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Incredible crumb . I’m using my stored YW starter not even building a levain. Can’t believe how great these are coming out. 

am embarking on a journey to get a consistent baggie. This is my first batch. If I can keep this up I will be well pleased. Ease of making the dough, shaping, scoring, baking , crumb and most importantly flavor … everything went very well. 

I used the formula from the French baker video that was posted here a while back. He compared 3 French flours . I have T 65 so used that. I followed another baker’s method. I wanted very little hands on and I got it. 

400g T 65

7 g salt

1.2g ADY 

40g active liquid starter 

264g filtered room temp water ( +10 g if needed) 

Whisk water yeast salt starter very well. Fold in flour till all very evenly wet. add 10g if needed. Cover rest 30 min. Fold on itself several times return to covered bowl. I  very lightly dust countertop and dough. 30 min do folds again. Should be non- sticky already and very extensible. 30 min do one last time. Dough should pull a window . Let rise til double. Covered retard in fridge overnight. Preshape 2 360g baguettes. Rest 30 min. Shape into 15-17” long rolls. Floured couche  covered til puffy . Preheated 500 degree  baking steel. Transfer loaves  razor blade for scoring and cover with a large lid( I used my graniteware roaster lid). Turn oven back to 460. 13 min covered . 10-12 min uncovered. 

I don’t know how to post a video but the crackling and snapping was amazing! Fantastic flavor. Had ham and Swiss po boys. Just took two more out of oven and have a batch resting for tomorrow. 

July 28, 2022.

Wow, it's been just over 6 months since I milled any wheat, and just under 6 months since I milled rye:

So, tonight I got out the Shule (a Chinese made edition of what was likely a German model) 3-roller hand crank mill.  I use it to crack the grain. 

In the first photo, at https://seedforsecurity.com/blog/79 - the Shule is the pink box on the left. And it's the mill featured in the 4th photo. That page is not mine; I'm just using it as reference.  It's a low quality replica of the Italian Marcato Marga.

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I cracked
- 2.5 pounds of Prairie Gold hard white spring wheat. Probably purchased around 2018.
- 2 pounds of generic hard red winter wheat. Purchased in 2008. I vacuum packed it back then, and opened it up in 2020 or 2021.
- 3 pounds of organic rye, purchased in 2021.

I then ran it through a Vitamix blender - 8 ounces at a time for the wheat, and 7 ounces at a time for the rye. 30 seconds for each 8 or 7 ounce amount.  The rye is less dense, and doesn't seem to move around the blender well enough when using 8 ounces.

I used the regular Vitamix container, not the one for dry grains.

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Update, July 29, 2022. 

I made a loaf with the freshly milled flour today, mostly the white wheat with some red wheat, and thought it was a tad too gritty. So I ran both the white wheat and the red wheat through the Vitamix again.

July 23, 2022.  93rd bake.

240 g Bob's Red Mill stone ground whole wheat.

66 g durum semolina (the gritty stuff), Swad brand from Patel Brothers.

44 g Gold Medal bread flour.

3.0 g table salt.

3.0 g Morton Lite Salt.

1 tsp Fleischmann instant dry yeast.

261 + 8 + 9 + 8 + 10 = 296 g bottled spring water.

Mixed, rested, kneaded a little, stretch and folds, kneaded.  I didn't keep track of time.  

I should have soaked the durum semolina separately in advance. The grittiness seemed to interfere with the cohesion of the dough and development of gluten.

After a while I kneaded in 3/4 tsp of regular olive oil, and 3/4 tsp of grapeseed oil.

I kind of guessed when bulk was done.

Folded/shaped into a log, and put into a Lodge cast iron loaf pan that had been greased with Crisco and dusted with durum semolina. 

Pre-heated toaster oven, and let dough proof until it was domed just slightly over the top of the pan.

This was the perfect amount of dough for this pan.

Baked at 350-375 F, for 35 to 40 minutes until the top looked done. Internal temp was 205 F.

It came out good.  Crumb was moist,  and a bit cake-like.  So it likely did need some more  kneading and/or  more pre-soak to dissolve the grit sooner, and so more gluten could then be developed.

I was too lazy to take photos.

I've made this a few times in the past and it's always been a light and fluffy loaf. Which in all honesty this should have been but instead I made the super dense anadama BRICK!  Basically instead of taking the recipe and dividing or scaling it properly I made it up and tossed it into my Pullman pan. Let it finish it's prove (which was enough to press on the lid) and baked it off. In hindsight it was probably too much dough and would have been better with less to get more of that fluffy result....but even as a dense bread it's delicious. 

