Chris: [00:00:00] I don't know. I don't know how to start other than, Hey, Phil,
Phil: [00:00:03] Hey, Chris,
you 
Chris: [00:00:05] it going?
Phil: [00:00:05] I'm pretty comfortable over here.
Chris: [00:00:07] Yeah, no, I think, I think I'm mostly comfortable. 
Phil: [00:00:10] Oh, see. Yeah. I'm in like
A tire. This is not Zuma tire, but I am actually in some sweat pants that I got from banana Republic. And they're really, really quite cozy. Are you familiar with like this super weird subculture called let's see, I think it's called athlete leisure.
Chris: [00:00:27] Uh, I mean, not intimately, I guess,
Phil: [00:00:32] Well, right. And I mean, but like you've heard of it. Yeah.
Chris: [00:00:35] not intimately, I guess. I mean, I had now I suppose.
Phil: [00:00:40] So like the whole, like yoga pants out in public, like running errands and yoga pants. That's fine. That's like totally cool. It's comfortable. Sure. Whatever it like completely launched into like this designer, sweat pants, where like you can get a pair of Gucci sweatpants for like a thousand dollars. And it's like apparently totally acceptable to wear at a dinner party.
Chris: [00:01:03] That's ridiculous. I, I don't. Hm. I don't know how I feel about that. If we're going to be honest, whatever, it's fine. Whatever, 
Phil: [00:01:11] it kind of makes me think of like the lumbersexual
Chris: [00:01:14] sure. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I guess. I mean, like, I, I can imagine what
Phil: [00:01:17] skinny jeans and the flannel
Chris: [00:01:19] Yeah, yeah. Yes. I still don't know how I feel about this whole, like just.
Wearing, whatever you want whenever you want like a homeless person. I mean, it's
Phil: [00:01:28] Like a Pete Davidson
Chris: [00:01:29] yeah, that guy living example of 2020,
Phil: [00:01:33] for real. Yeah.
Chris: [00:01:34] I don't know what that means, but.
Phil: [00:01:35] Did you know he was on. Like some sort of remake for it's a wonderful life.
Chris: [00:01:40] I feel like somebody once told me that, like, I dunno just if a friend of mine mentioned that not too long ago,
Phil: [00:01:46] yeah, it was like
um, 
Chris: [00:01:47] like an hour
Phil: [00:01:48] I feel like it was like one of those live recordings on NBC
or 
Chris: [00:01:51] right, right, right, right.
Yeah. 
I mean, I, okay. So like a vaguely, I vaguely remember hearing about that, but I don't remember it being this, say this American life it's a wonderful life,
Phil: [00:02:02] well, that's the Jimmy Stewart guy, right?
Chris: [00:02:04] yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's what he was doing. Right.
Phil: [00:02:07] Yeah. He played Jimmy Stewart's character. What are, what is that case that,
Chris: [00:02:10] That feels slightly like in the Bama
Phil: [00:02:13] tries me crazy when I
can't think of names. Yeah, it was an abomination to the classic, this American life classic.
Chris: [00:02:20] I'm Myra glass stay with us. can't do his voice obviously. So I didn't even try.
Phil: [00:02:25] No, it's more of like  my glass stay out of this.
Chris: [00:02:27] sure. Yeah, yeah, though. That's why I didn't try. Cause I can't do that. I don't have the skills of Phillip glass over here. 
Phil: [00:02:35] This episode episodes are for a dues lab, blah, blah, blah, blah words. IRA glass. This episode is off to a great start. It's a doozy.
Chris: [00:02:43] Yeah, I mean, I wish there was a way that we could like starter this over.
Phil: [00:02:48] Okay. 
down with that. 
Chris: [00:02:50] you fell like, like I'm
so fat, I'm going to make a yeast of these joke.
Phil: [00:02:57] you should.
Chris: [00:02:57] if only we could start this over and, and maybe like, try and give the second take like a little bit of lift, and, and prove that
 and prove that like, we can actually do this fell.
Phil: [00:03:10] Keep it coming. Maybe you
Chris: [00:03:12] The proving, proving 
Phil: [00:03:14] for these episodes because. 
