Flour poofs into the air, rich with the smell of baking bread. Three people stand around a table of thick wooden butcher block, quickly shaping dough into loaves of bread. Behind them, amassive oven radiates heat into the 80-degree room. Every surface is covered in a thin layer of flour. Next to the oven sit racks and racks of loaves, which are in the process of “proofing”before they bake. This is the everyday working routine for the small yet mighty team at Water Tank Bakery in Burlington.
Started by Rachael Sobczak during the pandemic, the bakery has quickly grown into one of the most successful local sourdough bakeries. Their bread can be found all throughout Whatcom and Skagit, from the Admiralty Lounge to Old World Deli, and at both the Bellingham and Skagit Co-ops, among other places. They also have a retail window at their bakery near the Skagit airport.
Much time and effort goes into the roughly 16-hour process of making sourdough bread, and at Water Tank Bakery, it’s truly a dedicated pursuit. There are three main steps to creating the bread that you know and love: mixing, forming, and baking. The process starts with mixing.
Emma Nichols, one of the mixers, starts early in the morning using one of thetwo colossal,waist-high mixers. Into the mix goes one of Water Tank’s signature ingredients: local flour milled right next door at Cairnspring Mills, along with water and sourdough starter.
“I come in, and I get myself set up for the day with all my tubs, and I get my big bags of flour. They’re like 50 pound bags of flour,” Nichols says. “We just load it all up into this big ol’ mixer.”
Different types of bread use different flours to help create each bread’s unique texture and flavor.
The dough is mixed without salt before resting for 20 mins. Called an autolyse, the resttime gives the flour a chance to absorb water and improves the gluten development.
“Then you add the salt in [and] finish mixing; divide it up into tubs, and then each tub gets three folds. Every half hour we give each tub a fold and that just helps further the gluten development. The gluten is what traps the gas in the bread, so that it has the air holes in it,” Nichols says.
This is called bulk fermentation, and is the first part ofa two part fermentation process. Proofing is when yeast in the dough produces carbon dioxide from consuming starch and sugars. This causes the loaf to rise.
Next comes forming, a challenging part of the process. Stretching and working the dough helpsdevelop the gluten to create that springy sourdough texture. The dough is brought out of the tubs and placed on the forming table, where it’s cut and weighed according to each type of loaf.
Every dough is different, say Danielle Isler, Stephanie Strong, and Jenny Polanski. The dough needs to be able to hold a poke and be airy, they say.
“Most of these loaves do not bake in a pan. They have to hold up on their own,” Strong says. Each shape and size of bread takes a slightly different approach. The consistency of the dough itself is impacted by the slightest variations in temperature, atmospheric pressure, and humidity.
Loaves are formed into their various shapes so that customers can easily identify which one is which. Some loaves have very specific traits. Sandwich loaves must be slapped to remove large pockets of air so they aren’t too full of holes. As they are shaped, loaves are gently wrapped with cloth called a couche so they keep their shape and rise properly.
“Once we’re finished forming the loaves, they get put onto racks. Either boards onto racks or baskets, and proofing will vary between 45 minutes up to two and a half hours, depending onthe size of the loaf,” baker Lily Ruderman says.
After the final proof, the completed loaves are ready to go in the oven, or chill in the walk-in fridge to slow down the proofing process before they bake.
The baker scores the bread using a bread lame, a special type of razor blade that is used to cut designs in the bread. These cuts help control the bread’s expansion and shape in the oven andprevent loaves from cracking. Then a long wooden paddle called a peel is used to slide loaves in and out of the oven.
The oven is a behemoth, with four stone decks, and uses a steam injection process to cook the bread. Loaves bake for at least 30 minutes and are rotated to get a consistent, golden browncrust. After the bread is done baking, it cools down and is ready for you to enjoy!
11777 WaterTank Rd., Ste. C, Burlington, 360.757.2253, watertankbakery.com
