The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Injected CO2 gas instead of yeast...

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Injected CO2 gas instead of yeast...

I was driving an old friend the other day and mentioned I liked to baked sourdough to see what he might say. Let me explain that this dear friend fought in the last world war and was held captive in Russia after the war. Now he was telling me that in this POW camp, the bread was made to rise by injecting it with Carbon Dioxide gas. How this was done I do not know but it has made me curious. 

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

being pumped up like bubble gum and "BOOM"  ....  It might involve a pressure chamber....  like dough in a cold pressure cooker pumped with gas, would that do it?   I think this has more industrial applications than domestic ones, still, a little sci-fi.... oops, oh dear, we all know what "industrial" means to  good bread.  Forget I ever brought it up.  Just forget it.  I'll extrude my thoughts into something else... I'm working on buckeye bread.  But I just might give it a good goose of CO2.

Mini O

leemid's picture
leemid

Just this week in the local paper, which some of us call the big zero (for Oregonian), there was an article about making your own sparkling water, or juice, by jamming in some CO2. I never would have guessed the same process could be used for bread...

Barometric chamber... compressssssed CO2... tick, tick, tick... remove dough from chamber... watch bread rise, and rise... RUUUUUUNNNNNNN!

suave's picture
suave

Get a pound of dry ice (which is a solid carbon dioxide) from your local supermarket.  Crush it into a fine powder using a mallet, take some and mix it into your dough.  See what happens and report back to us. 

PS. Your friend is too lucky.

mikeofaustin's picture
mikeofaustin

From when a scuba diver will go from the deep pressurized enviornment, and rise to quickly, bubbles will form in his/her body.  The same may possibly be used for dough(?).

    I'm guessing that way to do it, is to place dough in pressure chamber, pressurize with CO2, wait for stabization, then quickly release pressure,  causing 'dough bends'.

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I'm not even going to try that one. I know that frozen dough cannot rise but will explode into a cleaning nightmare as dry ice warms up and expands.

Dough bends sounds like fun. I got my pressure cooker and a CO2 water bottle, putting them together is easy, then charging the pot with the dough in it using the cartridge. wait....

Mini O