Yes,

I have done the simple sour dough, flour, water and catch the yeasts in my kitchen for the sour dough, but I have also done grape leaf yeasts a number of times and quite like it.. I have played around with a few other ways as well.. I have tried all the different ways listed in the book below.. each gives a different flavour but to me, most of them are fresh sourdough versions other then the grape leaf yeast.. its in its own class..

As for the bread and results, excellent, you can make a heavy thick loaf, or you can use it to make a lighter bread or even yeast cakes etc. Time is your friend on these..

http://www.amazon.ca/Bernard-Claytons-Complete-Book-Breads/dp/0743287096

the one I am currently working on is making homemade tarter from the leftover of homemade wine.. its proving to be very tricky.. only touch on it because its another levening adgent that can be used for lift in baking if done correctly.

Interesting and very cool. I'm really interested in seeing how your tarter (tarter sauce from wine vinegar?) turns out. Are you saying that the leaves of the grapes are better then the skins of the grapes? Is this the best fruit to use to make a yeast water in your opinion?

You sold me the book getting the book already.

Not tarter sauce.. that's mayo and pickles with a bit of salt and pepper and maybe fresh lemon juice..

Tarter for baking.. or in the stores called cream of tarter

Potassium bitartrate crystallizes in wine casks during the fermentation of grape juice, and can precipitate out of wine in bottles. The crystals (wine diamonds) will often form on the underside of a cork in wine-filled bottles that have been stored at temperatures below 10 °C (50 °F), and will seldom, if ever, dissolve naturally into the wine.

These crystals also precipitate out of fresh grape juice that has been chilled or allowed to stand for some time.[1] To prevent crystals forming in homemade grape jam or jelly, fresh grape juice should be chilled overnight to promote crystallisation. The potassium bitartrate crystals are removed by filtering through two layers of cheesecloth. The filtered juice may then be made into jam or jelly.[2] In some cases they adhere to the side of the chilled container, making filtering unnecessary.

The crude form (known as beeswing) is collected and purified to produce the white, odorless, acidic powder used for many culinary and other household purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_bitartrate

Back to the yeast, yes I really like to use the leaves, I have had really good results with the ones from my grape vines, I can't say about wild vines or other places but for my own.. I like very much.. that book is awesome!

If you are looking for bread yeast, then yes, but as Farmgal mentioned you capture it, not make it.
here is a blog post I did about it a while back.

http://www.canadianpreppersnetwork.com/2011/11/no-yeast-no-problemtry-sourdough.html

Enjoy.

Not tarter sauce.. that's mayo and pickles with a bit of salt and pepper and maybe fresh lemon juice.

New to this whole baking thing but something I have to embrace as a prepper...

Potassium bitartrate crystallizes in wine casks during the fermentation of grape juice, and can...
To prevent crystals forming in homemade grape jam or jelly, fresh grape juice should be chilled overnight to promote crystallisation....
The potassium bitartrate crystals are removed by filtering through two layers of cheesecloth....
The filtered juice may then be made into jam or jelly...
The crude form (known as beeswing) is collected and purified to produce the white, odorless, acidic powder used for many culinary and other household purposes.

I think my brain swelled up a bit after reading that. I'm recalling my time in grade when I was asked complex math equations. You're an expert in this area farmgal an I appreciate the insight. I'm slowly working my way towards improving my knowledge in this area. I think all preppers should. Ideally, everyone should attain a healthy degree of knowledge in the area of agriculture - including specific areas like this when it comes to food from scratch. Most of the preppers that I know are very narrow minded in the sense that they don't understand or appreciate the value of pure food sources. I'm sure I'll be picking your brain in the future.

Back to the yeast, yes I really like to use the leaves, I have had really good results with the ones from my grape vines, I can't say about wild vines or other places but for my own.. I like very much.. that book is awesome!

Ordered the book based on your enthusiasm.

If you are looking for bread yeast, then yes, but as Farmgal mentioned you capture it, not make it.
here is a blog post I did about it a while back.

http://www.canadianpreppersnetwork.com/2011/11/no-yeast-no-problemtry-sourdough.html

Interesting. I had no idea you could simply capture yeast from flour and water. I'm going to trying your method. Interestingly, the LDS cannery sells wheat that can be grown and I'm sure you read that I just ordered the Country Grain Mill so I'm set in the flour department.

If I understand correctly, you should be able to enhance the fermentation process by adding a natural sugar - such as honey?

Actually, you are capturing the yeast from the air, the flour and water simply provides a support medium.
If you want to better your chances of success, bake a lot of bread in your kitchen.
Yeasts, which are fungi, actually escape into the air as bread rises...the more bread you bake, the more yeast in the air!
You can always cheat a bit by adding yeast to your flour/water mixture.
Once a culture is established, it is not unheard of to keep the same batch living for decades!

Beat me to it Dean :), yes you are catching the yeast and giving it a growth area, having lots of yeast floating around the kitchen for bread making is good but not if you are doing cheesemaking and bread making.. Learned this the hard way, made big batch of bread in the dydrator one day and then made a big batch of gallon of yogurt the next day, without cleaning in between.. bad, bad! idea..

Thankfully the pigs didn't care, but the yeast from the bread outgrew the yogurt cultures in the batch.. I learned, always wipe out the inside of the Excalibur between uses like that with white vinager.

Both the sourdough and fruit methods worked excellently. Also tried a gluten free variety. The breads I made tasted fantastic. This, coupled with the Country Living Grain Mill should make for an interesting bread making event tomorrow. In any event, here's a snap shot of the yeasts from the very first batch:

I found that adding honey after a couple of days to the starter skyrocketed the feeding frenzy. I took advantage of the warm weather here today and set my dough outside in the warm weather covered with a damp cloth. I couldn't believe how much it rose. The specific bread below was made with flour, honey, leeks and some salt. Very basic - an onion/honey bread of sorts. Tasted fantastic.

Since I'm on the topic and as salt is a key ingridient when it comes to taste. What are some natural sources that can be used with making bread? I recall something about extracting salt from fish, wildlife and vegetables but I have yet to find specific details on how to do this. Any thoughts?

A true 'doomsday' bread would be made from ingredients that you can reproduce - so where do you get your salt from in the wild?

Che,
talk to Karen for wild edible salts.
There are natural Salt Licks, some rocks have veins of salt in them, some salt is either pushed up from the ground or a tree makes a version of salt. Stupid brain.. so foggy
Salt can be mined in certain areas. I think near London there was a salt mine. Salt can be dried out of water yes, but best to have salt water to begin with.

In the very old days, the wandering traders went from the Coast to the middle of the continent and back again. They brought, salt and shells from the coast to the interior people, and brought back goods to the coast. All travellers/traders were untouchables to any tribes/clans, they spoke numerous languages as well as the Native Sign Language.

My Grandmother told me that on her Wedding Day her Mother or Grandmother gave her Sourdough starter as a present. This starter or it's offspring was continously fed and used for 60+ yrs, now add to that fact that it was given, so it may have been how old from the Gifting relative?

The final results...

A few different yeasts were 'captured'. The sourdough and fruit yeast (apples) turned out especially well! The following photo's show various pics of breads that I created. Some have honey, others have wild leeks and garlic but in the end they all turned out much better then I expected. To keep things 'authentic' I decided to cook a few on the good old stovetecs. And ofcourse, what kind of bread event would I have without including traditional bannock? Loved the roti (flat bread with yellow split peas) - delicious!

Did the yeast work (rise)? It sure did and much more so then my original expectations.

Now that's some good looking bread! looks like you did a great job! thanks for sharing the different info, ecozoom stoves rock don't they! Where did you get the pots on top? please an thanks 🙂

ps, if you want to cook that stick bread so it will be more even, as most folks have found out its tricky to get it thin enough to wrap all the way around but not so thick that the dough is done outside but not on the inside, if you get a good size y branch, and weave the dough back and forth and then cook like above, it seems to give more steady results.

Give it a try and see the difference..

ps, if you want to cook that stick bread so it will be more even, as most folks have found out its tricky to get it thin enough to wrap all the way around but not so thick that the dough is done outside but not on the inside, if you get a good size y branch, and weave the dough back and forth and then cook like above, it seems to give more steady results.

Give it a try and see the difference..

Thanks, I'll give it a shot! I've found that if you have a thickness of about one inch with a slow burn (high above fire) for about 45 minutes you'll only have to rotate it once during that period and it turns out great. I should point out that that photo of the bannock was people trying to do it that way for the first time so it did come out a little thick but nevertheless, good experience. I totally understand the 'not cooked' on the inside dilemma though, thanks for sharing an alternative 🙂

The pot for the stovetec is actually a stovetec product as well. Fits perfectly on the stove. And the cool thing about the stovetec is that it burns everything including biomass. It's also very low maintenance. I love it.

Link: http://stovetecstore.net/index.php/stove-accessories/stovetec-stainless-steel-super-pot.html