I had to embark on an odd, albeit short, research project last week. I was trying to figure out how the volume of dried hops compared to the volume of hops pellets.
Hops are the flower buds of the female Humulus lupulus plant. Most of us know them as the ingredient in beer that makes it bitter. The "hoppier" a beer is, the more bitter it is. I'm not a fan of bitter things and do my best to stay away from beers that have IPA, Hopothermia, or other such designations in their names. Nope, no gin and tonics for this woman, either.
So, why was I researching dried hops? When I had my two-batch bread day last week, I happened to look ahead at the next recipe and saw that it required a hops starter, the recipe for which was on another page. (I hate recipes embedded in recipes, don't you?) Turns out hops starter is rather like sourdough starter except it's made with hops, potatoes, and corn meal. I know, interesting combination, right?
I assumed that I would not be able to go to the local grocery or natural foods stores and pick up fresh or dried hops buds to make the required hops tea, so I contacted the owner of Valdez Brewing, Valdez's first brewery, to see if they might have some they could spare. The hops starter recipe called for 1 quart of fresh hops or 1/4 cup packaged dried hops. In winter, the brewery uses hops pellets in their brewing. The pellets look a lot like rabbit food, but definitely smell like hops. I wasn't sure how pellets would compare to just dried flowers, hence the research project. Of course, I couldn't find any references to hops for bread making, but brewers generally seemed to think that, given natural variation in hops bitterness anyway, there was no significant difference in the forms of dried hops. I just decided to go for it and use 1/4 cup of the pellets Valdez Brewing so kindly donated to me.
It was a good thing I looked at the Turnipseed Sisters' White Loaf (which has no turnips, seeds, or sisters in it) in Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads before I ran out of the last batch of bread I made. The starter took a minimum of 4-5 days to get going before I could even think about baking with it. It was kind of gross looking, honestly, when I mixed it up. The mashed potatoes and corn meal were rather lumpy, and the steeped hops lent it a greenish cast.
By the time I took a cup out of the jar last night to set a sponge for today's loaves, the hops starter had settled into an innocuous cream color, just like my sourdough starter. As when baking with any starter, you have to start a sponge early enough to allow the yeast cells to multiply so that the bread will rise. In this case, I mixed 1 cup of hops starter with 3 cups flour, 2 cups warm water, and 2 teaspoons sugar. The recipe said to let it sit in a warm place overnight while it doubled in volume. In my 69ºF house the volume doubled in less than 30 minutes! I stirred it down twice before I went to bed, and was sure I'd get up to sponge overflowing the bowl.
I wish I'd taken a picture of the sponge - it was a beautiful thing. It all stayed in the bowl, but was bubbly, and voluminous, and clearly very alive. All I had to do was add shortening, salt, and flour and knead away.
I was talking to my daughter on the phone while I was kneading and commented to her that it felt odd to be kneading this dough. Normally when I make bread I've just added very hot water to the yeast, flour, etc., so the dough is pleasantly warm while I knead it. Because this sponge was sitting out all night, the dough was actually quite cold. It just didn't feel like it should be able to grow and rise. Luckily, feelings aside, it rose very nicely.
My hubby was quite convinced that since I don't like hops in beer, I wasn't going to like a bread made with hops starter. I guessed the taste would be diluted enough to not be too noticeable. I am happy to report that he was wrong. The bread has a wonderful texture inside and out. It does have a subtle "green" aroma and taste, but it's not strong. I'm curious to see if the flavor fades as the bread cools. I give the bread two thumbs up, but it's not my favorite of the recipes I've made thus far. I'll definitely have to try this starter again in another recipe to give it a fair shake - and because I now have a jarful of starter. If you're in Valdez and want to try it, let me know. I'll be happy to share.
By the way, according to Clayton the bread is called Turnipseed Sisters' White Bread because it was a staple of Ola and Minnie Turnipseed's farm-home restaurant in norther Indiana. What fun it must have been for Clayton to travel around collecting bread recipes for his book.
Frustratingly, I think the Turnipseed Sisters' bread is the only one in Clayton's book that uses this starter. I assume it can be used just like sourdough starter for bread, pancakes, etc. I was interested to find when I did an internet search for "hops bread" that the recipes I found all referenced them being traditional to Trinidad and Tobago. The recipes seemed to be basically the same as the Turnipseed Sisters' recipe. I wonder if the old spinsters had an Island connection?
