Khymos » baking stone

Baking with hefeweizen yeast

Martin Lersch — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:27:27 +0000

Wheat beers such as hefeweizen, weissbier and wit are all light beers made from a mix of malted barley and wheat. In southern Germany the typical hefeweizen is fermented with a non-flocculating yeast, and it is not filtered before bottling. This gives the beer a yeasty, bread like flavor accompanied by aromas reminiscent of banan, cloves (we’ve encountered that combo before), coriander and citrus. I’ve just begun to read up on brewing and my first batch of a partial mash hefeweizen is bubling along. As I pitched the liquid hefeweizen yeast into the wort I decided to keep a tiny amount for baking. If hefeweizen beer is reminiscent of bread, why not use the yeast for making bread? In particular I was curious whether some of the aroma top notes characterizing hefeweizen beer would stand out in bread made using the same yeast.

The specific yeast I used was obtained as a liquid suspension from White labs. Their hefeweizen yeast strain (catalogue number WLP300) is identical to Weihenstephan 68. And in case you didn’t know – Weihenstephan is the world’s oldest brewery. Wine yeast is the same as beer yeast (or ale yeast to be more precise) and baker’s yeast – and they are all known under the latin name Saccharomyces cerevisiae (which literally translates to something like a “beer producing sugar munching fungi”). Why bother if they are all the same yeast you may ask. It’s a good question, but despite the common name they are different isolates with very different properties. They certainly have a lot in common: in the presence of air they consume sugars to grow, and in a closed environment without access to air the consumed sugars are instead converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide. But besides this main reaction there are hosts of other enzymes present that produce higher alcohols, aldehyes, acids, esters – all of them volatiles compounds that contribute significantly to flavor. And this is typically where the isolates of S. cerevisia differ. There’s a mind boggling array of beer yeasts available. Take a look at the yeast catalogues of White labs, Wyeast or Fermentis to get an idea of the many yeast strains that are available (note that the lists includes both ale yeasts S. cerevisia which are top fermenting and lager yeasts S. carlsbergensis which are bottom fermenting, meaning that the yeast sinks to the bottom when the job is done). And if this doesn’t impress you – consider the fact that there are thousands of S. cerevisia isolates available from culture collections around the world (ATCC and CBS are among the largest – do a search for S. cerevisiae at ATCC and it tells you to narrow your search because there are more than 5000 hits!).

Apart from the specific strain used the fermentation conditions will also greatly influence the volatile profile: temperature, time, pH, micro and macro nutrients present, and the sugars available all have their say. A general advice for artisan breads is to use only a small amount of yeast (2-3 g) to start with and give the dough plenty of time to develop and rise. This gives a richer flavor compared to using 50 g of fresh yeast to obtain a rapid rise. Since I only started with about a 1/4 teaspoon of yeast slurry I first had to let the yeast grow and multiply. Since S. cerevisiae needs oxygen to grow I added 50 g of water to the yeast slurry and then used a hand mixer to whip in air for a minute or so before adding 50 g of flour. I left the pre-ferment (aka poolish or biga) on the benchtop and the next day there was plenty of bubbling activity. I added more water, whipped in more air with a hand mixer and once again added as much flour as water. This yielded an active starter and all was set for baking.

Hefeweizen bread

Pre-ferment (evening before baking day):
65 g starter (100% hydration)
110 g water
110 g all purpose wheat flour

Baking day:
285 g starter (100%) from day before
466 g water
250 g emmer
485 g all purpose wheat flour
12 g salt

Total dough weight: 1498 g
Hydration: 69%

Add water to starter and incorporate air with a hand mixer to give the yeast a good start. Mix in the flour, cover and leave at room temperature. Next day, mix all ingredients and leave to rise (this may take 1-3 hours). Divide in two, fold over repeatedly and shape into boules. Leave to rise. Preheat oven to 250 °C. Use a baking stone, and generate some steam in the oven during the first 10 min (see picture below). After 10 min, turn down to 220 °C and bake until crust has a nice golden crust.

My current steam setup: I use ice cubes since this prevents a sudden gush of steam towards my hands. The stones serve as a heat reservoir ensuring that the ice cubes melt and evaporate within a couple of minutes. To cope with the heat shock I use a plate of stainless steel to hold the stones. After 10 min I open the oven door to vent out steam and remove the plate with the stones to allow an even heating (no reflection!) of the baking stone from below.

So how did it taste? The bread tasted excellent, but to be honest – I couldn’t detect any aroma that I can’t get using conventional baker’s yeast. The reason for this is probably that other flavors (i.e. from the flour, the baking process etc.) dominate. Another factor is that bread is only fermented for a couple of hours compared to several days for beer. This simply doesn’t give enough time for significant concentrations of the volatile compounds to develop. Lastly, the baking process will drive off the most volatile compounds. Nevertheless, I would still encourage you to try this! I didn’t get the result I hoped for (I was a little optimistic), but it’s a fun experiment to do, especially if you have some yeast left over from beer brewing anyway.

