Thread by @SeamusBlackley

I’ve been working on a yeast (and prolly other stuff) sample that I got from (redacted source). It’s from scrapings of ancient Egyptian bread pots. Yes, yeasts can hibernate that long. Yes, I’m going to bake today using it, using Barley and Emmer, which the ancient Egyptians had.

OK! Sorry if this is boring, but I’m trying to learn to bake bread that tastes like it did 4000 years ago. Here’s the earliest wheat I can readily get, Einkorn. I mill it into flour from the seeds, as you can see here. The yeast is still getting started so now is the time to mill

Here’s what milling looks like. In that machine are two stone discs that rotate opposite each other, which grind the seeds to powder. Fineness is controlled with the spacing of the discs. This is very close to how ancient people’s did it, while take a lot less time.

The yeast is almost ready. Everything is set to make the dough.

Here’s what the yeast culture (remember it’s got a lot more than just yeast) looks like when it’s ready to make dough. The texture is amazingly silky, and to can see it’s like an aerogel. Those little critters really do a lot of work.

Starting with water and a touch of fresh olive oil, we add the yeast culture, WHICH FLOATS! Then about 1/5 of the Emmer flour. You can see how powdery and primitive it is. We mix and let it soak for at least half an hour. The technique with ancient grains is: slow and wet.

And just in case my obsessive experimental archaeology isn’t boring enough: here’s the resulting ball of dough. It will need to sit and let the moisture distribute, and the microbes work, for an hour now. This is as close to ancient Egyptian dough as I know so far!

By the way, it’s Apple spell correct. I know it should be “peoples.”

While we wait for that: read this: smithsonianmag.com/science-nature…

Osmosis (look it up, punk) is happening; now let’s turbocharge it and add some sea salt. This is purely for flavor- it actually kills some of the microbes. That’s why we wait a bit to let them get moving. We fold the salt in, so I always start geeking out on topology in this step

Now we wait a bit, and stretch the dough. Then do the same again two more times. After that, I’ll show you how we make the loaves and then we will bake! It’s a slow process, this ancient yeast. I’m going to order more wheat - I’m running low.

While we wait: read this awesome article courtesy of @Info_Data_Mgmt npr.org/sections/thesa…

Here’s what the stretching process looks like. Much of this process is similar to, and also maybe different from modern sourdough technique. I’ve tried to research what people did in antiquity, with the tools and traditions of the time. I may be wrong about a lot of it!

These are wicker/reed baskets. One of the most common ways to shape a loaf in the ancient world was in pots and baskets. Today I’m in a basket mood. These are liberally floured for an ultralowtech nonstick surface. The dough is stretched a final time and popped in the baskets now

Here is a fleet of ancient bread fermenting. Barley on the left, Emmer on the right. The oven is on. In a couple hours we will see if any of this works out, and if Seamus is as competent as an average teenager circa 1500BCE.

ACTION UPDATE: its rising. Yes people we are watching bread rise. Somewhere, paint is drying.

Update- the two Einkorn loaves have been turned out of their baskets, scored (so that they don’t explode when the internal structures expand in the oven PV=nRT people!) and are now enjoying a 500F sauna treatment. Pictures when they emerge!

Success! These need to cool now, while a complex process happens inside at that results in the fluffy texture we all love, and have loved for millennia. The smell is absurdly wonderful. Next up are the barley loaves!

While I wait for the Barley loaves to finish baking, I should give thanks to one of my favorite books, Gardiner’s towering work, Egyptian Grammar. You may think it’s an odd hobby, but Hieroglyphics let us hear the voices of our ancestors 5000 years dead. It’s incredibly beautiful

Here are the Barley loaves. Thank you everyone who joined along today. I hope you got some appreciation for the awesome skills of our ancestors, and how we are all connected through the most basic foundations of life. I’m finishing GOT now and going to bed!

Oh hey- thought you’d want to see inside!

To everyone who keeps asking how it TASTES: It’s incredible- soft, but with body, and a very rich, complex comforting flavor. It’s like coming home from a long trip. It’s really good. Thanks for caring and asking. I’m really amazed that everyone is so interested in this!

UPDATE: An absurd number of people have asked to share starter, to learn to bake, to help make beer, and the like. This is really cool, but overwhelming! So, I have created a place for us to see if we can all share- head over to @ClubYeast and we can get started. ❤️

ADDENDUM: a story behind the scenes from these posts...

I have been working on baking decent, non-rock-like loaves using wild collected yeasts and hand mulled grains for several years. Almost every weekend I bake, and I have very frequently put pictures up for my fellow bread nerds, using #FlourReport, #YeastLords and #AncientBaking

I’d guess that I’d posted little stories like this thirty times since when I first got the crazy idea to try making bread in really old ways. Here are some pictures from the years. Yes, single malts do play a role, as does making grilled cheese with ancient bread and marmite.

So, this Sunday I woke up early and started the levain (the bowl of yeast culture for the bread), took a picture, and put it up like usual. My big event of the day would be the new season premiere of GOT.

Then something super weird started to happen. The tweets started to get 100x more attention than I’d ever seen. I mean, THIS IS SERIOUSLY NERDY STUFD PEOPLE, it’s not exactly what I expected. And I’ve posted a LOT of pictures of food that we try to make in ancient ways:

I’m used to getting a lot of attention on stuff I post about videogames, and I have assumed over the years that all my cooking and baking posts are SIMPLY IRRITATING to the Xbox fans and physicists that most of my followers probably are.

My relaxing Sunday is starting to come apart. Because frequently these fragile loaves, with their totally variable flour quality and weird non-optimal yeasts, FAIL MISERABLY (Look at this brick⬇️)! And now the Twitter app is telling me that over 500,000 people are watching.

As the afternoon progresses, the impressions counter goes over one million, then 1.5 million, and the likes pass 10k on the head of the thread. Now I’m SWEATING BULLETS. All thought of lazily watching GOT episodes to be ready when it drops are out the window. THIS MUST WORK!

The Egyptian yeast takes FOREVER to rise. So now I’m staring at it, with panic. So I start thinking, what if it fails? Could I sneak a picture of old loaves in? Dammit no I already posted all those. I’m screwed!

Now the impressions are near 2 million, 15k likes, it’s 7pm, and I’m a WRECK. I’m pacing the kitchen, and I’m like: screw this horrible yeast! To hell with these Egyptians and their crappy flour! I’m never doing this again! And it’s STILL NOT READY TO BAKE!

Finally, two of the loaves are ready. I put them in the oven. This is the moment. They stay in for 35-40 minutes of utter PANIC and you CAN’T LOOK IN because I have a commercial unit. I’m SERIOUSLY edging on a heart attack. 2mm impressions... 🤮

I’m on my knees praying to Ra and Amun, when the timer goes off and BOOM it comes out and looks fine, of course. 😂

Exhausted and feeling some PTSD, I head over to the TV and FALL ASLEEP during the GOT episode.

Are there lessons here? One really: DO NOT EVER LIVE BAKE ON TWITTER. Plus, you know that guys like @PaulHollywood might see it if it goes viral. And I was literally hearing him sneering at me with every uptick in likes: “Is that meant to be bread?”

OK enough. ❤️ to you all.