Chris: [00:03:15] Those three, those three fill proof.
I, that was, that was for our, a British audience. They'll probably get that one.
Phil: [00:03:23] they will. I love that we have a British audience
Well, as much as I love your ponds, you're a punny guy. That's what I like most about
Chris: [00:03:30] Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I don't, I don't know if anybody can hold a candle to you feel, but yeah. Yeah.
Phil: [00:03:36] so bread. 
We're talking about bread. 
Chris: [00:03:38] which is obviously what we're talking about. I mean, it would have been more obvious if I could've gotten out of my, a yeast of these comments and, but yeah, I think, I think we got there bread.
Phil: [00:03:48] Well, that wouldn't have made any sense at all because the specific bread that we're mentioning today doesn't actually use yeast.  Well, I mean, not like in the, in the, in the. Packet form  you're right. It doesn't in the, in the way that I think most dudes in their thirties, like you and me  think of as East, 
Chris: [00:04:08] It doesn't use like pre-packaged East 
Phil: [00:04:10] correct. Is what I'm trying to say. Yeah.
Chris: [00:04:12] um, so yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. Uh, So maybe, maybe, first of all, like we should talk about like what, what bred consists of in general, before we dive into, sourdough. we're going to talk about.
 Just like, you know, in case 
Phil: [00:04:28] what consists of bread? Let's see, 
 because that means I have to put that.  Title and I would have, yeah. Anyways. Okay. So what makes up bread? Obviously we've got, we've got some flour  and
there's lots of different kinds of flowers. I mean, you've got Lilly and you've got  Carnation and Rose, which is one of my favorites. 
Chris: [00:04:51] so bad. Uh, No, no, no, no. It's better coming from you. Cause that
Phil: [00:04:56] Lily of the 
Valley. 
Hey, have you heard of the corpse flower?
Chris: [00:04:59] Yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. There's one up at the 
Phil: [00:05:03] Like once 
there is like once every seven years at blooms and it like
Chris: [00:05:07] Yes. Do you, 
do you, do you know it's a scientific name? Yeah,
Phil: [00:05:11] No, but do you
Chris: [00:05:14] sure? I haven't sent this to you. Okay. So like it's its scientific name is Amer phallus titanium. 
Phil: [00:05:20] Okay. 
Chris: [00:05:21] Amer Amer Fallis titanium.
 Yeah, no, it is. It totally is. You know, like, like Titan, like giant, a morphous without, without form or Ms. Shapen, phallus, you know,  really it's scientific name
anyway,   
Phil: [00:05:40] Okay. So you've got your flour and you have some water naturally, some salt, And then you've got some sort of like leavening agent. If we're talking about leavened bread, obviously, which we are, and you know, that that can be yeast or that can be, I guess, if you're like you're making soda bread, it can be baking soda or whatever.
But with sourdough, it, it's pretty critical on, on what that yeast looks like and how that  process comes together.
Chris: [00:06:05] Yeah. Okay. So do you want to talk for a second about what that rising agent more or less does?
 Okay. So, um,
I mean, we have, we have several different options that we kind of mentioned there. There's, there's kind of like your, your baking soda type rising agent, right.
 And then you have more of your yeasted rising agent. Okay. So like, if you were to describe from a, not necessarily like a scientific level, but like from a, what it's actually doing how would you go about that?
Phil: [00:06:40] Oh, shoot, like scientifically 
put me on the spot like that.
Chris: [00:06:43] I mean like, okay. so like when we're talking about that, it's like increasing the volume of the dough kind 
of in a way. 
Yeah, And obviously they're all going about it different ways because there are different types of lifting agents, right?  So baking soda, which is not what we're going to be talking about, but.
Phil: [00:07:00] Right. So baking soda is basically creating a chemical reaction with the acid and the base and
like Mentos and a diet Coke. 
Chris: [00:07:10] yes. Yes. I was. I was 
Phil: [00:07:12] giving it some lifts, 
Chris: [00:07:13] you know, you know, like the like baking soda and vinegar, volcanoes that you'd make when you were a little. Or you should be making with your kids now? I don't know. Oliver's only five months old as of yesterday, so he's not quite to that stage yet, but tomorrow
maybe, 
Phil: [00:07:27] he would, 
he would giggle so hard if he saw that.
