dosco's blog

I followed Reinhart's recipe for "Basic Sourdough" and made 2 loaves (1 to give away to a friend).

I finally got some KAF bread flour which seems to have made a major difference and improvement (got good fermentation rises at all phases, and got a very nice oven spring).

1/8th of the flour is WW, and 1/8th is medium rye flour.

I'm watching my carbohydrate intake (am managing my weight ... have lost 20 lbs in the last year) ... so I had a very thin slice with butter - delicious! (although not sour, which is fine)

Made 2 of these for Christmas ... one for my family and one for my sister and her husband.

The pastry is a "Swedish Tea Ring" ... I know of a few versions of the recipe. I can post if there is any interest.

Crumb:

As previously suggested I made a go at SJSD using commercial yeast. I used the TFL feature (where the SJSD recipe is posted) to make a half batch of dough.

[u]Notes and Deviations from normal SJSD recipe:[/u]

1. Used 1/4 tsp of commercial yeast

2. Added yeast to 25g flour and 25g water and put it in fridge (to replicate 50g of starter called for in recipe)

3. Autolysed all of the flour for about 24 hours (was supposed to be overnight but timing got fouled up and had to go even longer)

So I made another attempt at San Joaquin Sourdough and it seems that I'm making progress.

Notes:

Made half a batch (enough for 1 batard)

Switched to Gold Medal unbleached AP flour (from store brand AP).

I chose to mix the dough and water and let autolyse overnight as the levain rose as well.

Kid #2 wanted something non-sourdough, so I decided to take  another shot at English Muffins.

[u]Poolish:[/u]

100g AP flour

100g water

1 packet commercial yeast

Ferment for ~12 hours

[u]Autolyse:[/u]

200g AP flour

150g water

Sit for 75 minutes

[u]Final Dough:[/u]

All of the poolish

All of the autolysed flour

75g AP flour

25g WW flour

75g water

(I forgot to add salt (d'oh!!!))

I thought it might be interesting to try [url=http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/our-version-of-tartine-style-bread/]The Weekend Bakery's version of tartine[/url].

Mmmm. English muffins.

So I used [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/englishmuffins]floydm's recipe[/url] with commercial yeast and a glob (about 200grams) of leftover old fermented dough (I saved it after it overproofed). I made an overnight sponge with the yeast and also let the majority of the flour autolyse overnight before combining all into the final dough. I let it bulk ferment overnight and cooked them in the morning.

My kids were starting to complain about SD bread. So I made a loaf of My Daily Bread.

I went with a lower hydration on this one as well - in the KA the dough ball was only mildly sticky and the kneading hook certainly worked the dough over. It windowpaned after roughly 10 minutes of kneading.

Interestingly the final loaf was less crusty and slightly firm and springy. Hard to describe, but definitely less crusty than previous loaves.  It was cooked on a pizza stone at 500F for 10 minutes, then 450F for another 10 or so until golden and internal temp 205F.

So I put together a loaf of SJSD last week. Used 1/4 tsp of commercial yeast, kneaded into the dough after the bulk fermentation, as an "assist." Seemed to work well.

I didn't take notes on this one (or the next few as y'all will see) ... sorry. I made the dough slightly sticky - not sure what hydration this corresponds to but IME less than 70% (I used my KA and the dough easily cleared the sides of the mixing bowl).

Oven spring was OK, flavor was good ... crumb was OK.

Ever onward ...

-Dave

Another day, another loaf. Same concept here, use the "My Daily Bread" recipe as a basis for modification. In this case it is also a basis for education.

CONCLUSION(S): I think that I have been chronically underproofing my loaves and I think the "retarding" in the fridge is really exacerbating this problem ... so in the next loaf I'll wait longer for the final rise. I also have been very loosey-goosey with my measuring, I don't like this approach (mostly because I am not sure of the final hydration) and therefore I'll 1) formulate a recipe and 2) follow it.