Organic Korean Wheat Bakery

The Story of “Nenia Bread” (Part 2)

Interview with Nenia Bread’s Head Baker, Oh Jin-moo

Oh Jin-moo Meets Nenia

When he reached his forties, Oh Jin-moo, baker at Nenia Bread, began to feel that he had lived his life according to society’s script: go to university, get a job, marry, raise children. Looking back, he asked himself, “What do I actually want to do?” He resigned from the company where he had worked for many years and set out to travel, giving himself time to think carefully about the future. Together with his wife and two children, he spent three months walking the Camino de Santiago.

The Camino de Santiago is a world-famous pilgrimage route in Spain. Oh walked the “Way of Santiago,” and along the journey, he formed a friendship with someone who told him they were opening a bakery in Korea and asked for his help. He spent about a year there learning the craft of baking. However, it was not the style of bread he truly loved. His mind went back to bread he had tasted during his travels in 1996, and to the sourdough he had enjoyed on the Camino. Oh began to dream of opening a “world sandwich” shop that would serve Middle Eastern and European-style sandwiches. But in Korea, finding good European-style naturally fermented bread—other than plain sandwich loaves—was not easy. Determined, he enrolled in a baking academy, earned his certification, and, outside of the standard curriculum, learned about naturally fermented bread. A lecture on the subject by a microbiology professor left a strong impression on him. This was around 2012.

Instead of rushing into business, Oh joined a bakery in Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, to gain more experience. In 2014, he opened his own bakery in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, focusing on fermented breads. Customers loved the bread when they ate it fresh in the shop, but at home, many found it hard and less flavorful. Fermented bread should be warmed before eating, but this was not a common habit in Korea. As with rice, bread becomes firm as it cools.

After about two years, sales were steady, and Oh opened a second store. Around that time, he met Moon Young-jin, CEO of Nenia. Oh suggested that the company consider parbaking. He had wanted to make parbaked bread himself, but the process required freezers and a distribution network, which were difficult for a small bakery. Moon was surprised that a baker from a rural area was not only familiar with parbaking but eager to try it.

Parbaking involves baking bread to about 80 percent, freezing it quickly, and then finishing the remaining 20 percent at home in an oven or air fryer. It allows customers to enjoy the taste and aroma of freshly baked bread in their own kitchens. Pleased to find common ground, Moon invited Oh to join Nenia Bread, and in September 2021 he came on board. His goal is to produce parbaked bread and share the authentic taste of bread with as many people as possible.

So what exactly makes naturally fermented bread different from ordinary bread? And what do those unfamiliar names—sourdough, campagnou, ciabatta—really mean? In the following, Oh Jin-moo explains the world of naturally fermented bread in simple, easy-to-understand terms.

Natural Yeast Bread Lecture - "The More You Know About Bread, the More Interesting It Gets"

- Oh Jin-moo, Baker at Nenia Bread

First, it is helpful to understand a little about flour. Gluten is a compound formed when two proteins in wheat flour—glutenin and gliadin—combine. When flour is mixed with water and kneaded, gluten develops, giving the dough both elasticity and viscosity. Gluten has a large molecular weight, and people of East Asian descent generally have lower levels of the enzyme needed to break it down. However, when wheat dough is fermented for 16 hours with natural yeast, the yeast breaks down the gluten. The protein particles become smaller and are converted into amino acids.

You may have heard the terms “naturally fermented bread” or simply “fermented bread.” As the name suggests, this is bread made by allowing the dough to ferment naturally. So, what exactly is fermentation? One way to understand it is to think about kimchi. In midsummer, kimchi ferments quickly. This process produces acetic acid, giving it a sour but light flavor. By contrast, kimchi prepared for the winter season ferments slowly over a long period, developing a deep and complex taste with many layers of flavor. Understanding this principle of fermentation makes it much easier to appreciate what naturally fermented bread is all about.