I am by no means the first to try this. But it seems that results are mixed. Some complain about slow rising doughs. But there are also many misconceptions around. One is that some yeasts produce more alcohol whereas other yeasts produce more gas. As long as we’re talking about anaerobic fermentation of sugar to ethanol and carbon dioxide this is plain wrong as ethanol and carbon dioxide are produced in a 1:1 ratio. There is also some confusion with regards to the naming (i.e. beer yeast, ale yeast, brewer’s yeast, baker’s yeast etc. – when all in fact are the same yeast).

Since the bread came out just like bread made with conventional baker’s yeast it’s fair to turn the question around: Do the different beer yeasts really make a difference? I did a quick search in the scientific littereature and found a couple of papers that study the effect of yeast strains on the formation of volatile compounds in beer and wine:

Yeast Influence on Volatile Composition of Wines
Ester Concentration Differences in Wine Fermented by Various Species and Strains of Yeasts
Synthesis of volatile phenols by Saccharomyces cerevisiae in wines
Function of yeast species and strains in wine flavour
Expression Levels of the Yeast Alcohol Acetyltransferase Genes ATF1, Lg-ATF1, and ATF2 Control the Formation of a Broad Range of Volatile Esters

I haven’t had the opportunity to dig really into this, but from the abstracts it definitely seems to be the case that the selection of yeast strains also play a vital role in the resulting aroma profile of the beer.

Oh yeah, one more thing: For this particular bread I used emmer from a local mill, Holli Mølle, specializing in ancient cereals. Emmer (aka farro) doesn’t form as much gluten as conventional wheat (I tried making a 100% emmer no-knead bread which tasted nice but was a fiasco shape wise…), but it does lend a light greyish/brown color to the crumb and also gives the bread a richer flavor. But the use of emmer is of course not a pre-requisite if you want to bake with beer yeast

Looks good and tastes good!

Practical molecular gastronomy, part 3

Martin Lersch — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:40:47 +0000

Get a basic understanding of heat transfer, heat capacity and heat conductance.

Since a lot of cooking involves temperature manipulations, it’s a good idea to get a basic understandning of how heat is transferred and how well it is stored in different materials. “Heat” in this context does not imply high temperature since it also applies to the understanding of freezing/thawing.

Closeup of ceramic stove top

Heat transfer

Conduction: flow of heat through an object or between two objects in contact. Metals are typically good conducters whereas air is a poor heat conductor.

Convection: heat transfer occurs because particles are moved from a warm region to a colder one. One can say that convection is a combination of conduction and mixing. For example, convection occurs when heating water since its density varies with temperature – warm water is lighter than cold water and will float. This video illustrates convection currents in water as a crystal of potassium permanganate dissolves (this salt is not edible).

Radiation: in the kitchen we encounter two types of heat transfer by radiation corresponding to two different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The heat we feel from hot burning charcoal, a stove top or the sun are all a result of infrared radiation. The other type is microwave radiation. Heat transfer by radiation does not require a material for the heat to pass through (as a consequence, a blowing wind will not have any significant effect when grilling). Microwaves easily penetrate plastic, glass and wood, but not metal. Infrared radiation is blocked by opaque materials.

Heat capacity and heat conductance

Heat capacity: the heat requried to raise the temperature of the material. Water has a very high heat capacity, metals (shown in red) generally a low heat capacity.

Heat conductance: how well heat flows through the material. Some metals (shown in red in the graph) are excellent heat conductors (silver, copper, aluminum), others less so (iron and stainless steel). All other materials (shown in blue) are generellay poor heat conductors.

The heat capacity (or to be precise, the specific heat capacity – which means heat capacity per weight unit) and the heat conductance of materials encountered in the kitchen are plotted in the the graph below:

(for the technically interested, the plot units are Wm^-1K^-1 for the heat conductance and Jg^-1K^-1 for the specific heat capacity)

For a more extensive treatment of heat transfer, heat capacity and heat conductance (+ more on cooking methods and materials) in a gastronomical setting, I recommend the Gourmet Engineering Lecture Notes for a very interesting course given at Tufts University in Medford, MA, USA. Cooking for Engineers also has a nice post on heat transfer and browning of foods and one on common materials of cookware (with comprehensive comparisons of different materials used).

Examples related to food preparation and handling

Convection ovens utilize fans to circulate hot air allowing reduced cooking times and temperatures. Because of efficient convection, two or more trays can be baked simultaneously.

In a steam oven water is introduced to increase the humidity (this can also be done by spraying water into the hot oven). Heat transfer is more efficient due to 1) the higher heat capacity of humid air and 2) the energy released when steam condenses onto the surface (it’s the energy it took to boil the water in the first place). For bread, the condesed water prevents the surface from drying out which facilitates the exapansion of the loaf. Furthermore, the hot surface causes starch to gelatinize and subsequently dry into a delicate crust.