FULL RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

Tasting Notes: The molasses is present and adds a nice sweetness to the bread. Reinhart mentions in the book that he recommends a light molasses for most people, I only had dark and like it just fine. The light fluffy version if scaled and baked properly makes a great toast. This more dense version isn't light and crispy but dense and toothsome. Checking in with my family and they actually like the more dense version.

Time/Effort: 2 days - An overnight soaker for the corn meal, then day 2 is mix, prove, shape, prove, bake. Super quick compared to sourdough but normal for a commercial yeast bread.  

Would I make it again: Well given that this is at a minimum the 3rd or 4th time I've made it...yep. It's a good bread. 

     I wanted to make some soft tasty rolls that I could use for burgers and sandwiches.

This one uses cream cheese and baked potatoes to soften the crum and a mix of freshly ground whole wheat, spelt and corn flour along with some KAF bread flour.

I use some everything bagel topping and some grated chedar cheese which tasted great.

The honey added a little bit of sweetness which in the end turned out a nice soft tasty roll perfect for just about anything.

Formula

Levain Directions

Mix all the levain ingredients together for about 1 minute and cover with plastic wrap.  Let it sit at room temperature for around 7-8 hours or until the starter has doubled.  I usually do this the night before.

Either use in the main dough immediately or refrigerate for up to 1 day before using.

 Main Dough Procedure

Mix the flours and water together in your mixer or by hand until it just starts to come together, maybe about 1 minute.  Let it rest in your work bowl covered for 20-30 minutes.  After 30 minutes or so  add the salt, starter (cut into about 7-8 pieces), eggs, potatoes, cream cheese (cut into pieces) and honey and mix on low for 5 minutes.    Remove the dough from your bowl and place it in a lightly oiled bowl or work surface and do several stretch and folds.  Let it rest covered for 10-15 minutes and then do another stretch and fold.  Let it rest another 10-15 minutes and do one additional stretch and fold.  After a total of 2 hours place your covered bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest for 12 to 24 hours.

When you are ready to bake remove the bowl from the refrigerator and let it set out at room temperature still covered for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove the dough and shape into rolls around 125 -130 grams each.  Cover the rolls with a moist tea towel or plastic wrap Sprayed with cooking spray and let rise at room temperature for 1 1/2 – 2 hours.

Around 45 minutes before ready to bake, pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees F. and prepare it for steam.  I have a heavy-duty baking pan on the bottom rack of my oven with 1 baking stone on above the pan and one on the top shelf.  I pour 1 cup of boiling water in the pan right after I place the dough in the oven.

Right before you are ready to put them in the oven, grate some cheese or use an egg wash and add your toppings.  Next add 1 cup of boiling water to your steam pan or follow your own steam procedure.

After 1 minute lower the temperature to 425 degrees.  Bake for 25 minutes or until the rolls are nice and brown.

Take the rolls out of the oven when done and let them cool on a bakers rack for as long as you can resist.

(This is a tangent to other low-salt discussions on TFL.

I came to Morton Lite Salt via Vitalyte, which used to be known as Gookinaid, and before that "E-R-G" which stood for "Electrolyte Replacement, with Glucose."

https://vitalyte.com makes a great isotonic sports drink. Nutrition info here:
https://vitalyte.com/collections/shop-vitalyte/products/fruit-punch-glucose-replacement-drink

When mixed according to directions, Vitalyte has, per 8 fluid ounces:

67.5 mg sodium. ( 2.93 mEq.) 
96.5 mg potassium. ( 2.47 mEq.)
11 grams carbohydrates, of which 10.5 are sugar.
45 calories.

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I'm cheap and wanted a less-expensive DIY version for my hydration/sports drink, that also has less calories.

I discovered that Morton Lite salt, a combination of sodium chloride (regular salt) and potassium chloride, is close to the isotonic Vitalyte in the amount of sodium and potassium.

https://www.mortonsalt.com/article/morton-lite-salt-mixture-nutritional-facts/
https://www.amazon.com/Morton-Sodium-Healthy-Alternative-Canister/dp/B00473OJ3A?tag=froglallabout-20
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Morton-Lite-Salt-11-oz-Canister/10318920
https://www.kroger.com/p/morton-lite-salt/0002460001041 

From the Morton Lite Salt label, it has, per 1/4 tsp:

290 mg sodium.
350 mg potassium.

I dissolve 1/4 tsp in 1 liter of water.  1 liter is 33.8 fluid ounces.  

Using a 1/8 tsp measuring spoon makes it convenient to mix in a 1/2 liter bottle of water.

Mixed this way, Morton Lite Salt has:

290 / 33.8 = 8.58 mg sodium per fl oz.
350 / 33.8 = 10.35 mg potassium per fl oz.

