Blog posts

My San Joaquin Sourdough originated in Anis Bouabsa's baguettes which had won the prize for the best baguette in Paris in 2008. Bouabsa's baguettes departed from convention in utilizing a 21 hour retardation after bulk fermentation and before dividing and shaping. Jennifer Stewart (Janedo on TFL) and I initially modified Bouabsa's formula by adding a bit of rye flour and some sourdough starter for flavor. I then omitted the commercial yeast altogether and began using the modified formula to shape as bâtards.

Aspergillus Oryzae is at the heart of many delicious East Asian ferments, including miso, tempeh, sake, etc.  I have been reading through The Noma Guide to Fermentation, where Rene Redzepi and David Zilber of Noma fame lay out a number of aspergillus oryzae ferments critical to much of the success of their restaurant.  This is really a fusion of a culinary practice with an incredibly long history in East Asia, with local ingredients and flavors of Denmark -- their culinary terroir.  Somewhat surprisingly, bread is almost completely lacking from the book, except as a

Now let your minds wander. Last few bakes I been getting kinks in my loaves.  It all seems to start at the preshape. 

100% AP flour, sourdough risen, 8 hour bake, 70% hydration 

Took a break from baking bread for a few days to work on Christmas presents out in the shop and fail to fix an unruly toilet.

Got to bake pizza tonight. My favorite type of bake. My wife is out of town, so I got to take a departure from my 100% whole grain bakes. Tonight, we dine on 100% Central Milling Organic Unbleached All Purpose Flour. Bag says it is a mixture of wheat flour and malted barley flour.

After my previous 40% Beremeal (barley) sourdough (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/66746/40-beremeal-vssdr), I repeated it almost exactly - but with half amount of Beremeal, and I slightly reduced the hydration, in line with reduced amount of whole grain flour. Also doubled for two loaves. Formula: https://fgbc.dk/149f

This is Hamelman's Golden Raisin Bread. The baked loaf tasted very nice. I used organic raisins and some seemed to erupt through the surface in the oven. I increase the raisins next time. The crumb was nice and light for this bread. I'll post the formula below.

This is the basic process for a just-sprouted whole urad idli w/ coconut tamarind chutney.  See the making-dosa-starter discussion for more detailed writeups.

This is a bread with a special ingredient, fermented bran and cornflour. It is what remains from making borsh. This thick mixture is your new borsh starter, called husti in Romanian. Romania has a tradition in using it for diets, traditional home medicine and even for beauty treatments. Why not adding it in bread then?

I think most sourdough recipes/ methods/ techniques come from professional bakers or people writing books that are baking so much bread that they might as well be professional bakers. I am not sure these folks are writing to solve my needs. I want a nice loaf of sourdough bread every couple of days, with minimum effort.

My current solution is to take a bit (~100 grams) of the dough from my current batch of dough, and put it in a storage container in the refrigerator before setting the dough to bulk ferment.