Chris: [00:07:30] maybe. I mean, he he's at the stage where he laughs at everything. Which is fricking adorable. First of all. Uh, second of all though. Yeah, like, so it's, it's, it's a reaction that creates gas. That then creates separations in the dough and causes it to rise. That's why you see holes in it and all of that.
And so yeast is much doing the same thing,  right?
Phil: [00:07:49] is. Yeah, but 
Chris: [00:07:50] Yeah. Yeah. So like that that's, I guess literally what you used is, is like an organism it's like this bacteria deal and, and honestly, like it's, it's pretty much the same thing. It's, it's super, super close to brewers. You used to Baker's Easter's right.
I mean, just from the tiny Eddie, any, any bit that I know.
Yeah. Does that mean it's like, guess it's pretty much doing the same thing as like, fermenting some type of adult beverage, I guess.
Phil: [00:08:15] right, I was just thinking 
Chris: [00:08:20] okay. And what about FL?
Phil: [00:08:22] Nothing and just the, just the lift,  the rise.
Chris: [00:08:25] Yeah, it's special. It happens once every seven years or so. I don't know.
 tighten up. But yeah, no, it's like pretty much the same thing as like a, an adult beverage where the yeast is it's more or less. Eating sugar that exists in, in uh, either like, you know, say like a beer or wine, like some type of sugar. And then it's, from that producing alcohol and carbon dioxide,
which is what fermenting is.
Totally. Yeah. 
Anyway, they're like bread. That's kind of the same thing that's going on. Right? Was he East? Sure. Sure. And that carbon dioxide is, is kind of doing the same thing as like what uh, baking soda, my two stack gas. It creates some,  
Phil: [00:09:10] I mean, I couldn't have said it better myself. Okay, Chris will then what, what makes sourdough specifically sourdough?  
Chris: [00:09:17] Yeah, so I kind of feel like maybe we've mentioned this before, but I kind of feel like the, the name sourdough and maybe what we associate with sourdough is a little bit. A little bit of a misnomer overall.
Yeah. I mean like growing. Okay. So growing up, I always used to think that that sour dough was, you know, the type of bread that you can buy from the store that tasted literally sour that had like, just kind of like a funky off taste.
So it was always like this white bread, super crusty and honestly, that's. I don't know, like I've, I guess I've had a lot more sour dough lately as I've gotten older.  and it's been interesting to try and learn a little bit more about like what it actually is. So like really the big difference between sourdough and non sourdough is kind of where that yeast comes from,  where. non sourdough comes from kind of pre-packaged beast sourdough it's using often what might be called a starter, which contains naturally occurring yeast. So like yeast from the environment honestly, is going to sound kind of gross, but The type of use that's used in bread, as opposed to like brewers, yeast, they're there they're super similar, but the type of yeast that's used in bread actually often is like, like it grows on people.  So,  
It's just like on your skin. So, 
so there's this, I mean, is kind of like, literally true, but like, the yeast, and I started a yeast and a bread it's a part of the Baker, like. There's just all weird and kind of gross when you really think about it. But, that's like the big difference is it's naturally leavened.
So the yeast is naturally occurring, like environmental yeast, as opposed to, you know, something that you can buy in a little packet. 
Phil: [00:11:01] Yeah, but when you're
making when you're making this starter, it does have like a little bit of a sour smell to it, at least in the first couple of days.
Chris: [00:11:10] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You, I think there are a lot of things that you can do to either like enhance or downplay that sour taste. I mean, if there's something that you like, there, there are definitely things that you can do with your starter that will bring that out in, in your finished loaf, more so.
Yeah. 
Yeah, no, I think, I think the type of flower, like plays, plays a role type of flour, how old your starter is. How warm your starters kept? I there's so many, so many little factors that can influence it even like with an early starter, you can get this, I guess they call it hooch, but you can get this like liquid that forms of the top of it.
So it's like a mix of, of water And I guess it would be alcohol technically, cause it's an off product of the haste, 
Phil: [00:12:02] I 
Chris: [00:12:03] that. 
