dabrownman's blog

This week the stiff rye sour has been in the fridge for 4 weeks, 672 hours at 36 F, and it is ready to make some sour bread.  The sour come not so much  Its not so much that it is cold but that it is cold for a very, very long time with plenty of food to eat allowing LAB to reproduce at 3 times the rate of yeast..

After seeing Phyllis’s fine baguettes based on David Snyder’s San Joaquin recipe this week, we decided that we would do some baguettes to practice slashing - it’s been at least a year.  Plus the he date of Lucy’s Mom’s untimely death is approaching and that requires some kind slashing, no matter what, in her honor – lighting a candle just won’t do.

Like everyone else around her, at least those who count, Lucy loves pizza just about more than she loves pumpernickel. It is a closer race than one might think.   We usually start off the weekend with grilled salmon on Friday night.

Then Saturday we do something Mexican, this year was grilled pork that was then made carnitas style by sautéing it with bacon fat in a cast iron skillet to really bring out the tastes of old Mexico.

Way back, when I first started making SD bread, I followed the same old routine; Gluten development with 10 minutes of kneading, then 2 hours of fermenting, then shaping and about 4 hours of final proof.  It made good bread but not the best.

Lucy has been gathering up ancient grains like farro and einkorn and Kamut and other allowed newer organic heirloom grains that are being replanted in small quantities in Arizona like Desert Durum, Pima Club and Sonoran White.

It all started off with tasso, potato and egg breakfast burrito smothered in red sauce with cheese.

Then it took nearly the whole day to get dinner ready to go.

The rice looked god br=efire being cooked.  The pinto, purano & black bean refried looked fine before mashing.

This week was the 6th week for the rye starter being undisturbed in the fridge.  O\It is also the last week we will bake from it as well since it is almost down to nothing.   It needs to be refreshed back up to 125 G and restored in the fridge for another 6 weeks of no muss, no fuss, no waste and no maintenance starter control.

2014 Dabrownman’s TFL Blog Index

1/1/2014 - New Year’s Panettone - 2014

1/3/2014 - YW SD Spelt and White Whole Wheat Miche

1/5/2014 -  Saturday Night Pizza - 1/4/2014

To use up the last of this super duper levain we ground up some more of our 8 multigrain mix of: wheat, buckwheat, oat, farro, rye, spelt, barley and Kamut.  We got an 85% extraction when we did the sifting this time and used the 15% hard nits to feed the levain.