We interrupt this beermaking...

... to talk about its progenitor: Bread.




Goddam, bread can be good. It also can be awful, of course, like the commercial sandwich loafs with slices that have the mouth-appeal of a cellulose sponge. But when bread's well made or fresh, or (ideally) well made and fresh, oh man, some primal circuit completes and your hindbrain pleasure centers light up. At least mine do.

My guess is that humans like smell of fresh bread for the same reason we like the smell of woodsmoke from a clean-burning campfire: It's a windborne clue to the direction of warmth, food, safety; home. And while fires can be natural or artificial, the smell of food cooking--- the controlled application of heat to foodstuffs--- is a uniquely human signature.

Humans who weren't afraid of fire tended to survive more than the ones who feared it: The fire-friendly humans could artificially warm themselves. They lived longer and had more of their kids survive.

Fast forward a couple dozen centuries and all that's left are descendant of the original fire-loving humans.

Humans have a long history with fire. Play with fire long enough, and you'll burn stuff. Imagine eating by a fire every day. Eventually, you'll spill some food into or next to it. If you're hungry enough, you'll eat the burned or fire-changed foods and--- wow--- discover that some of it actually tastes pretty good that way. Turns out cooked meats are easier to chew and digest, and don't go bad as fast. Cooked hard roots and fruits soften and develop new flavors. After a while, you learn that tough seeds, including proto-wheat, are much easier to digest if left to soak a bit in water warmed by the fire: You've invented gruel.

And look at that! If you leave gruel long enough by the fire it sometimes turns into a bubbly paste that tastes OK when it dries: You've invented flatbread.

Indeed, humans have been making bread for almost as long as there have been humans. We're all descendants of those earliest peoples who tamed fire and invented bread, so the love of those smells is written into our very genome.

I've always been impressed with those who bake their own bread today. It's a fair amount of work, and the task spreads itself across several hours. It's kind of a pain. (Small pun.)

I freely admit I am not a big fan of repetitive household work. (This will come as no surprise to those of you who know I own a robotic vacuum.) Avoidance of repetitious domestic tasks is one of the reasons why I'm a mediocre cook: I keep changing recipes around so my individual meal iterations never get very good. It's a personal failing of mine, brightened only by a select few recipes that I learned to do nicely and then left alone.

So while I love fresh bread, I don't love it enough to to go through the repetition required to become a good breadmaker.

Ah, technology. I bought a programmable automatic breadmaker:



It's this one, if you care. The brand probably doesn't matter.

Did you see the fresh-cut whole wheat loaf at the top of this post? The last few slices of it are still in my fridge. It was good. It still is.

It started life this way:

Nothing fancy. Only weirdness is the "Smart Balance" spread instead of butter. (I'm doing penance for a lifetime of too much red meat.)

I'm told it's also slightly nonstandard to use dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar in whole-wheat bread. Call me a rebel.

Here's a peek into the breadmaker's mixing/baking pan (already showing some battle scars):

That strong paddle-blade at the bottom does all the mixing and kneading. The blade bakes right into the loaf, as you'll see later.

You place all the ingredients into the pan, starting with the liquids. You dump the flour in second to last, and it floats on top of the water, butter, salt and sugar beneath it.


Fast-rising yeast goes in last. You make a little crater in the dry flour, and place the yeast there, far from the water that will bring it back to life. Because the yeast is still inert, the programmable breadmaker lets you set things up as much as 12 hours ahead.


The machine is programmed for many bread types, loaf sizes and degrees of crustiness. The programs determine how long the dough gets kneaded, and when; how long the rising times are, how long the baking cycle takes, etc.

The kneader's motor is a low-RPM, high-torque thing that does a pretty good job of powering through the dough. Eventually, the dough balls up as the kneader beats the crap out of it. Here's a shot of kneading in action:


After the allotted rising times and additional kneadings, the heating element kicks in and bakes the bread in the same pan it was mixed it. The breadmaker draws 600 watts; far less than a conventional oven.

Here's a fresh-cut loaf. You can see the breadly umbilicus on the base of the loaf where the kneading blade (now removed) baked into the loaf. There also are a few vestigial seams that a skillful human baker would scoff at, but I'm not that baker; and besides, they don't affect the taste an iota. Other than minor aesthetic flaws, it looks pretty good.


And yes, it was delicious! Hot, fresh bread, steaming as it melts the butter--- or butter-like low-cal, vegan butter substitute, if you must--- is a real treat. Like bacon, fresh bread is one of the foods whose taste fully lives up to its aroma. Mmmmmm.

Want a warm slice?


(PS: The missing beer keg gasket arrived, and I was able to resume my home brewing experiment. Stay tuned for more yeasty wonders! ;) )