Multiply by 8:

  8.58 * 8 = 68.6 mg sodium per 8 fluid ounces. ( 2.98 mEq.) 
10.35 * 8 = 82.8 mg potassium per 8 fluid ounces. ( 2.12 mEq.)

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The MLS container has 311 grams of product, and the label says there are 222 servings of 1/4 tsp per container. That would be enough for 444 half-liter bottles.    Using Kroger's price of $2.99 per container, that would be .67 cents, yes, only 2/3rds of a cent, per half-liter bottle of water.

Granted, that does not include sugar or flavoring.

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It's not an exact substitute, but Morton Lite Salt is available at a very reasonable price at Kroger and Walmart.

Sweeten and flavor according to your taste and calorie needs.

To get Vitalyte's amount of calories per 1/2 liter, add two tbsp of regular table sugar, 22 grams to be exact, to get 88 calories.  However, be advised that Vitalyte uses mostly glucose, and a little fructose, not table sugar (table sugar=sucrose).  Glucose, in the form of dextrose, a.k.a. corn sugar, can be obtained from beer brewing supply stores. 

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Vitalyte has a small amount of magnesium and calcium. So if you want to get more exact, you could add those too, but the amount is miniscule - insignificant compared to the sodium and potassium. I'll leave the calculations to you.  

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mEq, milli-equivalent, calculator: http://www.nafwa.org/convert1.php

So I mostly bake for my weekly needs which means sandwiches, toast and the like. For a long time I've been doing pan loaves because that's an easy shape to use for those things. It also let me not worry as much about overly extensible doughs with lots of spelt, etc when I was learning to work with those. 

But I got bored, so I bought a clay batard cloche from Breadtopia (https://breadtopia.com/store/breadtopia-cloche-bread-baker-oblong/) and a matching banneton and decided to bake a more artisan-style loaf. 

This was a 55% whole wheat loaf: 45% AP from Shepherd's Grain, 45% Yecora Rojo from Breadtopia and 10% spelt. My last bake before this was all Yecora Rojo and although the crumb was tight (partly the flour, partly me) the aroma and flavor from it is great. I used 10% SD starter to leaven and water at 82% hydration.

Autolysed for 90 minutes, mixed for 5 minutes in the KA using a spiral hook and then fermented at 78F with four sets of S&F 30 minutes apart. Bulk was done in 4.5 hours which was a little faster than I anticipated.

Preshaping and shaping were not that hard for a high hydration dough and it went into the banneton for about 15 hours. Popped out the next morning and baked at 450F, 20 mins covered, 25 uncovered. 

This one was inspired by WoodenSpoon @ thefreshloaf in this post . I had a bit of fresh lavender growing and the rains of early summer made me do this one. Some information was missing from the original post and various people have followed up with their own bakes but as far as I could see nobody had actually posted a full recipe / calculation for the bread so....

FULL RECIPE AND CALCULATIONS HERE

I also had to try this in a new oven. My existing one died with an error code and would no longer use the oven function. The cost to fix it was a bit too high and the time too long for my taste so I also get to present my new combo steam oven microwave!

I was a bit worried because as with any time you bake in a new oven you have no clue how it will perform. Thankfully this one is a champ.

Very pleased with the bake on this one overall....but what about the rest?

Tasting Notes: I'm puzzled honestly. The lavender scent is pleasant and the flavor is there in the background as a light floral. If you have ever had a Lavender Macaron (the french kind not the coconut kind)....that's the flavor...but less strong and without the sweetness. I enjoyed the first slice with butter but stood at the counter perplexed. I'm not upset about this bread. I don't hate it. In honesty I'm still trying to figure out what it's use case for. It's such a unique flavor that I'm sure in the right application it would shine and be amazing...I just haven't figured out what that is yet. My spouse tried it with some honey and an extra little sprinkle of salt and it was good but they are in the same kind of puzzlement. After some discussion we think that it might be best on a fancy picnic in the countryside with a soft white cheese, honey, maybe fig jam. Tomorrow I'll have to try it with a bit of cream cheese and jam or honey. 

Time/Effort: 3 days (Growing Levain, Mixing Dough, Baking) Normal for sourdough for my process. 

Would I make it again: Honestly, I don't know. I would need a very specific use for this to do it again and I haven't found that yet.  I'm glad I tried it, and I will continue to try it with different toppings...maybe some candied lemon peal...forever perplexed on this one. 

I’m joining my partner in Newfoundland to visit his family there. Working from home I was able to squeeze in a bake so I could bring some bread with me. Since my dinner guests all seem to have enjoyed my brioche, I decided to bake a 50% WW SD Brioche, but this time with the addition of dark chocolate chips to make it a bit more decadent.

