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Comment by CaptArmchair | Hacker News Reader

That's a sourdough bread, right? Now, there's a rabbit hole to dive into. It uses a different type of levain / yeast culture compared to bread based on dried yeast.

Long story short, sourdough was / is how bread was made throughout history. Fermentation takes a very long time due to the nature of the levain. At some point, bakers noticed how the leftovers from brewers yeasts drastically shorten fermentation. That and industrialization led to modern day bread you find in the supermarket.

Jon from Proof Bread on YT does a much better job at explaining. [1]

Another great watch is Michael Pollan's "Cooked" series. In the 3rd episode, he explores bread, it's history and makes the case about modern industrialization affecting the quality and the nutritional value of modern bread. [2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-0p0p0zqVE [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epMAq5WYJk4

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> That's a sourdough bread, right?

Yes, the one I linked is made out of sourdough, which is a sign of quality here. Though, we do also have the same style of bread without sourdough.

There is “artisan” bread, made by hand, which is the round kind. Then there is “sandwich bread”, which is the rectangular kind.

Ingredients: Artisan bread is usually just flour, water, salt, yeast (sourdough is just flour and water, too). Sandwich bread can include milk or other fats to make it softer and is more of a “cake”. In industrial settings, there are a lot of preservatives included in the sandwich bread.

Mixing: Artisan bread is mixed by hand. Sandwich bread is mixed in a mixer. The former thus has less worked gluten.

Shaping: Artisan bread is made into a ball (similar to “spinning” pizza dough). Sandwich bread is poured into a tin and requires no shaping.

Bake: Artisan bread is baked at high heat, around 500F, in steam. Sandwich bread is baked in a specific tin at lower heat, like a cake.

As you can see, the sandwich bread is easily scalable and, being essentially a cake, is preferred by many. A loaf of sandwich bread is around $1-$2 where an artisan bread is like 4x more.

Also, there are flours, like rye, which have to be made with sandwich-type methods. These flours don’t have enough gluten to hold shape on their own.

Started baking bread with kids recently. They love it. But next day the leftover bread is stale. I explained that it isn’t full of preservatives.

After a moment, they look at me and ask where we can get some.

You definitely need to slice and freeze it! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31015602

No preservatives necessary. You just need a freezer and a toaster.

Adds inconvenience though when a kid just wants a pb&j right this moment. But yes, freezing is the way.

If you make artisan bread with sourdough, it can easily last 3-4 days. Mine don’t grow mold until 7-9 days.

It shouldn’t go stale in a day if you keep it somewhere somewhat airtight.

If you keep it airtight, the crust will dampen from the moisture that comes from the inside.

Which storing bread that has a crust worth preserving, I tend to make sure it gets a little air (covering it with linen cloths, for example), and accept the small amount of drying out that comes with this form of storage.

There are tactics other than preservatives to make bread last, such as covering it, freezing it, and tangzhong: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2018/03/26/introductio...

I tend to bake two loaves (always with tangzhong if the particular recipe can tolerate it), wrap both, immediately freeze one, and the other one lasts somewhere short of a week.

This is one of the funniest things when introducing people to some of the ingredients and methods used in commercial food production -- stuff like Xanthan gum as a thickener, soy lechtin as an emulsifier, or calcium propanate as a preservative. Once people know what they do and how it works they stop being "scary chemicals" corporations are putting in our food. I think it's a branding issue, sodium bicarbonate is a scary chemical but baking soda is a household ingredient, MSG is super scary but seaweed salt sounds delicious.

> Sandwich bread is poured into a tin and requires no shaping. > being essentially a cake

I don't think either of those are true - at least not an any bakery I've ever been to.

Cakes are a very specific type of baked good, made with a batter not a dough, which do not use yeast for leavening. Cakes also do not rely on gluten, and in fact limit it's formation by utilizing low protein flour.

Also, bread dough will never 'pour' unless you've gone horribly wrong.

Tin is normal (and also the reason the loaf is rectangular with a mushroom top rather than round): https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-sandwich-br...

For batter vs. dough: yes, they are not the same, but adding any fat to dough inhibits glutten (e.g., https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/36267/how-does-f...), which is why sandwich bread is soft and spongy. It may not pour, but neither does muffin batter or brownies, for example. My point is there is a whole spectrum for gluten formation.

Compare the cake recipe https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-birthday-ca... to the bread recipe above. The main difference is that butter is added along with eggs, and the leavening is different. Artisan bread only has the 4 ingredients, sandwich bread adds sugar, milk, and oil, and cake changes leavening and adds eggs/butter. As you go up the spectrum, you are intentionally avoiding strong gluten development, resulting in smaller holes and softer texture. See challah bread for another data point of bread with eggs+oil https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-challah-rec.... You can also make the gluten weak by using something like 100% rye, which has to be baked in the same tin (though that would have a harder crust).

I have made that exact King Arthur sandwich bread recipe and it doesn't do anything like "pour". Loaf pans are used for sandwich bread to get more lift and a more sandwich-friendly shape, but there is far more gluten development than any cake batter. You can use that same recipe to make rolls, for instance, and they bake up just fine.

The cake recipe has a 2:3 ratio of flour to sugar, while the bread recipe has a 14:1 ratio. It also has a 2:1 ratio of flour to fat, with the bread being 6:1. The cake also has a much higher hydration ratio, more milk, eggs, and a completely different mixing process.

Really not "essentially" the same thing at all.

> Also, there are flours, like rye, which have to be made with sandwich-type methods. These flours don’t have enough gluten to hold shape on their own.

The bread parent linked (and most German breads for that matter) is a rye bread!

> Mixing: Artisan bread is mixed by hand.

Do you really mean mixing, or rather kneading?

Kneading bread is very hard work; occasionally I do it for a single loaf, but it really doesn't scale above 1 or 2 loaves. Even artisinal bakeries have machines for it.

I think if you have an active starter, it can be pretty much as quick as bakers yeast. The slow fermentation is just to give it more flavor.

I think the benefits of bakers yeast are reliability and predictability.

I would happily eat sourdough over any other kind of bread.

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