A country levain loaf from Colossus Bakery, a naturally leavened sourdough bread that's fermented for 36 hours.
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Danielle G Adams
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Courtesy Colossus
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Topline:
Across L.A., a group of bakers and pizza makers are slowing down the production of their products, yielding some seriously delicious results.
How long are we talking about here? Sourdough bread in Long Beach takes a day-and-a-half from start to finish, and New York-style pizza even more. Because what is time anyway?
Who's doing this? We visited Colossus, which has locations in Long Beach and San Pedro, Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza in downtown L.A. and Grá in Historic Filipinotown to learn their secrets.
Flash back to the pandemic, when everyone you knew made sourdough bread because all they had was time on their hands. That new obsession birthed a million loaves of bread.
There was a whole rabbit hole to fall into, including how to source a sourdough starter, the length of fermentation, consistency, taste and crumb. People began showing pictures of their home-grown loaves, and naming their sourdough starters as if they were their children.
Post-pandemic, it led to a new appreciation of something that had been under our noses for some time — the handful of L.A. bakeries making artisanal sourdough bread.
While you can get sourdough rolls in your local supermarket, commercially made bread often doesn't follow traditional sourdough baking methods, likely supplementing with yeast to get a quicker fermentation.
But other bakeries, like Lodge Bread, Clark Street Bakery, and Bub & Grandma's, have committed to the full-on, time-consuming process, taking at least two days to allow different tastes and textures to bubble up (literally). And now, it's spreading to other dough-centered foods, like pizza, as pizza makers experiment with techniques allowing the rise to take four to five days.
What is it about slow fermentation that has captured the attention of bakers and pizza makers? I spoke to some people leading this trend.
Something in the air
At Colossus, located in Long Beach and San Pedro (and soon to be Anaheim), Kristin Colazas Rodriguez has been slowly perfecting her recipe for naturally leavened sourdough loaves for over five years.
Colazas Rodriguez cultivated her bread-making style when working in the Bay Area in the early 2010s. There, she worked alongside ex-employees of Tartine Bakery, the famed bakery that started in San Francisco and built its reputation on slow-fermented sourdough bread. The technique fascinated Colazas Rodriguez, who brought it down to Long Beach and began making her own version of the bread, and selling it at local farmer markets before expanding to open Colossus.
The sourdough starter at Colossus, affectionately named Jesus, is the basis for their naturally leavened sourdough loaves.
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Courtesy Colossus
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Kristin Colazas Rodriguez, owner of Colossus, taking time to prepare the naturally fermented dough.
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Courtesy Colossus
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Her team starts each morning by making the dough, adding a portion of their starter, and allowing it to ferment at room temperature for five to six hours.
Kristen Colazas Rodriguez, owner and operator of Colossus Bread
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Courtesy Colossus
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Then, it's time for cold fermentation, where the dough is put in the refrigerator overnight, slowing the fermentation process. This also forms lactic acid bacteria, which gives the dough its sour flavor.
After roughly 36 hours, the dough is finally ready to be baked into a stretchy, crunchy loaf of bread.
Her work is best exemplified by their country levain, a tangy, sliced sourdough loaf. Its large open crumb makes it perfect for a sandwich, or toast with butter and jam. For me, no other type of bread comes close.
Colazas Rodriguez's passion for sourdough isn't simply artisanal; she also feels it contributes to a healthy way of life.
"We can manipulate it, improve the nutritional quality of the starches and enzymes, and unlock its minerals," she said. "I don't think we would have a product that was as healthy if we were throwing in instant yeast, if we weren't correctly fermenting, and if we weren't long fermenting those grains."
A customer looks over the bakery case fulled with naturally leavened bread displayed at Colossus in Long Beach.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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The pizza dough whisperer
Chef Daniel Holzman, owner of DannyBoy's Famous Original Pizza inside the Wells Fargo building in downtown L.A., with another location in Westwood, makes acclaimed New York-style pizza.
But it comes with a twist. Instead of proofing the dough for a day, as is customary for New York style, Holzman, who has formal training as a chef, extends the fermentation for four or even five days. It's been somewhat controversial.
"I was told I was doing it wrong, and I've been consistently told we're doing it wrong," Holzman said.
Daniel Holzman of Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza with his prized take on New York-style pizza
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Daniel Holzman of Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza shows the gluten structure that's formed after the long fermentation process.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Wrongness be damned, as plenty of customers (and I) discovered, the pizza he creates is buttery, flaky, soft and chewy. Holzman's pizza dough, however, doesn't use a sourdough starter. Instead, he uses commercial yeast for the long fermentation, even though it's typically used to speed up the fermentation process.
