Grandpa Abe Piasek’s Rapid Rise Sourdough Bread (and my adaptation).

I’m writing to you from the Catskills New York where I am on vacation from Hawaii and spending a few days hanging at my momma’s house with Grandpa Abe Piasek. Of course, without a warning this morning, Grandpa began making sourdough bread.

I was able to squeeze this recipe out of him while he effortlessly mixed the ingredients together, shaped the bread and left it to rise. He truly makes it seem so EASY. It’s scary that many of people believe it is too hard or too much work to make your own bread.

This sourdough recipe is as exact as I could get from a 88 year old man who has been baking his whole life. Grandpa truly has the practice of just knowing when enough flour, water, yeast, rising, and baking is truly enough. I literally have to pry measurements out of him at times.

Notes about the Sourdough Starter Technique in this Recipe

As I am editing this recipe 6 years later, I am finally beginning my sourdough starter journey. I’ll admit, I am not an expert, but a novice. Eager to understand the science, creativity, and intuition behind sourdough bread. My grandpa made this bread with dried sourdough starter, which he reconstituted along with the rest of the ingredients. This technique doesn’t seem commonly used by the home baker, but instead a bakery business hack.

When we were making this recipe Grandpa said, “You can use dried starter or make your own it’s easy (a little water, flour, and a little yeast – it becomes a thick soup until it doubles, add more flour and water until it doubles again ). He continued to say that “the very best thing is to make your own starts – if you are in a commercial bakery it is hard to have the time but if you are at home there is plenty of time. It’s a 3 day procedure”.

Whenever Grandpa traveled from North Carolina or Florida to see us, he would pack a suitcase full of baking supplies and already baked goods. So I guess, he knew he’d want to make sourdough with us and brought his commercial dried starter. So for my use, I researched the internet for conversions from dried sourdough starter to a freshly made starter. But most recipes call for a reconstitution time instead of adding it directly to the recipe. So instead, I treated the dried starter just like dry yeast, and found a conversion rate from there.

A quick rule to adapt recipes to sourdough is: Substitute 1 cup of starter for each package of yeast, and then subtract about 1/2 cup of water and 3/4 cup of flour from the recipe to compensate for the water and flour in the starter. … Sourdough needs more rising time than quick yeast.

https://traditionalcookingschool.com/food-preparation/convert-recipes-to-sourdough-aw043/

In his recipe, it calls for 1 – 1.5 ounces dried starter. A packet of dried yeast is 1/4 ounce. So I used 4 cups of freshly fed and fermented starter. And then of course his recipe ALSO calls for yeast. So I also added the expressed amount of yeast in addition to the starter. In comparison to other recipes using similar amounts of flour, this amount of yeast almost seemed like overkill but who am I to argue with Grandpa’s mastery. The bread definitely rose quickly and proofed quickly as well.

Notes about wet yeast versus instant dry yeast

WHENEVER we made bread grandpa always used wet yeast. He traveled with blocks of it. And whenever he talked to me about replacements, he’d always try to insist that I get wet yeast. “Just go to a bakery and ask them”. I remember upon returning to Honolulu after a visit with Grandpa, I called around to every bakery I could find with absolutely no luck! I tried Grandpa!

Of course a quick search on the internet and I’m finally finding some retailers, although it looks like they are TAXED!

Wet yeast is said to improve the taste, texture and digestibility of bread over dried yeast. Luckily Grandpa always gave me a conversion for dry yeast.

Buy Fresh Yeast Online From These 4 Websites

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