Dough Day

Each day before a market, I am immersed in dough. After feeding larger quantities of starter the night before, I wake to see if that starter is ready or does it need more time. If it needs more time, I put it into a warmer environment to increase fermentation. While I wait for it, I prepare the levain containers for three of the loaf varieties. Levain is more starter, but fed to be ripe in only a few hours rather than overnight. It is considered “young” and is the engine for the PNW Country, Expresso and Whole Grain loaves. My Tangy loaf is fed straight starter from the overnight rest. This usually gives the loaf more of the quintessential sourdough tang.

Once the levains are mixed and left to ferment, I mix the big batch of Tangy loaves. This initial mix starts the trajectory of my day. I will be stuck in, chained to my kitchen from that point until early in the evening, if all goes to plan. Making bread feeds my soul. The processes of dough day to the pulling of loaves from the oven, while not compulsion, have become something I must do. That being said, I often dread dough day, knowing everything is fixed without variation: measuring correctly temperatured water, initially mixing dough before the mandatory autolyse rest, finishing that mix adding the levain, more water and salt. Setting timers to dictate stretches & folds & temperature checks is followed by mixing a different batch, starting the process anew in each bus tub. The little chalkboard has start times and estimated preshape times so things don’t jumble together at any point. One person can only process so many loaves before the subsequent batches sit too long, verging on over-proof. It can feel like tyranny. It is the tyranny I dread. This tyranny begins to subside when that batch of Tangy loaves is shaped, resting cold in bannetons for the night. One down, three to go. Satisfaction begins to seep in around the edges of my mind and heart.

Most folks have no idea the time and effort that produce naturally-fermented, hand-mixed, hand-shaped bread. They may balk at the price tag of $8 to $10. I overhead one market visitor say “$9? I could make that for 2.” I silently invited him to do so. I silently invited him to give an entire day of his life, to give his mind and muscles to the process, to increase his anxiety as to the ready-ness at each step, to put his faith in the process: the time and the temperatures, the touch and the texture of the dough, for $2. “Yeah. Knock yourself out.”

At the start of this dough day, I saw a quote from Jeffrey Hamelman. Jeffrey H. is a (one of the few in the USA) Certified Master Baker, former head baker at King Arthur and author of Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes, and an occasional contributor to the Bread Baker’s Guild of America’s online forum. He offered this after composing it for the opening words at a conference. These words are why I do what I do, why I endure each and every Dough Day. I leave you with them.

Before there is a loaf there is a baker. Before the baker there is a miller. Before the miller there is a harvest. Before the harvest there is planting and tending. Our bread begins with the farmer. The farmer and the baker are the beginning and the end of the visible bread; they are great pillars of sustenance, of profound importance to society. The chain of grain at last leaves the hands of the baker and the bread continues its journey into countless bellies, before it again enters the earth and the cycle begins anew. 
The breath of our ancestors is in each loaf. 
When someone offers you a slice of bread, look her in the eyes and take it with both hands. 

-Jeffrey Hamelman, Certified Master Baker, author of Bread