Blog posts

Whoohoo!! Wild Bread that ISN'T sour!

ejm on 13 May 2008 at 08:14
[size=30]I did it!!! I did it!!![/size] [center]wild bread[/center] After weeks of angst with babying my jar of wild yeast, feeling I would never be able to bake a loaf of bread that WASN'T sour (not to mention the several times I was going to throw in the towel altogether), I have achieved my goal. Not only was it not too sour; it wasn't sour at all! And it was light!! Light as a feather!! And here's how I did it: I virtually started over with feeding.

Bouncer

Profile picture for user Susan
Susan on 11 May 2008 at 10:35

Here's my first loaf using Bay State Milling's Bouncer. (Premium high gluten flour made from the finest high-protein spring wheat.) Smiling nicely, isn't it?

Dough made with this flour felt softer than with the GM All Trumps I've been using, and less stretchy. I was worried that my usual 70% hydration would be too high, but I don't think it was. The crust seemed a bit thicker and, boy, did it sing when it came out of the oven!

There was no real reason to switch from All Trumps to Bouncer; I just wanted to try out different flours.

Baking loaves covered - Clinical trial, uncontrolled.

Profile picture for user dmsnyder
dmsnyder on 10 May 2008 at 20:51

We have had a stimulating and instructive discussion of methods of replicating the effects of commercial oven steam injection in home ovens. (See http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7192/humidity-versus-steam#comment-36522) I found it interesting that many home bakers have found coving the loaf during the first half of the bake to yield the best results - better oven spring, crisper, thinner crust, etc. So, I had to try it.

 

Sourdough experiments and a bit of confusion

Janedo on 7 May 2008 at 04:16

For the last few days I have been preparing two different sourdough breads, one is the basic recipe in Nancy Silverton's Breads from La Brea Bakery and the other one is my own concoction using the old dough technique from a piece of sourdough that a friend gave to me. It dates from 1993 and has a very disctinct, delicious aroma. Many of her friends tell her that her bread smells like "pain d'épice" which is a spice cake. I'll explain what I did and then I have some questions to ask you all.

Nancy Silverton's sourdough bread

Starter Experiment with Presumably Chloramine-tainted Water

Rosalie on 6 May 2008 at 19:52

I had reported with shock that my tap water had chloramines in it.  The spring water was behaving more like reverse osmosis water, so I'd started using tap water.  Mike Avery's plaint about his overly-soft tap water got me curious and I inquiried of our public works director about our water.  He said that due to the distance it travels from its source (from the Sacramento Delta to Morro Bay, a couple hundred miles at least and not what I'd consider a positive environmental situation), its treatment produces long-lasting chloramines.  Mike asked me to try making a starter

Subscribe to Drupal blog posts