Artisan Bread Class at Rock Bottom Ranch, Oct. 24, 2012

My second Artisan Bread Class was attended by 12 students on Wednesday evening, Oct 24.  We succeeded with everyone mixing dough, shaping loaves, and baking them.  We reviewed the creation and maintenance of bread cultures.  To recap:
Bread Culture may be started from an existing culture, from airborne yeast microbes (by leaving a mixture of flour and water exposed to the air for about 3 - 5 days), or from yeast cultures such as dry bread yeast, or beer yeast left in the bottom of a bottle of homebrew.  Bread culture is fed with flour and water, in an approximate proportion of 2-3 : 1.
Sweet Culture may be started from an existing culture, from airborne yeast microbes, or from commercial yeast.  Sweet Culture is fed with flour, milk (cow, soy or nut milks), and sugar, in an approximate proportion of 2-3 : 1.0 : 0.5.
When using cultures often, you can keep them fairly "thin", but when you are going away for a week or two, feed the culture with more flour, making it "thick", so the culture has plenty of food to keep it healthy.
The oatmeal mix I use to add moisture and texture to bread and pancakes is made from one cup "Bob's Red Mill Ten-Grain Cereal", one cup "Steel Cut Oats", five cups water, and one teaspoon of salt, brought to a boil, then simmered while stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens to desired consistency, then covered with the heat off until cooled.
Here are links to my recipes for the Sweet Culture:
Sourdough Oatmeal Pancakes
Sourdough Oatmeal Coffee Cake