Blog posts

Trying to learn more about pH guided sourdough baking I decided to bake another 100% Semola Rimacinata bread.  Last time I felt that the dough didn’t hydrate as well as I remembered when I last baked this for the CB so I upped the hydration from 81 to 83%, I think I could have gone further given the high protein of this flour.

I realized I'll never to to post if I wait to organize my pictures, so just wanted to note down my recent oat porridge experiments.

My friends really like Maurizo's oat porridge loaf, and I used it to try out a couple things I've been wondering.

Round 1

Out of laziness, I wondering if soaking the oats overnight in cold water, or boiling water could compare to just making the porridge.

Two desem bakes with home milled Red Fife (my previous attempt used a converted starter). 

This differs from my previous attempt in that it uses:

I really find that it is easy to get rusty when you don’t make baguettes regularly.  The dough knows when you are anxious and fearful when it comes to preshaping and shaping.  You must not feel fear.

This is an increase in hydration from the previous bake of this same recipe that was posted by Martin Philips of KA. I didn’t use IDY either time because my levain is so active I cannot imagine making it go even faster.

Hello, friends.

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner,

Eating his summer pie;

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, "What a good boy am I!"

Cherry Plum pie 

Phase 1. 

Combined the Swiss Farmhouse recipe with ideas from https://www.baked-theblog.com/cinnamon-raisin-sourdough-bread/ and some of my own inspiration, to get to this formula with about 40% whole grain, including mostly wheat and also a little rye and barley (beremeal), with 75% hydration: https://fgbc.dk/1n44

I have decided to try Mr. Hamelman's miche formula from his book Bread. I followed the formula and recommended procedure to the letter. I had to scale down the quantities to the total flour of 700 grams, so I would get a loaf of a little over one kilo, which is enough for me and my wife for about a week. Not having access to high extraction flour, I followed Mr. Hamelman's recommendation, and substituted it with a 60/40 mix of whole wheat flour and bread flour.

Just bought a MockMill and spelt berries and saw a recipe here from Jonze (sp??) late last night. You mix everything together, so I tried it on a 300g loaf. I digressed from his recipe and just rested the dough for 30 minutes and then did two laminations, 30 minutes apart. 85% spelt flour, 15% milled spelt, 72% hydration, 11% levain (my regular starter I had on hand), 2% salt, 2% Vital Wheat Gluten,1% powdered ginger. It looked like a teeny clay blob but had surprising oven spring. 

June 15, 2021. 53rd TFL bake.

The only things I measured:

• 3/8 tsp of salt,
• 10 grams dry whole chia seed, and
• 40 grams water to soak the chia seed.

Everything else was eyeballed, hence "some of this, some of that" (sotsot):

My original post about making the dough loader is at DIY dough loading peel | The Fresh Loaf

I was urged to make a short video about using my DIY dough loader. This was made today, loading three baguettes onto the baking stone. You can check out the video on YouTube using the below link. 

https://youtu.be/ZxXpd8GcTho

Here is a picture of the finished bake: