Tartine Country Loaf AGAIN, and again

Profile picture for user Song Of The Baker

Today I finally had a chance to bake the Tartine loaf with my new baking gear.  This is the second bake with the gear.  I strongly suggest to anyone experiencing the same issues as I had with bakes, GET THESE SIMPLE ITEMS.  It has taken my breads up a few notches and fixed all my problems immediately.

Anyway, here it is.  I have neglected my photography lately so I got a bit a bread-porny:

 

Here's the larger of loaf.  I shall call it Brachiasaurus.

 

 

 

 

Thanks Floyd.  Anitas organic flour is amazing to work with and such a difference in flavour compared to Robin Hood.

John

Thank you grind.  This one used their All Purpose Unbleached Organic.  I also use their organic rye which has amazing flavour.  I am looking forward to trying their spelt and other whole grain flours they sell.  SO affordable too.

John

Thank you so much Khalid!  Took me quite a while to get it to this, but the wait was worth it :)

Happy baking.

John

Thanks Obiwan!  I pumped up the oven to 500 for the last 3 minutes to get that extra little bold.  Come to the dark side.

John

love the colour of the crust and the texture of the crumb! thank you for sharing, it's a pleasure for the eyes!

codruta

Looks like you nailed it. Love the blisters.

Was "GET THESE SIMPLE ITEMS"  supposed to hyperlink to something? Which simple items are you referring to?

Thanks for keeping me in mind Gary.  That is great.  I may just upgrade a size.

By the way, it's not that cold here.  Supposed to be up to 74 degrees here next week. :) 

Take care.

John

boldly baked Tartine Bread in Turkey Roaster. Don't ever upgrade that! That is about as good as it gets. Nice baking all the wasy around John.

I don't plan on it man.  The ONLY thing I plan doing is finding a large peice of quarry tile and having it custom cut to fit the entire inside of the roaster pan.  Right now the 6 inch tiles doubled provide a nice space for decent sized loaves but I would like to do longer baguettes some day too - and miches.

John

Profile picture for user breadforfun

Really nice loaves, John, Chad would be pleased.  The crust with blisters is super, and I bet it tasted great, too.  By "new gear" do you mean the roasting pan and tiles?

-Brad

Thank you Brad!  Chad seems like such a cool dude.

The taste is good.  Had a slice warm out of the oven last night.  Today having turkey club sandwiches so looking forward to another taste.

New gear meaning the 3 upgrades I got last month.  Unglazed quarry tiles, thin razor blades, and freshly milled flour.  I guess the flour is not 'gear,' but it sure helped improve my loaves.

Thanks again for the kind words.

John

What new tools did you use to improve your bake?  

 

Josh

Thanks Josh.  My method can be found here:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/32885/vancouver-sourdough-new-baking-equipment

But in particular, I got three new items that produced far superior loaves than what I used to make:

1. Unglazed quarry tiles (Up until I got these I never used a baking stone - just sat dough directly on the bottom of my turkey roaster pan, which obviously did not give enough surface heat)

2. Good quality thin razor blades for scoring

3. Freshly milled organic flour.  Before this, I was quite oblivious as to the difference freshly milled or organic flour can make to bread.

Happy baking.

John

 

I'm ready to give this formula a shot because of these pictures I love it!

 

David.  I know.  There are many different versions of this recipe online.  I used the original formula posted on Martha Stewart's webpage found here:

http://www.marthastewart.com/907240/chad-robertsons-tartine-country-bread

For some reason I just tried the link and the page can not be found.  It worked this weekend so keep trying.  It should come back on.  If not, I do have the recipe printed out.  I can send it to you if you want it.  As a note, the only adjustment I made to the recipe on the website was I used my own mature rye starter and not the whole wheat one that the recipe calls for you to make over a 5 - 6 day period.

John

 

Looks like you're getting pretty good at this baking thing!  Great looking loaves.  Can't get a better crust or crumb then that.

Cheers,

Ian

Song of the Baker -

Great looking bread - bet it tastes good too.  I just finished reading Michael Pollan's book 'Cooked' and after seeing your take on Tartine bread, I've got to try this sometime soon.  Pollan has a formula a la Tartine for a 75% whole wheat loaf that I need to try.  Thanks for giving me some inspiration with this beautiful bake.

Linda

Hi John,

What a beautiful loaf!  i know it feels sooo good to finally 'get' a loaf where you want it.  Perseverance did pay off well for you with this loaf.

Take Care,

janet

Thanks Juergen!  However, I purposely did not post my weekend Vollkornbrot bake.  disgusting flavour and was wet in middle.

If you have a good recipe for volky I would love if you could share it with me.

John

John, what do you expect your Volky to be?

For a German, a Vollkornbrot is a bread where at least 90% of the flour component is from wholegrains, see

http://www.bmelv.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/Ernaehrung/Lebensmittelbuch/LeitsaetzeBrot.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

I have good results with Hamelman's recipes and variations thereof, see 

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33157/sonnenblumenvollkornbrot

For chopped rye I substituted with good results: soaked rye flakes, boiled rye kernels, scalded wholegrain rye flour, home milled scalded or soaked rye meal ...

Would you mind specifying the process you used for your disaster, and posting some pictures?

I find disasters quite interesting. Lots more to learn there than from a perfect bake ...

Bad bread happens.

Cheers,

Juergen

Hi Juergen.  I expect it not to be sopping wet after 5 days in the fridge :)

I posted the extact formula and issues along with photos in a seperate forum post.  Your help would be greatly apppreciated.

John

I love this technique...I always go back to it.  Your pix are gorgeous!  I bake in iron dutch ovens...never tried a roaster.  I'll have to give it a try.

Thanks Pat.  I love this one too but only till now have I been happy with the results.

If you have a dutch oven, you have a great system already.  One thing you can do with a roaster that you cant with a DO is a larger batard.  Give my system a try and please do let me know how it goes.

John