David Esq.'s blog

I was on vacation for a week and used my starter for nothing but pancakes (which, because they were watered down, came out more like crepes) and when we came home on Saturday, I knew that my usual tartine bake was not going to fit in with my weekend schedule. 

Fortunately, I had yet to bake from Flour, Water, Salt & Yeast and I decided to give it a go with a <gasp!> 100% All Purpose Flour loaf, using <gasp!> commercial yeast!

I pulled the trigger on a pullman 13x4x4 loaf pan recently, and have been itching to bake a sandwich bread.  I was unable to do it last weekend due to travel plans, so I was trying to figure out a way to get the loaf done after work. Unfortunately, I can't begin to bake anything until 7:30 pm at the earliest, and I usually go to bed by 10. 

I decided to try the rye bread from the Tartine Bread book.  This is the fourth formula I have more or less followed from the Book.  I've made the Basic Country Loaf numerous times, the Walnut Country Loaf once (my favorite bread so far), the Whole Wheat country loaf, and now the rye.

I only had 500 gram so AP flour in the house, so I made up the rest with home-milled hard red winter wheat berries. And the rye flour called for in the formula was also home milled.

This weekend was a busy one, but I still managed to bake my loaves in the dual combo cooker.

Because we were having a BBQ birthday celebration on Saturday, I had too many things to do and not enough room to do them, until the house cleared out.  Saturday night, I took my tablespoon full of starter and mixed it with 200 grams of freshly milled hard red winter wheat, and 200 grams of water.  The product started out looking like this:

I bought a large bucket of  Organic Hard Red Winter Wheat Berries from Honeyville, through Costco when they were on sale the other day. Since shipping was included, as well as the bucket and gamma seal lid, it came out to be a good buy.

I did not quite realize how large a bucket this was going to be, though I had a good idea that 40 pounds was going to give me a LOT of berries.

I baked my fourth and fifth Tartine Basic (Whole Wheat) Country loaves this week, using freshly milled flour.  I used 100% whole wheat for the leaven and 70% Whole Wheat for the dough (which came to a 73% whole wheat for the total dough).

The flour that comes out of my Komo mill, was measuring at 105 degrees toward the end of the 700 gram grind, and the wheat berries were in the fridge for about 8 hours before grinding. 

My Tartine loaves made with 70% home-milled flour came out excellent.  I have one in the freezer to bring to the in-laws next weekend, and brought one to my parents for dinner last night.  My dad re-heated it in the toaster oven and it was a little difficult to cut -- the bread tore a bit and I don't know if that was the knife's fault (a very sharp "bow" knife) or if the crumb was just too soft.  I don't think it would have worked for a sandwich bread, but maybe once it cools off it will be easier to slice.

I put my new grain mill to work this weekend. The first thing I did was bake the teaching loaf in Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads book.  Note, the master formula is not error free. Under ingredients and method he states to use all of the soaker, and then states use all of the soaker (or biga) when he should have said starter (or biga).  See, I read these things, Peter!

As any of my loyal dear readers and followers know, I have been in a wonderful rut of baking the Tartine Basic Country Loaf.  The vast majority of my loaves have been, dare I say, excellent.

So, one of the nice things about Tartine Bread is Chad Robertson's recipes for use of the day old bread.  Sometimes one has a half loaf in the bread box and a fresh loaf just out of the oven.  It is difficult to eat that "day old bread" when there is a fresh loaf sitting out calling my name.

His french toast recipe calls for a 1.5 inch thick slice of bread. That is a lot of bread.  But, fortunately, I had enough old bread to make two slices.