Author Topic: leavening vs fermentation  (Read 1214 times)  0
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• Registered User   • Posts: 13   • Age: 61   • Location:
Concord, CA leavening vs fermentation « on: October 22, 2011,
02:14:09 PM » I've been thinking about leavening and fermenting
with bread making. The books I've been reading are Jeffrey
Hamelman's Bread, Peter Reinhart's Whole grain breads and
Artisan breads every day, and Chad Robertson's Tartine bread.
Both Peter Reinhart and Chad Robertson state that the sour
flavor for a sourdough comes from the Lactobacillus
sanfranciscensis bacteria, not from the yeast. The Lactobacillus
produce lactic acid which makes the bread taste sour. This is
what I call fermenting.  In a sourdough starter the wild yeast
produces gas, and this is what I call leavening. Likewise,
commercial yeasts provide leavening, except that they're faster
than wild yeast and predictable.  When reading about bread
making and pizza making, people use the word ferm