desem bread

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ron45 on 26 Feb 2007 at 14:30
Hello I just finally got logged in. This web site has crashed my browser [surfari mac os X ] more times in one day than it has in 5 years. I switched browsers to get going. I have baked my third desem bread batch a few days ago and am pretty pleased with the result. But I have questions so I hope there are some other desem users here. To begin: I saw mountaindog's post on her experience baking with her starter. I tried to contact her directly but couldn't find a link. As I understand the instructions, there is this highly anal process to begin growing a a desem starter as opposed to a sourdough starter. It seems to be aimed at isolating the yeasts available to grow in the dough ball to just the ones that come already living on organicly grown wheat. The fact that to begin you just make a dough ball of pure water not tap water and coursely ground organic whole wheat flour and burry it in the middle of 10 lbs of organic whole wheat flour to gestate in a very narrow temp range of 55 to 65 degrees all seem to point at excluding the very organisms that mtdog used to get going. You can see her post elswhere on the forum or the websight. I don't really object to this per se but wonder is it really desem if it's ancestry is mongrelized in this fashion? I'm not that long a baker and mountaindog has much experience in this area. Also, I haven't seen everything she read to get going so maybe someone else said the instructions from Belgum weren't necessary. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Ron

Hi Ron

 

Welcome to the group.

I started my Desem about 5 days ago, so it is still buried in flour. I am adhering to the instructions in Laurel's book. Living here in Malaysia its HOT. I am keeping the flour and the starter in the vegetable compartment of my refrigerator which is set to 50 Deg. and monitored with a thermometer. The flour is Demeter Wheat which  I grind myself.

As of yesterday, the dough was smelling sweetly, just like fresh wheat sprouts. 

I am looking forward to next week to start the first loaves and see if all this has been worthwhile.

 

Regards,

 

Martin Prior 

www.bakerette-cafe.com

Thank You Martin. Hope you are successful with your desem. I had my doubts but so far it's been pretty much as described in Laurel's book. The bread is lighter in my third baking than the other ww bread I've always made but as far as the best tasting ww bread ever I'm going to wait till I have my cob oven read to bake in. That is supposed to improve the result of any baking as the heat is more even and my conventional oven doesn't hold moisture very well. It's on a commercial wolf stove and has no insulation and a vent out the back. I'll post some pics of the oven in the photos area. Ron

Hi Ron - mongrel desem starter - I love it! You may be absolutely right, I am by no means a desem or sourdough expert, new to it myself this year, so certainly don't take my write-ups as gospel, rather just as my observations. There are others on this site much more knowledgeable about desem than me: northwestsourdough, maki, pumpkinpapa, Jmonkey, to name a few - so perhaps they can chime in.

The reason I did the desem procedure the way I did, i.e. by taking an existing strong starter and converting it to a stiff organic wholewheat starter for 2-3 weeks at 55-60F was because others experienced with desem had suggested it as an alternative - namely, there is a long thread on the King Arthur Flour Baking Circle about this - here is a thread on this site where we talk about this.

I believe the theory behind this alternative method to Laurel's more complicated one is that in any given starter, there are a mixed population of microflora - since a lot of research has indicated that these come from you the baker as much as from the flour. The ones that dominate are governed by temp., hydration, and flour type - so by changing those conditions in an existing healthy starter, you should be able to make the microflora characteristic of desem take over the starter with time. Those are the assumptions, but they could very well be wrong. I frankly don't think science has documented enough about these microflora to determine if pure strains exist in a given starter, or if the local environment actually governs what organisms take over your starter - there are several schools of thought on this, and the rec.food.sourdough newsgroup may be a good place to research this more from people more knowledgeable than me.

Good Luck with your desem!

