Bread

So far I made my first and only bread in January 2025. Big thanks to my friend Tolya for inspiration and help.

I made my own starter and followed the recipe from The Bread Code. My friend Shatlyk swears by the book Flour Water Yeast Salt, but I haven't checked it yet.

For the starter I used the whole wheat flour and followed 1:1:1 proportion with the 12 hour feeding interval.

For the bread I used the normal white flour with 11 grams of protein.

My ultimate end goal is to create all the ingredients myself: flour and salt.

Flour mills

Quite beautiful machines! Just look at some:

• Nutrimill Harvest Grain Mill
• Kornkraft Farina
• A&B Grainmills & Organics Schnitzer Hand Mill

Biology and chemistry

Bacteria and yeast predominantly live in the bran of grain.

After mixing flour and water, the water activates the enzyme amylase, which breaks down starch in flour into simple sugars (hydrolysis). Lactic acid bacteria (lactobacilli) multiply and lower the pH from ~6.5 to ~4-4.5, creating selective conditions that suppress the growth of other bacteria.

Baker's yeast (saccharomyces - single-celled fungi) feeds on the sugar, producing CO₂ and ethanol (C₂H₅OH, which evaporates during baking). Bacteria produce lactic (C₃H₆O₃) and acetic (CH₃COOH) acids, which together with yeast metabolic products create the characteristic bread aroma.

Starch (C₆H₁₀O₅)ₙ is synthesized by plants in chloroplasts using light energy during photosynthesis.