Fermented Sour Breads

Rocken, W. and Voysey, P.A. 1995. Sour-dough fermentation in bread making. J. Appl. Bad. Symposium Suppl. 79, 38S-48S. 

Rye flour is used in bread baking with sour dough fermentation (cf. 15.4.2.2). 

According to end use, wheat is classified as soft, hard, and durum. The first two classes are almost always dry-milled into refined flour for the manufacturing of fermented and chemical-leavened bakery products such as breads, cakes, crackers, cookies, and flour tortillas (Figure 1.8). Durums are dry-milled into coarse refined meals called semolina, ideally suited for manufacturing of long and short pasta products. Rye flour is usually mixed with wheat flour for the production of fermented breads including sour breads, especially in Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and other European countries. 

Lactic Acid B cteri. The lactic acid bacteria are ubiquitous in nature from plant surfaces to gastrointestinal tracts of many animals. These gram-positive facultative anaerobes convert carbohydrates (qv) to lactic acid and are used extensively in the food industry, for example, for the production of yogurt, cheese, sour dough bread, etc. The sour aromatic flavor imparted upon fermentation appears to be a desirable food trait. In addition, certain species produce a variety of antibiotics. 

Sour dough bread has a range of flavours that are not present in other bread also it keeps relatively well. The keeping properties, no doubt, originate from some of the products of the side-reactions that have taken place in the dough. There is no need to add propionic acid as a mould inhibitor as some is likely to be present naturally. Quite possibly, some of the substances produced by the fermentation would not be permitted as additives ... 

Traditional pitta bread is made by a sour dough process but it can be made using manufactured yeast. If the sour dough process is used a relatively large portion of sour dough (approximately 20%) is used, giving a more rapid fermentation than most sour dough products. 

Mercury, or Mercurial Water, is that water Sulphur that flour, which by a long fermentation, becomes sour and are made into leaven, with which Gold and Silver are made. And as the leaven may be multiplied eternally, and may serve always as a material for making bread, so the Philosophical Medicine may also be multiplied, and serve eternally as the leaven for making Gold. 

Salovaara, H. and Valjakka, T. 1987. The effect of fermentation temperature, flour type, and starter on the properties of sour wheat bread. Int. J. Food Sci. Technol. 22, 591-597. 

Lactic and acetic bacteria develop in dough from the start of fermentation and play some part in giving- bread its flavor. If bread dough is fermented too long these bacteria produce so much acid that the bread is sour. 

During fermentation bread dough sometimes becomes abnormally sour due to the excessive growth of lactic and butyric acid bacteria. 

Food, Beverages, Food Additives, and Supplements. Industrial fermentation plays a major role in the production of food. Food products traditionally made by fermentation include dairy products (cheeses, sour cream, yogurt, and kefir) food additives and supplements (flavors, proteins, vitamins, and carotenoids) alcoholic beverages (beer, wines, and distilled spirits) plant products (bread, coffee, soy sauce, tofu, sauerkraut) and fermented meat and fish (pepperoni and salami). 

It is worth mentioning a couple of special bread types produced by non-traditional fermentations. A well-known example is the San Francisco sour dough bread. This bread type accounts for more than 20% of the bread sales in the San Francisco Bay area (Sugihara, 1977). The sourdough fermentation is based on a highly specialised co-operation between the yeast Candida holmii and the lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillus sanfran-cisco (Sugihara, 1977). 

Hansen and Lund, 1987). In rye bread, compounds such as alcohols, esters and carbonyls have been identified (Hansen et al., 1989). Choice of fermentation temperature, dough yield, flour quality and starter culture all influence the sensory properties of the final bread. Free amino acids formed during fermentation increase Maillard reaction products, thus intensifying the taste. Sensory analysis has shown that sour dough rye breadcrumbs had the most intense and bread-like flavour compared with chemically acidified doughs (Hansen et al., 1989). 

The distinctive tangy taste of sourdough bread results from the work of the yeast and lactobacteria that also produce the carbon dioxide that makes the bread rise. Acetic acid and lactic acid, both carboxylic acids, are produced during the fermentation, giving sourdough bread its sour taste. 

Without even knowing that microorganisms existed, ancient people learned to put them to work. The anciet art of cheese-making involves fermentation of milk. For thousands of years, the soy sauces of China and Japan have been made from fermented beans. For centuries, the Balkan people have enjoyed fermented milk, or yogurt, and members of Central Asian tribes have found equal pleasure in sour camel s milk, or kumiss. Bread, which... 

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