Phil: [00:12:03] that's where the term hooch actually comes 
Chris: [00:12:06] Yeah, probably, if you mix that back in, it's going to be more of a sour starter than if you pour all of that off.
So yeah, I mean, there, there are a lot of different things from all of that, to like the temperature that you keep your starter at. But then even within the dough itself, there are things that you can do to either enhance or downplay that, that sour taste.
Phil: [00:12:26] sure. And Sarah note is really. Quite remarkable. Like you mentioned, one of the things that uh, you know, one of the things you could do to enhance that sour flavor or decrease it, it might have something to do with the age of the sourdough itself or, or the age of the starter. And did you know Chris that I heard somewhere that there's like, there's actual sourdough that you can get from  like the Oregon trail days? Yeah, like they, like there's one starter that has just been kept up and, 
Chris: [00:12:56] Yeah. Cultivated and living since then.
Cultivate is probably the right word. Yeah. Okay. So, so here's a quick question, Phil. W we've been talking about this starter, so, if we're making bread, we've got water flour and uh, since I have 11 and a rising agent and salt, so, you know, sourdough.
Is naturally 11. So we use the starter as that agent, as opposed to like package it East.   we get to that starter point?
Phil: [00:13:24] sure.  I'm no expert, but I did just do this for a very special person in my life. That would be fun too. Do a little sourdough starter for,  for my wife's birthday. 
Chris: [00:13:34] No. I was getting excited thinking that you're going to send me some sourdough.
Phil: [00:13:37] hi, good. Do you mean I can get it started and then I can just like  throw it in a Ziploc bag maybe. Yeah. 
Chris: [00:13:44] was expecting baked sourdough.
Phil: [00:13:46] I would expect you to drink the hooch. If I did that,
Chris: [00:13:48] Well, okay. 
Phil: [00:13:50] to send that in the mail, 
Chris: [00:13:51] Maybe,
maybe. 
Phil: [00:13:52] I should get our producer to check on that. 
Absolutely. So, yeah, you really just need like a Mason jar or any jar of any kind. Mason is all that we had lying around and you throw some water in there and some rye flour, or at least in the case that we used was rye flour. And. You let it sit overnight and that's it that's step one. And there's like measurements and, you know, going back to like how important it is to use a scale, you absolutely have to use a scale to measure out your ingredients for a sourdough starter.
It's like perhaps more important now than ever. yeah, like that's that's day one and then day two. You know, without getting too technical into like what those ratios are necessarily, you're going to remove some of that initial starter that you have and then discard it. And then you're going to replace what you've discarded with some fresh flour and or in our case, a mixture of rye flour and white flour. And then you let that sit overnight and then day three, you kind of do the same thing.
You remove some of it, you replace it with fresh flour and then. Suddenly it's day four. And then you, you kind of get into like doing it twice a day instead of every 24 hours. You're, you're, feeding your yeast or rather you're feeding your sourdough starter with with fresh flour every 12 hours.
And after about a week or so of kind of going through this fun little process, you've got yourself  a nice little concoction that you can bake. did I do that justice. 
Chris, does that sound right to you? 
Chris: [00:15:19] Yeah. And I think, I think there are a couple of things that are like kind of key. There's just the fact that like starters need to be fed. I'm like, ultimately you're cultivating like a living thing um, like you, you're, you're just creating this nice little community of yeast. Uh, It could be a sticker I guess. And they need to be fed yes. That's giving continue for the life of your starter. Really? 
The feeding 
Phil: [00:15:42] and there's like a rise and a fall that goes along with it each day. And that's kind of fun, just to,   see that process through in a way. 
Chris: [00:15:51] Yeah. I mean, it's definitely like a visual thing. Like you see the starter kind of bubble and ferment and
Phil: [00:15:58] Which is why a Mason jar or a really a glass jar of any kind is kind of key. So you can, well, like I said, see that, see that process visually, you know? There's a really, really great blog that I found. Called the perfect loaf.com. And I mean, I'm sure that you probably have a thousand other ones that you would go to, especially given your,
you know, your exactly. But it's by this guy named Murray ETO and read, see is actually a pretty well-known Baker.
