Baking bread closely matches a hacker lifestyle, making yeast from scratch even more so. Learn how to add baking to your geek lifestyle.

1. Sourdough
Bread Hacking and Social Baking
Guilherme Zühlke O’Connor
www.z-oc.com
twitter.com/guioconnor
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

2. Hackers
like
• Learning
• Making stuff
• Reusing
• Sharing
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

3. Hackers Hackers
like need
• Learning
• Regular breaks to
• Making stuff clear the mind
• •
Reusing Food to fuel the
coding
• Sharing
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

4. The answer: Bread
Bread takes hours to leaven
(But you only work it a few minutes at a time, perfect
past-time for your breaks)
Code, bake, code, bake... eat + code.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

5. Bread is easy
• Flour: 1kg (£2.2)
• Fresh yeast: 20g (0.7oz); dry: 10g (0.35oz)
• Salt: 10g (0.35oz)
• Cold water: 600ml (20 floz)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

6. The leaven
• Use 100ml of water,
• The yeast
• And 100g of flour
• Let it rest for 10~15 minutes
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

7. The principle
• The yeast needs water and food, you feed it
• It reproduces and breathes
• The outcome is CO2
• ... and more yeast
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

8. The bread
• Add the remaining flour
• And the remaingin water
• Knead the dough
• Leave to rest (it should double in size)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

9. And do it again
• Don’t be afraid of destroy the air bubbles
• There is plenty of yeast to make more
• Knead the dough well
• Leave to rest again
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

10. Hack your bread
• Use milk instead of water
• Add sunflower seeds
• Use some olive oil or melted butter
• Cover it in chopped garlic
• Put whatever you feel like...
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

11. How many times?
• The more you knead,
the more elastic it will
become
• Experiment and find
your way
• Learn the ways of The
Force
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

12. Bake
• Time and temperature
depend on the size and
shape of your breads
• As a reference, use a
pre-heated 180ºC
(356ºF) oven for some
40 minutes for a 500g
loaf
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

13. But, wait a second!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

14. Where does the yeast
come from?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

15. Saccharomyces
cerevisiae
Also called brewer’s yeast
Is obtained as a byproduct of brewing beer.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

16. Saccharomyces
cerevisiae
Also called brewer’s yeast
Is obtained as a byproduct of brewing beer.
But beer itself needs yeast...
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

17. Now really, where does
yeast comes from?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

18. Now really, where does
yeast comes from?
Let’s Catch a Wild yeast!
(much more fun than writing answers)
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

19. sourdough_init()
• Mix 100g of flour and
100ml of water
• Cover it to avoid dust,
but allow it to be in
contact with the air
• Leave it for two or three
days
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

20. Yes, two or three days!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

21. Yes, two or three days!
What do you think it will happen?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

22. Bacteria!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

23. Bacteria!
Yay!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

24. Hungry Bacteria!
Time to feed them!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

25. leaven_refreshment()
• Take the 200g of leaven you have
• Add 200g of flour
• Add 200ml of water
• Repeat every two or three days
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

26. Now you have 600g of
leaven!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

27. Now you have 600g of
leaven!
How much leaven will you have at the end of 10 days?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

28. Now you have 600g of
leaven!
How much leaven will you have at the end of 10 days?
A lot!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

29. leaven_finalise()
• For 300g of leaven
• 300g of flour
• 150ml~200ml of water
• You’ll end up with some 800g
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

30. Share your code leaven
• Give your leaven a
Creative Commons
Attribution 2.0 license
• Give part of it to friends.
Encourage them to make
their own sourdough
• Just make sure you have
about 300g for the last
refreshment
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

31. Making the bread
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

32. Making the bread
Didn’t we covered that already?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

33. bake()
• Save 300g of leaven and
use 500g
• Add 500g of flour
• Add 300ml~350ml of
water
• 15g of salt
• Make bread with that!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

34. sourdough_leaven.lib
• Refresh the 300g of leaven
• Add 300g of flour
• And 150ml~200ml of water
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

35. setTimeout(bake, 3)
• Every 3 days or so you must refresh your
leaven and this is a good opportunity to
make bread
• If that’s too often, why not alternate the
task with some friends
• Don’t forget you can make _a lot_ of bread
at once and share, so can your friends
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

36. Summary
• You’ve built your own leaven library from
scratch
• You’ve are distributing it with CC
• You are extending your library to all sorts
of different breads
• People are modifying, customising and
improving your library
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

37. Maintenance
• Baking bread every few days seems
exhaustive? Stop it!
• If you want to restart, ask a friend to give
you some of the leaven they still have.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

38. Accessibility
• Basic sourdough is not accessible to
coeliacs due to the presence of gluten.
• Alternative recipes with gluten-free flours
exists, but I’ve never tried them.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

39. Gotta love Sourdough!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

40. Gotta love Sourdough!
If only we could FTP it to a web server... sigh!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

41. ?
Questions
Guilherme Zühlke O’Connor
www.z-oc.com
twitter.com/guioconnor
Wednesday, April 1, 2009