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So, for my last baking experiment of the weekend, I chose another bread I've baked many times - the Sour Rye Bread from George Greenstein's "Secrets of a Jewish Baker."

Here's my first loaf using Bay State Milling's Bouncer. (Premium high gluten flour made from the finest high-protein spring wheat.) Smiling nicely, isn't it?

Dough made with this flour felt softer than with the GM All Trumps I've been using, and less stretchy. I was worried that my usual 70% hydration would be too high, but I don't think it was. The crust seemed a bit thicker and, boy, did it sing when it came out of the oven!

There was no real reason to switch from All Trumps to Bouncer; I just wanted to try out different flours.

We have had a stimulating and instructive discussion of methods of replicating the effects of commercial oven steam injection in home ovens. (See http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7192/humidity-versus-steam#comment-36522) I found it interesting that many home bakers have found coving the loaf during the first half of the bake to yield the best results - better oven spring, crisper, thinner crust, etc. So, I had to try it.

For the last few days I have been preparing two different sourdough breads, one is the basic recipe in Nancy Silverton's Breads from La Brea Bakery and the other one is my own concoction using the old dough technique from a piece of sourdough that a friend gave to me. It dates from 1993 and has a very disctinct, delicious aroma. Many of her friends tell her that her bread smells like "pain d'épice" which is a spice cake. I'll explain what I did and then I have some questions to ask you all.

Nancy Silverton's sourdough bread

I had reported with shock that my tap water had chloramines in it.  The spring water was behaving more like reverse osmosis water, so I'd started using tap water.  Mike Avery's plaint about his overly-soft tap water got me curious and I inquiried of our public works director about our water.  He said that due to the distance it travels from its source (from the Sacramento Delta to Morro Bay, a couple hundred miles at least and not what I'd consider a positive environmental situation), its treatment produces long-lasting chloramines.  Mike asked me to try making a starter

The tests results are in! (It takes so little to make me happy.)

This particular batch of wheat was tempered for 48 hours with 20% of water added by weight of the grain.

It was then ground as follows

1 – Coarse pass sifted through #20 sieve – contents of sieve returned to mill

2 – Medium coarse pass sifted through a #20 sieve – contents of sieve returned to mill

3 – Medium coarse pass sifted through a #20 sieve – contents of sieve removed from process.  This was about 20% of total weight

After preparing for it all of last week, feeding my sourdough daily with mash to make it a Monica Spiller-type barm, I finally made "Whole Wheat Barm Bread 2008", from the recipe that Monica Spiller recently published.

Nature seems to have granted me an abundance of patience and in the past few weeks I have been undertaking experiments that seem destined to use it.

I have been wondering why my levain – which given the way I feed it should be dead by now – lives, thrives, and raises bread every week.  I have also been wondering about the results of soaking my home milled overnight prior to a mix and bake.