Blog posts

Had a stuck sponge this time. Fell back to good 'ol "dry active" to re-inoculate and the sponge took off like gang-busters. Will taste the results tommorow while I keg my new Red.

The bread really rose this time. I even noticed "oven spring" which I understand, results from what in brewing is the protease rest (122 F). I expect some conversion (beta glucanase - 104 F) is also involved.

Today I made Daniel T. DiMuzio's Olive Oil Bread and I have placed on order his new book.  Daniel and Floyd's photo's/write-up really encouraged me to bake this bread.  The bread turned out lovely.  It was very easy to make and went quite well with our Scampi Diablo Pasta dinner tonite.  I used Rosemary from my tiny new plant I picked up at the nursery the other day.  The leaves were very green, pliable and fresh.

A variation of my previous 100% whole wheat sandwich bread.  The lightest and the most aromatic I've ever achieved.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjginqVJ

I've been experimenting with various method of making San Francisco Sourdough for some time now. Suas' SF Sourdough loaf came out pretty well. I baked it with steam instead of under a cloche and didn't get as much oven spring as I hoped for. This loaf underwent bulk fermentation on the counter and was proofed in the refrigerator. It isn't quite as sour as I would like. I achieve the degree of sourness I'm looking for only when I do both the bulk fermentation and proofing in the refrigerator.

My main motivation in making Pain de Beaucaire was that it could be completed in one day! I refreshed my starter early yesterday morning and made the levain for this bread from the discard. The bread took me only twelve hours to complete.

I broke off a piece of the finished loaf last night so I could taste it warm and was surprised by the prominent burst of sour on my upper palate.

The shock of retarded yeast fermentation has worn off. Like the afterglow of an especially buttery bread, it had washed over me and left me satisfied and looking to the future. I was filled with excitement and an ever ravenous attitude filled me as I looked for a way to implement what I had learned. From that point a passion for bread making filled me.

I've been rumaging arount this site a bit, read reviews of The Village Baker etc. I too, am trying to go back in time - pre Fleishmann's (1860's). Before instant and dry active yeast. I work with my own yeast cultures, but trust me, if something goes wrong, out comes the active dry. It is a wonderful failback.

I'm having problems with the milk bread recipe from Yippee. I don't know just how to convert the grams, etc. into ounces, pounds or cups. Please help as I have a couple of recipes I would like to try but am not sure of the amount of ingredients.  

Here are some of my recent loaves: This weekend I had a go at a Pain Meunier ("Miller's bread"), which is a great tasting wheat loaf. Apparently, this kind of bread was invented by boulangers as a way to thank their millers for reliable flour and grains. The whole wheat kernel is used in these recipes; in addition to wheat flours, cracked wheat, wheat germ and wheat bran are often added. The result is a wonderful, nutritious wheat loaf, with an appealing golden colour.

I am a retired engineer, a baker of bread, and brewer of beer. This blurb is narrowly focused on what I have learned about the setting of sponge for the baking of bread (updated 6.May.09).

I have a very large supply of Saccharomyces cerevisia, the species of yeast used for baking. It is a by product of my brewing of ales. I cannot match the expertise and baking skills I have observed on this forum; but, I can contribute in this fairly narrow aspect.