Bakenstein's blog

Hi all you busy bakers, I have been struggling for a while with just not getting that beautiful light open airy texture to my doughs. Its come close at time with Pizzas and flatbreads but no cigar yet. For some reason I just brought up baking breads with someone and they told me about using water that had been purified by reverse osmosis. Never to use just tap water. Recently I was at my wits end as I always proof the yeast first and saw very little activity after 10 min. everything was done up to par. Threw it out the batch 2x's. I opened a brand new yeast packet same result.

I finally started to do the little trick of holding back a cup of flour out of the recipe and using it as I knead. The dough has a much better hydration. I am so used to cooking and baking very rapidly and always trying to organize for speed. Now its time to organize to achieve the bread's best potential. Slowly stepping it up to the next level. I also decided to hold off on my starter. I want to thoroughly understand yeast breads first from the ground up-literally. Flat breads first. Maybe somewhere down the road I'll build my Wood Fired Oven....but not too far!

Well since asking the question about what kind of adjustments are to be made at high altitude I have been researching on the web quite a bit. It is very perplexing, contradictory and fustrating. It is said that 37 states have cities that are over 3000ft. yet there are only a handful of books devoted to the subject.