The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Useless information

Portus's picture
Portus

Useless information

In preparing for the 123 community bake on Saturday morning I hauled out my wooden dough board and gave it a brief scraping down.  My usual maintenance regime is a simple scrape after use, then an airing outdoors in the sun, weather permitting, followed by a light scrape prior to next using.  This time I decided apply science to the "light scrape" residue by dropping the bits (<2g) into a plastic container to which I added another <2g water, closed the lid and waited for the evening.  I then added 20 g each of water and flour, and Sunday morning it presented a decent outcome as shown in these pictures.

I therefore conclude that a wooden dough board is superior to marble/other impermeable surfaces for mixing dough as it has the advantage of an inherent reservoir/store of starter should accidental destruction of the usual, maintained starter occur.  It also brought to mind the item I read a while back about one or other community that did not rinse out the wooden mixing bread bowl; the locals simply added water and flour, mixed the lot which was left to ferment overnight for their morning bake.

I wonder if, in terms of sourdough genetics, this wood be called a chip off the old block?

 

Comments

singingloon's picture
singingloon

Read Michael Pollan's book Cooked about the nun Sister Noella who makes cheese with raw milk in wooden barrels with wooden spoons. Health authorities wanted to shut her down for not using stainless steel, until she could prove that e-coli added to the barrel survived in a stainless steel environment but not in the wooden environment! She was cleared to continue using her old wooden barrel.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

a lessened understanding to any subject imaginable but your post isn't anything but enlightening for those that didn't know wood traps the wee beasties for later use to make bread.  

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

a lessened understanding to any subject imaginable but your post isn't anything but enlightening for those that didn't know wood traps the wee beasties for later use to make bread.  

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

Thanks for the experiment.

Carole