He's got. A really nice Instagram actually, where he just kind of posts pictures of beautiful bread that he's made. Anyways, he's got this blog post that I'll put in the show notes on really easy steps on how to, how to make a healthy starter, a healthy sourdough starter. So, it's kinda what I use to learn the process.
And I thought it was pretty easy, pretty simple. It's like a, it's like a seven day starter or seven steps, starters, So. 
Chris: [00:16:51] Nice is that, I mean, that that's like the first step in a sourdough process,
Phil: [00:16:57] That's the first step. And it's really cool because it's like, it's how it was done. Like 6,000 years ago, like the Egyptians were doing this, in the exact same way. And I dunno, I, I kind of feel like a little bit of solidarity with like, How it was done all those years ago.  
Chris: [00:17:15] Yeah, no, I definitely think there's something interesting. even just, kind of like what we were talking about with Stacy, just the connection to something. Beyond you and, and behind us. And, 
Phil: [00:17:24] So the next time you're looking at your sourdough starter and you start to see these bubbles and they are kind of, you know, like giving this visual lift and this, the rise in this fall, you can just be like   you, 
Chris: [00:17:39] Maybe some bacteria off his hand.  
Phil: [00:17:42] everything rises and falls on the Roman empire, Chris
Okay. So what's like what are the next steps? Because you know, I'm not there yet. I mean, we just, we just did the starter. So how do you use it afterward?  Like once you have, is it, I mean, is it still called a starter?
Chris: [00:17:55] Sure. Yeah. 
I mean, like, Yeah. Yeah, I think so.   
you make a dough out of it fell    
Phil: [00:18:04] Do you, do you work it in though? Like if you, if you take, say, I don't know, like 75 grams of it, do you work that into Rado? Like, I mean, I'm sorry, raw flour, or do you just make it out of what you've pulled out from the start?
Chris: [00:18:19] Wait, what do you mean? Just make it out of 
Phil: [00:18:21] Well, like if you, if, if you've got an in a Mason jar, right. 
Mason jar is not that big. 
Chris: [00:18:26] no
starter. Yeah. 
Phil: [00:18:28] of it. That's not going to be a very large loaf. 
Chris: [00:18:31] No, no, no. I mean, you're treating it like you're treating it like the yeast that you pulled out of the packet more or less, like you've, you've created an environment for yeast to live in. So you're 
still making a full on dough with, with water and flour and salts. And then the starters being added. you know, I don't know the exact ratio is off the top of my head, but, um, like it's still that whole process,  on 
Phil: [00:18:54] I'm dumb. You'd like, what would happen if right. If you just,
if you just begged the starter, right? Like  what would that even look like? 
Chris: [00:19:04] I'm not sure. I want to know. 
 
So, I'm going to be honest, I'm not the foremost expert on this, but it does seem like a lot of the process of making bread is as just giving time for the starter to ferment. So you go through the process of making your dough and then you let it sit and ferment and then you can like fold it a bit and then let it sit and ferment and then fold it and let it sit and ferment.
And then I guess if you're making like a larger batch, you can divide it and then shape like your bread. And then it goes on until like the proving phase or proofing phase. Which is again, like more fermentation and when you see your dose start to rise, really what's happening is, the yeast is fermenting like the sugars or carbohydrates in the, dough and producing carbon dioxide, which is literally just like blowing up your dough. So it's, it seems like a lot of the process is about like giving the yeast, the right, like time and space and environment to, to process life, 
Phil: [00:20:02] Yeah. 
Chris: [00:20:02] know, 
 
which is 
what I feel like I need more of 
Phil: [00:20:06] sure. We all need to slow down. My wife always says nothing ever good comes from being in a hurry
unless you're an F1 driver. 
Chris: [00:20:13] Yeah. Yeah. 

Phil: [00:20:14] She's going to hate this, by the way, we were making dinner the other day. And we were both hurried  and just super stressed out and then like the kids were,
you know, 
Chris: [00:20:23] like, 
was it almost like Peyton Manning was in your living room?
