Levain

Levain has been the key to baking bread for thousands of years. As you can probably tell by the name, "levain" is related to "leavening," which means adding a yeast culture to your dough so it will rise. Clearly mankind didn't always have tidy little dried yeast packets that could rise bread in less than an hour. Levain is how we used to get our yeast, and even though it is very simple, it takes a long time to develop a culture of yeast. That's why, if you're familiar with your Bible stories, God told the Hebrews to make unleavened bread at passover - so they wouldn't have to wait forever to eat and leave!

Instead of continuing on with levain's insipid background, let's get down to actually making the stuff.

What you will need

1 part         flour

1/2 part      water

nonreactive container

How to do it

As stated earlier, this is easy - it just takes some patience. 

1. The first and most important thing is to use filtered water. Either buy some from the store, use a water brita (I'm not entirely sure the brita works), or boil your water and let it cool. The reason for this is to get rid of some chlorine and fluoride that will discourage or prohibit any bacteria formation (the yeast culture) from developing.

2. The second most importnat thing is to use small amounts of flour and water. You may want to begin by using just two tablespoons of flour and one tablespoon of water - you are only trying to develop a culture at this point so you can go for volume later. So here, just use two tablespoons of flour and one of water.

This has almost doubled in only three hours

3. Mix these ingredients in your nonreactive container (one with a lid, or you can use plastic wrap to cover) until it is a smooth mixture with no lumps of dry flour. Then put the lid or plastic wrap on.

Recently refreshed levain

4. Hurry up and wait. You will now let this sit for about three days, so if you are forgetful like me, you may want to label the container with the date that you first mixed your levain. At the end of the third day, and this is the part that explains why you only want to use a small amount of flour, toss out half or your mixture. If you have a compost heap, great! Add it on. If not, trash. After you do this, add another two tablespoons of flour and one of water (make sure this is still filtered or bottled water).

Levain in the freezer

5. Repeat this process about five times (about 15-21 days). Depending on where you live, you may start developing a culture faster. What you are doing is giving a developing yeast culture fresh food so it can grow bigger and stronger. By the end of this time you should at least see some bubbles on the surface of your levain culture (this is carbon dioxide). Probably you will also notice that the culture is growing about 1/4 to 1/3 its size after you've refreshed it. Once it has doubled in size, you will want to start refreshing it every day, otherwise the culture will run out of food and will start to die on you. It will probably take at least 21 days for your culture to get to this point. Once your levain is doubling in size every day, it is almost ready to use in a batch of bread.

6. Once you have tenderly grown your levain to the ripe old age of a month, take a glass of water and scoop a spoonful of the levain into it. If the levain floats, this means it's generating enough carbon dioxide to rise a loaf of bread. If it's not quite there, let it strengthen for a few more feedings and repeat the test.

Frozen levain

7. Now you can use your levain in some dough! More on recipes later, but for now if you don't plan on using this levain right away, scoop it into a tupperware container, put a lid on it, and shove it in the freezer. While you will not be able to take it out of the freezer and use it immediately, you still have a culture you can refresh - it will only take a few feedings for it to     double in size.