly like the bread that you would get was this particular style of bread and do not get me wrong.

Like I was talking earlier about how much I love that style of bread. - Hold it into your chest.

- That's amazing, it was my baby.

And I think it's delicious, you know, it's delicious thing to eat. I will say though that I don't think is perfect for every application. And you know, there's some that are going to disagree with me,

but like you toast that bread and like go ahead, put your butter and peanut butter on it and just like watch it rain through those holes. You know, like that like large like open structure, open hold structure, that everyone is questioning for like,

look at my crumb, a value of my crumb, what is my crumb? Like, I don't know, I think sometimes it gets, it goes too far. And you're like, well, what are I supposed to do with this crust, like with a web inside?

Like how am I supposed to like, there's no bread, like where did the bread go?

“So I think that bread is like has obviously like”

some delicious applications.

But you know, like if I'm for morning toast like I don't mind, like I don't think a tighter crumb to bread is a flawed bread is all I'm saying. It's like it's just a different, or even like a tighter crumbed sourdough bread, like a sourdough sandwich loaf.

Like, I don't think it's a lesser than. And it's interesting because we spend a lot of time looking at, you know, like people on Reddit are talking about sourdough and everyone is obsessed with getting the super open crumb. Like it has become like the benchmark of a good loaf of bread.

And I just, I push back a little bit against that because I think is a certain style of good loaf of bread. And that is a great thing to make some of the time. But often like I am turning to like a close crumbed, you know, it's still sourdough, but like a sandwich loaf

or something like that because you get the flavor, but like for God's sake, so you can put some jelly on it. I don't think it's that too much task.

- Well, you know, it is, it's a flex now, right?

- Right, and it's a challenge to get it right now we're about to come out with a recipe that you're gonna hate. You know, a super open, super high hydration sourdough, much like the ones you're talking about. And we're even developing an entire on-demand class about it

because it is so many people who's holding rail,

“people want to like, so I think part of it”

is that they just want that challenge. But it is interesting to think about the pendulum. And I just wonder if the pendulum is going to swing back that way. It's kind of, it's slowly, like, okay, we went super open Chrome

and now we're ready to go a little longer. - We're going to tighten that up again. Yeah, and now we're going to go back to Wonder Bread, yeah. - It's going to be like a piece of bread that you can just squish in your hand into a tiny ball.

You know, like-- - And I think you just kicked off the pendulum swinging back. - I hope so, I'm trying to set her. Yeah, I think there's room at the table for both styles, but I would just say to people, like, don't forget

or don't think it's lesser than, like there's lots of ways to use sourdough that aren't that type of bread. And I think they're delicious too, and worthy of veneration in the way that we venerate the Tartine loaf.

- Yeah. I'm disappointed in this just opinion. It's way too reasonable. (laughing) I mean, it's not really that, it's not really that Harvard tip.

I mean, it's nice, it's been a very nice episode. - I know, work harder, nice episode. - Yeah, but I gotta kick it back to something. - To be like-- - To be like-- (laughing)

What are you going to bake this week, David? - Well, all this talk about sourdough, it's coming in the sourdough, which I'm usually in anyway. - Yeah. - But I'm gonna go a little sweet with it,

little enriched, tight crumb. We have a new recipe on the site for our sourdough chocolate babka and we're talking about this in the previous episode. I like the, I like chocolate with sourdough. I like that lactic tang, I think really works well

with chocolate, so I think it's very good pairing. I love a chocolate sandwich with sourdough bread. - So this is-- - Yeah, you turned me out of that. - So this is just, this is that just in look form.

I'm gonna do, we have, well, listeners will know, and my coconut agenda has been fully realized because we have this new creamy coconut sheet cake. It's combining two of my loves. She cakes and coconut.

I mean, I'm gonna have to make it for dinner. It's 'cause it's a big cake, it's dinner. - You don't have to cook dinner? - I'm gonna cook it for dinner, I'm gonna make it for dinner. It's got coconut milk, it's got coconut extract,

it's got like a soak sort of like a tracelychase.

- Give me away.

“- I won't invite you to my dinner party, then.”

And that was a contributor recipe,

and it looks really great. Kayla Hall, and so I haven't tried that yet, but I'm eager to give that one a spin. - Yeah, you really are pushing King Arthur towards your own personal agenda.

There's so many coconut recipes coming out of the test kitchen right now. There's a cookie with cooked stuffed with German chocolate. - Oh my gosh, that cookie. - In a future book, right?

That, yeah, in fact, the test kitchen director Sarah was like, we can't put any more coconuts in it's fun. I was like, are there a lot, but-- - What's that maybe directive coming down for me? - Maybe not, maybe not, maybe not.

“- So that's what I'm gonna do this week,”

and that recipe's on the both of those recipes are on the site if you want to bake along with us.

As always, thank you for tuning in and joining us here

on Things Bakers. No, we're gonna be back next week with a new episode. - Yes, I think we're talking about bagels next week. - Talk about bagels. Yeah, out of the frying pan-- - That's definitely gonna be

a less nice episode. It got lots of opinions about bagels. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. - Yeah, people, remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, music,

“or wherever you listen to your podcasts.”

- And leave us, I was gonna say,

leave us a recipe, why not? - I mean, sure, I would love, but also a review and share the episode with a friend, because baking is more fun together. - Yeah, and in the meantime, people will please do not

forget to follow that recipe. We taught a lot about things you could do outside of recipe today. Ignore all that. Follow the recipe.

Follow the recipe. Things Bakers know is hosted and executive produced by me, David, to market. - And me, Jessica Badalana. - Rossi and us to Pula with our senior producer,

Chad and I as our producer and Marcus Bagala is our engineer, the original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala. - And also, big thanks to Chad Robertson, who's just the goat for joining us on this week's episode.

You can learn more about him and his new projects, via his Instagram @TarteneBaker. - Things Bakers know is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast. This episode is brought to you by a new collaboration between King Arthur and Supernatural.

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