Well I figured it might be something like that. And I tend to agree that if you subject an active starter to the desem parameters you are probably weeding out certain temp specific strains and favoring others. And as you say no one really knows too much about that stuff. I never thought the little buggers just dropped from the sky as is alluded to in some sourdough recipes. It makes so much more sense that they would live on the wheat already. It's such a nice cosmic tree hugger idea. The picture of your loaf could have been my second batch. Was your desam very sour? What kind of oven are you using? I had pretty good success with using one of those big clay roasting setups, that you soak in water, in the oven of a Wolf stove. This is not a very good oven but the rest of the stove is great. The crust came out very nice. The second time I put both loaves in there and 8 tablespoons of water. That crust wasn't as crispy. I figured I should have backed off on the water since two loaves were in the same covered dish. I have built a cob oven just outside our back door. I'll post some pics. I have to cast the firing door today and it will be ready for my next batch. It will probably take a while to figure out how to use it. I've never cooked with wood except for camping. These oven are pretty easy to build and cost nothing. Kiko Denzer has a very thorough book on building them. Ron
Ron - I have a regular old Sears gas oven, nothing fancy. I think the 5 qt. cast iron lidded dutch oven was key in getting good steam and crust though, I didn't add any extra water or steam. I love the Denzer book and hope to build a cob oven too, check out Breadnerd's oven here.
Hello Cecelia, I too have questions, lot's on desem and alos about posting pics to the forum. I just cut and pasted a pic of my oven in the final stages before plastering. It doesn't look like an attached file. I wish someone would explain how to do this in this part of the forum. Next time I bake I'll try the dry clay casserole method you use. I got decent crust the first time I tried this but with only one loaf in the clay cooker. But I have nothing to compare to since I've never experienced anyone's desem but my own. A trade off of living in paradise or at least our version of it. Ron PIC00025.JPG

Hi Ron,

I REALLY want a woodfired brick - or clay - oven - something to do many loaves at a time...but then I'll need a much bigger mixer, too, eh?

I've never tried anyone elses but my own, too...well, 5 years ago I bought a loaf from the Salt and Grain Society - I had to order it and pay something like 20 bucks just for shipping! I just wanted to see what it was like. But you know what I think? Mine is MUCH better! Maybe because I don't use stone ground wheat? I don't know. I mill my wheat with a Whisper Mill, so it's much finer.

I have baked on the stone, spraying the inside every minute or so in the first 10 minutes. Anyway, doing it in the clay baker - Romletopf (spelling?) - really is fine - and they are more loaf shaped which some people prefer. I have three and I got them all used - for 3 dollars, up to 10! not bad.

Cecelia

Well I'm new enough at this that most of what I know is from reading and most of that has been from the tree hugger side of baking. 100% w.w. Been in that camp since the 60's. That's era in which we first got Laurel's Kitchen. Got her 'Bread'book about 5 months ago when I started baking. My wife used to do it back then. I've only ever used the stone mill we got as a kit thirty years ago.It's a very nice one. It sat unused for most of it's life. I'm not sure if I read this in Laurel's book or elsewhere in the hippy chronicles, that coursly ground ww flour is richer in flavor. That seems counter intuitive to me as I write it but that's how I'v always done it. And I just remembered where I read it.... the directions that came with our mill. I think that's why I didn't question it. I've had occasion to use finely groud dead flour and the result has been very satisfying in sauces, gravies and breads. In bread it was always with my course ground w w flour. My flour feels alot like dirt in your hands. So far the desem bread is the lightest w w bread I've ever baked. If I made more loaves at a time I'd probably get that hotdamn German dough mixer but I just do two loaves at a time about every other week. So I just look at the 20 minutes as an upperbody workout. Since I started baking I've always kneeded yeast breads 20 minutes and with a much drier dough. The last desem batch I made lots wetter as I was kneeding on one of those white plastic cutting boards. You can't make it stick to that surface. The crust was different this time but I probably had too much water in the clay cooker for two loaves. I've gotten higher rises with yeasted w w bread but I think that will come as I get better at kneading and shaping and structuring the flour as per L's book. I like the free form loaf and I don't get as high a loaf that way. My counter-cultural bias I guess. Can't wait to try the oven and desem together. I'm writting in Firefox this time thanks for the tip. So I'll see if I can upload and oven pic as something other than text. All I know to do is drag and drop which is how I did it last time in Safari too. There's no way that I can see to do anything else. I just use computers for music and email and only know enogh to have the computer not interfere with whatever creativity may be comming my way at the moment. Well cut and paste didn't work extcpt as text again. I must me missing something. Back to the flour thing. When I know I'm doing everything else right with the desem, I must try grinding it as pastry flour or is that too fine? I've only ever done bread with the course flour. I only came across that advise when I first got out the mill agin after it's long sleep. Just visited the gallery and clicked on content. The reason I didn't do this before is I had read to click on it to start a blog. Don't know much about those and didn't want to do that so I never saw the menu. I'll post some shots over there. I'd thought I'd seen them in emails like these but I may have been looking at someones blog and not realized it. I can be pretty thick about web stuff. Ron
Ron, no one can be thicker than I am re computers. Do not cut and paste. Do not use Safari.  Click on the little camera at the top of the Comment box in your Reply.  A new window (Image Assist) will open, then Upload your picture to the Image Assist window.  Once it is there, click the picture, a new window will open, click Insert, and the picture will miraculously appear in your Comment window.   That's as clear as I can make it for you.  Keep trying.
Susan
Thanks Susan, I have since figured out my problem about posting pics. I didn't know the add content button was for pics too. It said on the gallery page to use that button for startig a blog. So I didn't click on it to find the menu. I'm back to browsing in Safari and having no trouble uploading pics to gallery. Also, I hadn't seen the photo section farther down on the page which is another option duh??? Whoops.....Maybe part of the problem is still Safari. There is no camera icon visable to me as I type this. I'll try Firefox again. Ron

