Kona runs free

This recipe works without adding any new yeast. 

Due to Covid-19 pandemic (4/3/20), everyone is baking at home. This created a sudden shortage of yeast in stores, local and on line. Bad timing, I am at the end of a large bag of dry yeast I bought ~4 years ago. In a 2 weeks old unwashed shoebox container from the last batch of dough,  I added 3 cups of flour, 2 cups of water and sprinkle of salt. The wet dough is bubbling happily now for 2 days at room temperature.  I now have yeast.  Maybe I can maintain this as a perpetual sour dough starter, it is starting to have the sour dough smell.

No knead rye bread adapted from this book

1. Mix the dough
2. Shape the bread
3. Bake

1. Mix the dough

Mix flour-yeast-salt-water  at 13-3-3-6.  I’ve halved the recipe.

Flour: 6.5 cups ( 5 cups of all purpose unbleached flour and 1.5 cups of rye flour).  You can play around with the type of flour here.  1.5 cups seem the upper limit for non-wheat flour.  For heavier dense bread, use more non wheat flour.  For light airy bread, i.e. french bread, you can use 100% bread flour.

Yeast: 1.5 table spoons.  Don’t worry about the kind of yeast, if it is alive it will work.  Don’t bother proofing.  I’ve been using less, 1 table spoon and letting the dough rise longer.

Salt: 1.5 table spoons.  I’ve been using 1 table spoon.  The role of salt is to limit the growth of yeast.  This has nothing to do with flavor.

Water: 3 cups.  Tap water is fine.  Don’t need to adjust the temperature.  In 18 hours, starting temperature of the water makes little difference.

I mix the dough using a dough whisk.  You can use two knives if you don’t have one. But forks and spatulas just suck. I use a  plastic shoe  box for my dough. The dough has to sit covered at room temperature for at least an over night.  Then the dough can be kept in the fridge for ~3 weeks.  This recipe makes three loaves. You can mix the dough in a round mixing bowl with a plastic on top and it will work fine.  That setup really sucks for the long term storage.  With two shoe boxes, you can start two different breads and keep them stacked in the fridge. During storage in the fridge, the dough develops acid and takes on a sour doughy flavor which is nice.  And if you like don’t wash the container between different batches of to carry along the sough dough flavor.

2. Shape the bread. On a cookie sheet sprinkle flour and spread this with your hands.  Then grab the dough with flour covered hands.  Let gravity pull the dough down to make a rectangular shape.  Fold the dough in half and close the edges with your finger and place it on the flour coated cookie sheet.  Slash the bread with a sharp knife to prevent the bread from cracking open. Sprinkle caraway seeds on top.  Let the bread rest for ~15 min to return to room temperature.  You can also make the bread into different shapes.  Fennel seeds, sesame seeds, etc are also nice too.

3. Baking.  450°F  in a steamed oven for 50 minutes at 5000 feet.  At sea level shorter baking time will do.  Put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to generate the steam.  And also spray water on the walls of the water towards the end of the baking to get the golden crust.

4. Variations: Put 1~2 table spoons of cumin seeds in the dough.  This makes a very fragrant bread.