I’d love your opinion on something, based on how this baked up with the tearing between the lobes I’d say that this is under fermented. However, going by the finger poke test, you can see in the photo of the pre-baked dough the indentation that remained even after several minutes making me decide it was time to bake. Although I’m sure this will taste great, I don’t love the look of that tearing. What do you think, under fermented?  I’ll be able to post a crumb photo tomorrow.

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For a 9”x4”x4” pan
70 g dark chocolate chips
Levain
Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth.
Press down with your knuckles to create a uniform surface and to push out air.
At a temperature of 78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.

Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk, eggs, salt, sugar and levain. Mix and then break up the levain into smaller pieces. Next add the flours. Mix on low speed until there is no dry flour remaining. Once incorporated increase the speed gradually to medium. Mix at medium until the gluten is moderately developed. With the mixer running add the room temperature butter one pat at a time until it is fully incorporated, waiting until each pat is well incorporated before adding the next. Continue to mix until you can pull a good windowpane, not quite as good as a white flour because the bran will interrupt the windowpane somewhat.

Shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 3.5-4.5 hours at 82ºF. There should be some rise visible at this stage.
You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier, remember if you do so the final proof will take longer. Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight.

Prepare your pans by greasing them with butter or line with parchment paper.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top. Lightly flour the bench. Transfer the dough onto the bench and divide it into four. Shape each into a roll, allow to rest 5 mins. Next like a baguette, shape each roll into a long log with tapered ends. Next do a 4 strand plait. Tuck the ends underneath and transfer into the prepared pan. Alternatively divide your dough into 8 equally sized small boules, rest, flatten and then add dark chocolate chips (per your taste) then form back into small boules. Place into prepared pan

Cover and let proof for 5-7 hours, longer time if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan or the dough passes the finger poke test.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash (1 egg with 1 tsp of milk and pinch of salt). Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 35-40 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 35-40 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF. You can brush the top of the loaf with butter if you wish at this point while the bread is still hot to keep the top crust soft.

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My index of bakes.

Benny's milk bread and trying to make hamburger buns are two bakes that have been on my list for quite a while.  I've also been wanting to do another round of my Honey Ginger and Jasmine Rice bread.  This weekend I tackled all three at once and used this bake as the basis, but I went with Active Dry Yeast (ADY) instead of sourdough.

Makes twelve buns big enough to easily handle a 1/2 pound hamburger patty (as a size estimate)...

Biga
130g   Bread Flour
84.5g  Water
0.3g    ADY
Combine until all flour wetted and ferment at 70 deg F for 12-14 hours

Porridge
65g    Jasmine Rice
32.5g Honey
13g    Fresh Ginger Root (minced)
97.5g Water
97.5g Whole Milk
Combine water and rice.  Simmer in covered pot until water absorbed.  Add honey, ginger, and milk.  Continue simmering in covered pot stirring regularly until milk absorbed.  Rice needs to be soft.  If still firm, add another 13g whole milk.  Keep doing small milk additions until rice is soft.  Let sit in covered pot until fully cooled.

Final Dough
357.5g    All Purpose Flour
130g       Bread Flour
32.5g      Semolina Rimacinata (Janie's Mill Sifted Durum)
195g       Whole Milk
13g         Sea Salt
6.2g        ADY
84.5g      Butter (Room Temp (soft))
84.5g      Egg (beaten)

1)    Make biga and porridge the night before the bake
2)    Combine milk and ADY.  Let sit for 10 minutes.
3)    Combine milk/ADY, flours, salt, egg, and biga,  Use pinching and squeezing to fully combine ingredients.  Rest for 10 minutes.
4)    Smash cooled porridge with fork, potato masher, or other means to assure there are no full grains of rice (want to minimize large pieces of whole grain in the soft buns).  Combine dough and porridge using pinching and squeezing.  Rest 5-10 minutes.  Add butter in small amounts using pinching and squeezing to fully mix.  Rest 10 minutes when all butter added. Will need to adjust hydration at this point depending on how much moisture was retained in the porridge.
5)    4 sets of bowl kneading to develop gluten.  Dough will be pretty shaggy for first set and will start to develop on the second set.
6)    Bulk ferment until dough doubles (75-76 deg F)
7)    Divide dough into twelve 120g portions.  Degas and preshape into loose rounds.  Rest 5-10 minutes.  Shape into tight rounds using bench scraper and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
8)    Cover dough and let rise at room temp (73-74 deg F) for 1 hour
9)    Preheat oven at 350 deg F.  After final proof, apply egg wash to buns and bake at 350 deg F on center oven rack for 30 minutes (until golden brown).
10)  Fully cool before slicing....  If you can wait that long.  :-)

These turned out GREAT!  Nice and soft with a wonderful blend of jasmine rice and ginger aroma.  I'd still like a bit more ginger in it, but I think that's a bit of a personal preference.