The Sour Mother Dough
The Sour Mother Dough is the Yeast For Excellence!
The sour mother dough has been for millennia the rising spark of baking. Since the begin of the last century all the oven products were mixed with the natural yeast. Starting from the first ‘30, the baking process, first at industrial level, then also at handcraft level, used brewer’s yeast.
But, at the end, what is the natural yeast or sour mother dough? How is it born? And which are its advantages? What it is.
The natural yeast is an mix of flour and water allowed to mature in the environment for a very long time. During this time the micro-organisms that are in the flour, in the water and in the environment themselves, they have the time to reproduce and to ferment.
In the natural yeast two types of fermentation happens: the lactic fermentation, responsible of the best characteristics, and the alcoholic.
With the term “mother” we intend, then, a portion of the mix we obtain by a preceding, renewed and preserved workmanship rigorously respecting a procedure (refreshments to intervals determined with flour and water).
In the natural yeast, thanks to an extremely sophisticated system, in which complex reactions happen, a microflora develops him.
According to the type of used flour, to the rate of hydration, to the temperatures, or still to the hygrometry of the environment in which the yeast is set to mature, they happen some complex transformations. A natural sourness develops in the yeast, modifying the aroma and the characteristics of it, with a vinegary taste, and from here the name of sour mother dough.
How it is born. lievito-3In the realization of my yeast, to facilitate the fermentation and the creation of the best qualities, I have used, as a start, together with flour and water, an apple.
In alternative other types of fruit can be employed as apricot, the hop (its flowers).
There is, then, who uses the natural yogurt, the pure vinegar, the white wine that, if also natural, they are produced already elaborated by the man.
Advantages: the employment of the natural yeast attributes to every product an unique and inimitable perfume; it allows the realization of particularly suitable products for people that has problems of intolerance to the yeast. It makes the product easy to digest. It allows, besides, a longer maintenance of the product, maintaining the quality and the taste of it unchanged. According to the recipe the characteristics of the natural yeast can be modified exalting or moderating the sourness of it.