Ron 

I've always heard that desem should be course ground flour. My grinder has a courseness control and I leave it at the coursest setting. But even that is fine compared to stone ground flour.

I have a friend who would only grind her ww flour the very finest setting for her ww bread. I don't think that would be very good. And her mill kept clogging up REAL bad - so much so she sent it in for repairs.

I think bread flour should never be like pastry flour. But then I've never tried pastry flour for bread. hmmmm.

 What is the German Mixer you're talking about?

Cecelia

Hi Cecelia, I can't find the link but there were a few on ebay at the time I was considering them. They can either do 12 lbs of flour at once or enough dough for 12 loaves of bread I don't know which. They were about 300 or so. course flour: I bought some dead flour to try a few times [[Harvest King] and some orginic all purpose, that stuff was like taclum powder but makes wonderful sauces and graveys. I tried it as a sub for a few cups of ww flour a time or two. Anybody can bake with that stuff. I got free form loaves like basket balls with a flat bottom. Being an old hippy, I prefer the desem bread to the flash and bang breads. Whole foods and vitamins and herbs are cheap health insurance. Ron
I thought the purpose of blogs was to have two way communication. Does anyone know how to contact Floyd? There is nothing on his blog, that Icould find, about contacting him. He seems to be pretty unavailable as far as I can tell. My last msg to him bounced. I want to know how to post pictures. Ron
Ron, if you will download and run Firefox on your Apple you will be able to upload pics. Weavershouse and I were having the same trouble with Safari.  Good luck, and I'm looking forward to seeing your pics.
Susan
Thanks Susan. I used firefox and more importantly, found that the add content button had a menu and wasn't just for blogs. I have a pic of my oven posted titled The Bread God. Ron
 Thanks Susan, I will try that if I have problems.  I've also a Mac os X and same set up as Ron, I think.  I never had a chrash though.  I was at my Baker today and picked out an egg size glob of sourdough hiding out in the corner barrel.  Rolled it out as flat as I could with flour and it is drying, to be ready to vacuum pack and take to China.  Smells wonderfully sour. While I was there, I was checking out the cane baskets bread dough is laid into to proof.  They were dusted with flour, like with a seeve.  Some of them look quite old. no they never get wet, 'cause then they'll start to stick. No varnish is on cane either and all around the rim are little brass nails. After turning out the proof, the form is banged to shake out any flour sticking between the cane. Then refloured for the next batch.  Ordered a 3 kg loaf to take with me. Will quarter it and freeze it there.  My husband tells me there is a new supermarket.  Ought to be interesting...  
MiniOven, I have never had trouble with crashes, but was unable to upload photos until Dstroy suggested that I switched to Firefox.  Don't know what the Safari problem is, as I am totally dependent on my husband for computer sense.  On the other hand, he is dependent on me for bread!  You found a glob of sourdough in a barrel at your local baker?  How very cool.  Must be a good story behind that!  I enjoyed your description of the cane baskets.  You will have to keep us all informed of your travels and experiences.  Take care in traveling, please.  Oh, here's an anecdote for you:  While we were remodeling our house, we had a temporary kitchen which included a toaster oven (mini oven) where I continued to bake many mini loaves of bread.  That's how I kept my sanity.  
Susan