▲ Bread made with natural starter. Nenia Bread ferments its natural starter slowly for 16 hours to bring out the full flavor of the bread. (Photo: Nenia)

There is actually no strict definition for what counts as a “natural starter.” In other countries, there is not even a formal baker’s license. Do we need a license just to cook rice? In countries where bread is the staple food, everyone bakes bread just as we cook rice at home. In the same way that we eat rice with various side dishes, they eat a meal bread—plain and hearty—together with meat, salad, and other foods. The idea of a certified “baker” as a profession exists only in Japan and Korea.

“Fermented bread is easier to digest.”

When yeast metabolizes, it produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. The alcohol is used to make beer, while the carbon dioxide is used to make bread rise. Let us look more closely at yeast. There is an enormous amount of yeast floating in the air around us. Among them, about 340 species have scientific names. Of these, one called Saccharomyces cerevisiae has the strongest fermenting power. This is the yeast typically used in beer production.

Commercial baker’s yeast is produced by collecting only this strain from the air and then cultivating it on a large scale. However, what we call a natural starter varies from place to place. Each community has its own type of fermenting culture. Yeast generally thrives at around 27 to 28 degrees Celsius, and most will die if the temperature drops below 4 degrees or rises above 35 degrees. During fermentation, yeast releases metabolic byproducts, and these byproducts change depending on temperature and environment. This is why bread tastes slightly different in each region.

When people say that wheat bread is hard to digest or that it causes belching, it often relates to gluten. Gluten is broken down in the body, but people of East Asian descent tend to have less of the enzyme that performs this task. As gluten is broken down, certain toxins are released, and these can cause belching. In the case of sourdough, the dough ferments for 16 to 17 hours, during which the natural yeast breaks down the gluten. The protein molecules become much smaller, and as a result, the bread is easier to digest.

Bread made with commercial yeast takes far less time to produce, but it lacks the depth of flavor of a natural starter. Without that flavor, bakers tend to add more ingredients to enhance the taste. That kind of bread is more of a “snack” than a staple food. Doctors and traditional Korean medicine practitioners often advise against eating wheat-based foods, partly because wheat has a cooling property in the body. Naturally fermented bread, on the other hand, has its own distinctive flavor from the starter itself. Because of the long fermentation, it can have a slight tang, a gentle sweetness, and a rich complexity, while also being easier to digest.

To make soft bread, you need a lot of gluten, which requires kneading the dough firmly. This strengthens the gluten proteins and can make the bread harder to digest. Most conventional breads are kneaded for more than 10 minutes, but naturally fermented bread is mixed for only 4 to 5 minutes—just enough to combine the flour and water.

Naturally fermented bread may have originated overseas, but in countries like France, Turkey, and Germany, flour types are classified by number. There are around 300 kinds of flour available. The difference is not in the wheat itself but in how the flour is blended, how finely it is milled, and whether it is fortified with nutrients such as vitamin C (ascorbic acid). There is whole wheat flour, rye flour, and standard white wheat flour. Choosing the right flour for the type of bread you want to make is an essential skill.

▲ “Ciabatta” means “flat slipper” in Italian, a reference to its shape. Pictured is Nenia Bread’s Organic Plain Ciabatta Parbake. (Photo: Nenia)

You know the bread we often call “sourdough”? That is essentially campagnou (or Pain de campagne) —a term that means “country bread.” In Korea, people in rural areas once eat a lot of noodles as “cham” (a light meal), and the flavor would vary from house to house depending on the broth or the cooking time. It is the same with campagnou. French farmers used to bake it casually at home, and each household had its own flavor. That is what sourdough is. Because the name is in a foreign language and the bread was first sold mainly in department stores and hotels, it became associated with luxury in Korea. In reality, it was just an everyday bread eaten in rural villages. There is no single precise recipe—just a pinch of salt here and there, made in a relaxed, informal way.

Baguette is one of France’s most famous breads, and the word means “stick” or “rod.” Ciabatta is Italian for “flat slipper.” There are many varieties such as olive ciabatta, cheese ciabatta, and potato ciabatta. Once you know the origins of these names, even long or foreign-sounding bread names feel much less difficult.

Nenia Bread bakes honest and delicious bread using only organic Korean wheat as its base ingredient. We hope that through understanding the journey of a single grain of wheat, readers can join Nenia in creating a better future.

Nenia Web Magazine Editorial Team