The yeast produces carbon dioxide, which allows the dough to rise and creates micro blisters, or bubbles, in the crust, similar to the bubbles in beer. This results in a crispy crust on the outside yet an airy, light texture on the inside. While that is happening, the formation of the gluten structure occurs, which gives the dough its elasticity and chewy quality.
As an illustration, Holzman recently made a viral social media video where he walks shows a series of proofing boxes containing furled pizza dough balls.
Each box holds dough at a different stage of the fermentation process. You can see the texture developing as he pokes his finger in each one. By the time he reaches day three, the dough is producing complex structures resembling spiderwebs. It's impressive to see, and not something you expect in traditional pizza.
A New York-style pepperoni pizza being sliced at Danny Boy's Famous Original Pizza in Westwood.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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He said part of the reason long-fermented New York-style pizza isn't more common is not a cooking issue; instead, it involves real estate. In New York, space is much more scarce, and access to large refrigeration areas is a challenge.
In less-cramped Los Angeles, Holzman was able to experiment before honing in on his now trademark style.
" We use the same ingredients and method that we would use in New York," he said. "Ultimately, we concluded that fermentation would be one thing we would extend."
Easier on the body
A little further down the road in Historic Filipinotown is Grá ('love' in Gaelic), founded by owner Michael McSharry. He's originally from Ireland, but was living in London, working in advertising, when he discovered he had a gluten intolerance.
" At that point, I had to stop eating pizza, bread, stop drinking beer, and all those kinds of carbs," he said.
But when he tried sourdough pizza, he discovered he could eat it and still feel OK.
Michael McSharry, the founder of Grá, during the fermentation process for his sourdough pizza.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Michael McSharry of Grá turns his sough dough starter.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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While it's a bit of a grey area, scientifically speaking, it seems that some people with a gluten intolerance can eat sourdough bread. The long fermentation is theorized to help break down the gluten, making it easier to consume.
Fast-forward almost a decade to Los Angeles, where McSharry decided to open a restaurant focusing on sourdough pizza, natural wine and fermented foods.
McSharry described it as "food that not only tastes good, but nourishes the soul." He wanted his pizza to be as healthy as possible, which is where fermentation comes in.
As he prepared to finalize his menu for Grá, McSharry planned a last-minute trip to the famed Irish cooking school Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork. There, he studied under celebrity chef Darina Allen for a weekend course about fermentation.
Upon completing the course, he was given a sourdough starter as a parting gift, which he brought back to Los Angeles.
McSharry explains that his fermentation program at Grá takes approximately 40 hours, with the dough assembled in the morning and used for the following evening during their dinner service.
The dough is made from whole grain and 00 flour (a very finely milled Italian flour used in pizza and pasta).
" It took me a while to dial in the recipe, or should I say the principles behind the processes that exist within the pizza we have today", McSharry said.
In great detail, McSharry described all the elements of the process to get his sourdough just right, from the proofing stage to the temperature of the water and the oven. He recounted working 8-10 hours daily for over six months in his apartment before the restaurant opened, tweaking each element to achieve his desired result.
The Banger pizza at Grá made with tomato sauce, mozzarella, salami, ‘nduja, fermented mustard seeds, honey & basil
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Diners sit for dinner service inside of Grá
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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After locking in his dough recipe, McSharry and his team decided to fire the pizza at 750 degrees inside a wood-burning oven.
" It's another element to this very natural process. So you're working with Mother Nature in the fermentation and then with Mother Nature with real fire, and it's exciting," McSharry added.
The sourdough pizza at Gra isn't particularly sour in flavor. Instead, it takes on a soft and chewy texture, similar to a Neapolitan-style pizza. This format works well with various topping combinations on the menu, as is the case with a couple of house favorites, such as The Banger ($27), made with salami, nduja, fermented mustard seeds, and honey, and their Kimchi Pizza ($27), which contains tomato kimchi sauce, gouda, buffalo mozzarella, green onions, and sesame seeds.
The punch of flavor and freshness brings home precisely what McSharry aims to achieve.
By including other fermented foods — kimchi and fermented mustard seeds — McSharry hopes to extend the notion that the natural process can be applied to different foods, not just sourdough.
While he runs a business, he believes fermented foods are an extension of a more global way of thinking.
" One of our main focuses is having good working relationships with the farmers and doing our little bit to save the planet, like with upcycling," McSharry said. "This is an important characteristic of maximizing the return."