The technical answer: Safari is based on Konquerer, a very nice but not entirely standards compliant browser. Many common javascript techniques don't work well in Safari, so many sites, including Google Maps, have at time not supported Safari. This site uses a 3rd party WYSIWYG editor called TinyMCE, which has only partial Safari support. Some versions of Safari actually crash when they hit it, though not all. I'm on a Mac and have visited the site in Safari and never had it crash. The non-technical answer: Whether you are on Mac, Windows, or Linux, use Firefox. You won't be sorry. It is the best browser in the world, and it is what 99% of web developers use, so most sites work best in it (except those explicitly owned or operated by Micro$oft and their partners). There is also Camino, another good Firefox-based browser just for Mac users. I use Firefox for work, Camino for play. The Camino team basically took Firefox and stripped it down to the essentials. I think of Firefox as being like a big, powerful 4 x 4 pickup truck that can take care of any job and Camino as being a sporty little coupe: clean, simple, fast, and fun to use.
Thanks, Floydm, for the technical and non-technical answers (for those of us who are computer-challenged).  I recently made the switch from Windows (using Firefox) to the Mac OS X, and decided to give Safari a fair chance.  I have run into problems on occasion with Safari, so perhaps it is time to change browsers, on your recommendation.  Since all my computer time can be described as play, I will download Camino now and give it a try.  You do a great job, btw!
Susan
Thank you. I like Safari but, unfortunately, despite the fact that most designers use Macs, it tends to get short-changed. The consensus in the development world seems to be:
  • You have to support Internet Explorer even if you hate, because it is still what 80% of people use.
  • Firefox has the best development tools and behaves the same cross platform, so you do most of your development in it, guaranteeing that your site will work well in it.
  • Safari is nice and we'd really like to support it but it isn't very easy to develop for, it behaves differently than the other browsers, not that many people use it, and there are good, free alternatives for Mac users, so it tends be lowest priority.
So it goes.
When I copy and paste an image from Camino to my email, the image copy changes from jpeg to tiff, which sometimes causes problems for the recipient.  When I do the same maneuver in Safari, the copy stays in jpeg format.  I've enjoyed using Camino ever since you made the suggestion, but this problem has me flummoxed.  I've looked through Camino Preferences, but find no help there.  I am using regular Mac email.  Any thoughts?

 

Susan from San Diego

Err... I have no idea, but I also don't think I've ever copied and pasted an image from my browser to an email. If I want to send someone an image, I do one of two things: I either Control-click on the image and select "Copy image location..." then just paste the URL into my message. Or, if I really do want to send the image file, I just drag the image out of my browser onto my desktop. Then I copy the image from my desktop into my email program. I hope that helps.
I'll have to start doing the two-step photo drag:  dragging from Camino to the desktop, then dragging from the desktop to the email works just fine.  Maybe I'll drop Camino a line asking if they consider the Tiff-changing thing an oddity.   

Susan from San Diego

Firefox is a very good browser Floyd and it does work fine at microsoft sites. I like to have many choices available, I was once a web designer and had far too many browsers on my computers, anyways one of my favourite browsers is Opera. It works fine for this forum as well as most others

Opera runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix, Wii, BeOS, OS/2... the list goes on. You can even run it on your cell phone!

Hi Susan, I uploaded a pic of my cob oven to the gallery yesterday from Safari. I have no idea why the initial sign in page [registration procedure] crashed my Safari so many times. But everything in fine scooting about in the forum now. Could have something to do with the ver. of OS X you are running. Ron
Thanks again Susan it was great fun to build. I've fired it a few times and am casting the doors [so they'll fit snugly] this week then I should be ready to try a desem bread in there. Ron
What are you casting the doors from Ron? Have you made metal doors or just wood? I have some white oak I thought I would use for the doors but it is as hard as stone and cracks mightily when a screw is put through it, even if it is predrilled. My neighbour has some nice hard maple I can trade some focaccia for.