Bread and Beer

Sunday is one of my favorite days around the farm. We don’t do any farming on this day and try to rest. We typically have crepes (both savory and sweet) or pancakes if we want a nice mid morning nap. Sunday is also the day I make bread and beer. Today I will be making a sweet breakfast bread, a whole wheat sandwich loaf with almonds and brewing up a batch of Bodhi Farms Hefeweizen.

Bread and Beer are both a perfect example of how useful fungi are to mankind. Fungi are the first live decomposers in ecosystems. They are responsible for helping to build the soil systems on which we grow our crops. Yeast has over 1,500 documented species (there are considerably more out there, we just need to look). Harnessing the power of yeast has enabled humanity to build civilization. This isn’t an exaggeration. Bread is a food stuff that will keep well and travels well. And as well all know Beer has Saved the World on more than one occasion. For the longest time there was simply no understanding of how fermentation worked or what was going on with the yeast, only that it worked. Today however I can select my yeast species for both my bread and beer to achieve specific tastes; making Sunday one of my favorite days.