  
Phil: [00:20:28] Um, Oh, well, yeah. I was just going to say, like, we were in a hurry and we were making the Omaha steaks, you know,
Chris: [00:20:36] Yes.  Well, I mean, if you're 
in a hurry that should be, that should do their slogan. If you're, if you're in a hurry,  
Phil: [00:20:44] Yeah, they really dropped the ball on that one. It'd be too late now. Nobody would get it 
Chris: [00:20:48] I think, I think the idea endures Phil. 
Phil: [00:20:51] Yeah. So anyways. It's nice to not be in a hurry when you're making dinner so that you can be a good parent because when I'm in a hurry making dinner, I don't feel like I'm a great parent.
I was going to say about the sourdough. Chris is that it's really not something that you have to have a lot of time on your hands to do. It does take a long time. But each day, I mean, it takes like five minutes out of your day, you know, and you've got to be consistent with that, but it's, I think another one of those things where, you know, you put up these mental blocks in your head, like you, you can't do it as too hard.
Like that's, that's not for me, you know, We'll leave that up to the experts, but I don't know. It's, it's really not that hard. It's something worth trying. And I would, I would hope that  our lovely listenership would, would give it a shot,    
Chris: [00:21:39] uh,
like that could be like our fans, like the dad's kitchen, yeast, DS. 
Phil: [00:21:43] I was actually trying to think of one the other day. Cause you know how  
And I was like, man, what could, what could go with dad's kitchen,
Chris: [00:21:53] maybe maybe Chris Lilly could be the inaugural ISTE.
  
Be don't get infected.
 
show? It was like, the most extreme elimination challenge, I think.
Uh, it was, it was something like a Japanese game show that was dubbed
for the U S audience. I don't even remember what station it was on, 
but they're like slogan was don't get eliminated. That's what I was thinking of when I was thinking like the yeasty boys don't get infected.
Phil: [00:22:24] Do you have a sourdough starter in your house right now? 
Chris: [00:22:26] be honest. We don't,  
Phil: [00:22:31] I mean, you can, you can do it once a year. I've heard of some people like starting a new one each year Or you can just kind of keep on going from what I've read. Like there's, there's not really necessarily any advantage. To having a sourdough starter that's been going on for like 20 years versus a few months.
I mean, like you, you might have some subtleties there with like maybe some differences in flavor, maybe some Tang or whatever, but, yeah, by and large, if you're, if you're pretty new to the sourdough world, I don't know, at least for me, I don't know if I would be able to really pick up on much of a difference. I'm not what you would call a grizzled veteran  when it comes to breads. 
Chris: [00:23:10] One day I fell  
Phil: [00:23:11] do you steam, your sourdough. 
Chris: [00:23:14] to do is yes.
Phil: [00:23:15] I'll keep that in mind. 
We've been making our bread and our Dutch oven and it's like 
Every time. 
Chris: [00:23:24] skillet  could totally 
Phil: [00:23:27] Wait, we did we did a soda bread and a caster and skill, and I thought that worked out pretty well 
Chris: [00:23:32] Yeah. I mean, you don't have to have something fancy, but I mean, the Dutch oven works great as well.  But yeah something like a Pyrex or even like a baking sheet of water at the bottom rack. Like early on, kind of in the first quarter or so the bake, well, apparently   
Phil: [00:23:50] well, I'll, I'll give an update. We just started our starter and we're maybe, I would say in like maybe 10 or 12 days or so we'll probably have baked something out of it. So. I'll let you know what we used and what we could have done differently. 
Chris: [00:24:04] uh, some level, I feel like there's really a ton that we could dive into in bread. But that's seems to be at least a good like overview, at least what sourdough is kind of  to some extent, a little bit noncommittally 
Phil: [00:24:18] sure and if we've inspired, you. You've got to leave us five stars on Apple podcasts. It's so easy or jump over to Instagram or  if you want at dad's kitchen co talk to us, show us your sourdough starter 
and, 
 and B R yeasty. 
Chris: [00:24:38] you know how they have like, besties, so there's gotta be like some type of besties friend bracelet, necklace thing  could make one of those, it's 
used to use. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You use these forever or something. I don't know.
 Phil: [00:24:52] We could be yeast these forever.