Water will cool faster than the same volume of a thickened soup because of less resistance to the convection currents in water. The amount of convection decreases in the following order: water > chicken soup > creamy soup > thick onion soup > porridge. In the latter heat is transferred by conduction only from the interior to the exterior (where heat transfer proceeds mainly by radiation and conduction). This will also affect cooling times, which is of importance with regard to microbial safety (food should be cooled rapidly past the window from 30-60 °C where microorganism thrive).

For rapid defrosting, place the frozen food in cold water or on a metal object – this will allow an efficient transport of heat to the frozen food. Defrosting in a microwave is not easy because most of the water molecules are locked in rigid structure and even microwaves cannot make them move (they only melt by conduction of heat from melted neighbouring areas).

To freeze icecream or a parfait, use a metal container as this will allow a faster dissipation of the heat in the freezer.

When whipping cream, it’s essential to keep the temperature low (otherwise the fat will melt). Use a thick glas bowl and cool it in the freezer before whipping.

When cooking meat in a pan or on a grill, notice how the surface browns relatively fast compared to the time it takes for the interioir of the meat to heat up. Heat transfer to the surface by radiation or conduction is very efficient compared to conduction of heat through meat itself. Therefore it’s advisable to fry/grill the meat at high temperature first to get a nice browning, then let the meat rest for 5-10 min to allow for heat conduction to the interioir (cover with aluminum foil to reduce radiative heat loss), followed by a second frying/grilling at lower temperature until desired doneness.

In an oven, the heating caused by radiation can be increased by moving food closer to the walls or reduced by wrapping the food with reflective aluminum foil. For example, to caramellize sugar on a creme brulee if you don’t have gas burner, place them as high as possible in the oven, preferably using a grill element. Turkey legs stick out and easily get overdone – wrapping them with aluminum foil reduces heat radiation from the oven walls.

For a bain marie, always use a metal bowl as this gives you better temperature control. When making egg based sauces such as hollandaise or bernaise, use a thin metal bowl this allows rapid heating and cooling (if temperature gets to high, the metal bowl allows quick cooling which might save the sauce).

A pizza baking stone has a higher heat capacity than a metal plate/sheet – this ensures proper rising and gives a crispy crust.

Ever burnt your tongue on a pizza? Tomatoes (mostly water) retain heat far better than the crust (many air bubles, low heat capacity) and cheese topping (cools fast due to radiation from surface).

The vacuum in a thermos does not conduct heat by conduction or convection, only by radiation. The latter is minimized (in thermoses of glas) by a silver or aluminmum coating, creating a reflective mirror.

From the graph it doesn’t seem like cork is a particularly good insulator. This is because the heat conductance is plotted per weight unit. For a porous material such as cork, the effective heat conductance is much lower than for the same volume of other materials.

Lastly, just to illustrate how complex heat transfer and convection sometimes can be, take a look at the Mpemba effect: Believe it or not, under certain conditions, hot water freezes faster than cold water!

Check out my previous blogpost for an overview of the tips for practical molecular gastronomy. The collection of books (favorite, molecular gastronomy, aroma/taste, reference/technique, food chemistry) and links (webresources, people/chefs/blogs, institutions, articles, audio/video) at khymos.org might also be of interest.

Baking stones / Pizza stones

Martin Lersch — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:42:16 +0000

Every now and then I end up explaning to friends how they can make good pizza at home. One of the main issues is how to obtain the nice, crisp crust. And of course I’m referring to Italian pizza now, not American pan pizza. The simple answer to this is: use a baking stone (pizza stone) (assuming of course that the dough and filling is home made). Or if you like going to extremes: get a wood fired baking oven made from stone. But with a simple baking stone, you can achieve prette good results even with an electric/gas stove. There is a simple explanation: When a pizza dough is baked on a metal plate, the evaporating moisture is not able to escape from underneath the pizza. The result is a soggy, unappetizing crust. Also, the cold dough will let the temperature of the metal plate/sheet drop relatively quickly. As a result, the yeast dough will not rise as much before the gluten network solidifies and prevents further rising of the dough.

A baking stone is made from a porous ceramic material. It’s heat capacity is good (much higher than that of a metal plate/sheet) and as a result, when the cold dough is placed on the baking stone, it still has enough heat to make the pizza rise immediately. Secondly, the fact that the baking stone is porous lets it absorb moisture from the pizza. This is what gives the nice crisp crust as it transports moisture away from the pizza.

I also recommend to set your oven at the highest temperature possible – preferebaly in the range 250-300 °C (480-570 F). At this temperature, the pizza will be ready in less than 10 minutes. And remember – don’t use soap when cleaning your baking stone. Remember that it’s porous and you definitely don’t want your next pizza to taste like soap. Just scrape of residues of cheese once they have turned to carbon dust. If necessary, you can wipe it of with a moist paper towel.