In lives mediated by screens, or cerebral in other ways, doing stuff with our hands is highly underrated. I’d go further, we need to get our hands onto/into things, whether it’s gardening, cooking or some form of craft or art.

My thing is bread. However, it would be more accurate to refer to the dough side of things, because what happens before it goes into the oven is almost all of what determines the quality of the outcome. And, while there is something particularly satisfying about holding a crusty loaf with the ‘spring’ that comes from a good rise, it’s the dough I get my hands onto.

For over 20 years, nearly all the bread we eat has been home baked sourdough. The progenitor of our starter was a bunch of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes that I crushed between my fingers and then left to begin fermenting spontaneously. When it started bubbling, I added some flour. This culture still lives in our fridge, although now many generations away from its vinous origin. It’s like a pet, quietly sitting there, providing emotional support via proxy, in the form of the bread we bake weekly. And, yes, like a pet, it needs to be fed on cue.

We once had house sitters who threw out the starter, thinking it was leftovers gone very bad. Fortunately, I had a backup in the freezer, so we could start again.

Aedan, my son, adopted the culture during lockdown. He took our sourdough game to another level, making so many practice loaves that he was forced to start a side hustle selling them. He also made extraordinary sourdough doughnuts and English muffins.

Armed with his improved techniques, the weekly bake became my domestic responsibility a few years ago, although to be honest, it’s more therapy than chore. Each batch happens over the course of three days, with key activities required on the two days leading up to baking. No step is very time consuming, but it must happen on schedule, so I kind of build my weekend (or days leading up to it) around the dough and baking process.

The magic that makes it happen is the yeast, a single-celled fungus that – literally – gives its life to every loaf of bread. In converting carbohydrates to carbon dioxide, it causes the dough to rise. Its metabolism is temperature sensitive, so I need to adjust the timing depending upon ambient temperature. The fermentation that is specific to sourdough both enhances the flavour of the bread and makes it more nutritious.

There was a time that I used a mixer, but I find that doing everything by hand is quicker and yields a better result. Plus, it’s a whole lot more satisfying.

Every motion of my hands is circular, whether on the horizontal or vertical plane.

The evening before I’m going to be mixing dough – roughly 36 hours before putting the loaves into the oven – I bulk up my starter, by feeding it equal weights of flour and water. Regular baking keeps the starter active, which results in a better fermentation.

The starter will go back into the fridge for the night, unless we’re in the middle of a cold spell. Then it may stay out. If it’s been in the fridge, I’ll take it out early in the morning. As it warms, the starter increases in volume. There are so many CO2 bubbles it almost looks like foam.

When it’s ready, I mix the starter with flour and water. The flour is carefully selected, artisanal produce.

After the first mix I leave it for the autolyse. During this roughly 45-minute resting period, the flour hydrates and the gluten starts to develop.

Next I add salt, mixing it through well. Again the dough is left for an hour or so.

Then the folds start. Every 20-30 minutes the dough is lifted, stretched and then folded on itself. It becomes more elastic as the gluten builds up. After four or five folds the dough is once again left. For these two to three hours, I’m housebound. I can run all the errands I want, but they cannot take longer than 30 minutes.

All these manual actions are a kind of communion with the dough as it becomes a living thing. I am guiding it through its life cycle, to the point where it has risen, while also building a structure that will retain its integrity when it’s baked.

The final step, and this depends on how quickly fermentation has proceeded, is the shaping of the loaves prior to placing them in the proving baskets. It can happen mid-afternoon, or early evening, depending upon temperature.

After many years of doing this, every manual step has a kind of rhythm to it, with the hands ‘listening’ to the dough communicating its texture and stage of fermentation.

The proving baskets go into the fridge overnight. On the third day, the bread is baked.

Everything takes as long as it takes. I am obliged to follow the lead of a unicellular organism doing what it’s programmed to do. I have to be in tune with the rhythm.

The pay-off is having delicious bread to eat and share, as well as the reward of the time spent with my hands on the dough.