Kingudaroad's blog

After reading this article by Dmsnyder, I decided to give Pat(proth5)'s formula a go. This formula bases the opening of the crumb solely on technique, instead of higher hydration. By the way, I would love to read the initial post by Proth5, if anyone can find it and share the link. I was not able to find it via search. 

Here is the suggested formula...

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I'm excited to have this book. I see so many on TFL using it. This seems to be a popular bread so I thought I would give it a go.

Used the book instructions to the letter except I mixed by hand, which I will say, was quite the task with this dough.

I'm happy with the bread out of the oven and it smells as good or better than any bread I have baked. Be back with a crumb and taste update after a bit.

I needed cracked rye berries to do my first bake from "Bread" by Jeffrey Hammelmann. All I could find were whole berries so here's what I did. First I froze the berries for about an hour, then a bit at a time, pulsed them in a coffee grinder, ran them through a strainer and kept saving the big pieces.

Made a big mess also. Got my version of cracked rye berry.

Flour, water, salt and yeast. How can this simple recipe be so hard to perfect. I have been seriously baking bread for about 8 months now and have attempted baguettes with poolish a dozen or more times. The shaping and scoring videos make it look so easy and many on this forum have absolutely mastered the art. 

I do not yet own the book, so this bread is based on xaipete(pamela)'s blog with comments from Mr DiMuzio.

The thing that got me thinking was the attention Mr DiMuzio puts on preparing his levain. My starter had gone about 10 days or so without a feeding. I keep a white liquid starter at 100% hydration. 

   I have recently become a big fan of the high hydration doughs with an overnight cold fermentation. The morning I took this dough out of the fridge, I cut it with my bench knife and flipped the smooth side down on my well floured couche. The knife left a scar on the edges of the bread which left an opening for the bread to bloom without the need for scoring. This may have been my best crust yet. It carmelized very dark and crackly and the taste was fabulous.

I had some apprehension after seeing that this is almost an 80 % hydration dough and being somewhat of a rookie, and not owning a mixer. I made the women and children leave, just in case, and went for it.

After getting my first bread book for Fathers Day and after reading it cover to cover, I was inspired to try this recipe. The book is very insightful and really is a great book for basic fundamentals.