Hello I'm new to the forum, but it seems like a wonderful place for bread makers, I'm also very new to bread making as well. But thanks to this site I have just found a pan with higher sides than any of my old ones.
My first question is what does autolysing do?
If there is somewhere else on the site where this is already answered please point me at it.
Thanks
The search box is in the upper right side of this page. Just type the desired subject matter in the white box and click on "Search"
Ford
Take a look at the little black bar right above the post you wrote. "Home ", "Forum","Handbook" ,"Lessons" etc. There is a LOT of info there. Then start looking around the forums and the posts. Definitely use the search box. It works pretty well. Finally, ask questions but most people do expect you to do a little bit of searching before asking some of the basic questions.
We all started at the beginning and we are all at different levels of expertise. Many of us are better at breadmaking BECAUSE of this forum so welcome and dig in!
Hi, Marie!
You're just going to LOVE this site! I know I do!
I've just started baking bread about a month and a half ago and just today sliced into the bread I've never thought I was capable of producing: a sourdough, big-holed, half whole wheat, half all purpose loaf!
I learned it all right here! Yeah, it tastes like cardboard but that's my bad. :) Like clazar123 said, I just had to use that search thing, learn more, and ask informed questions. The folks here will bend over backwards to help folks who are willing to help them help you. (Sorry for THAT sentence structure!)
Have fun!
Murph
Thank you for your helpful comments, I have done some research on the subject now, so I suppose I shall have to try it for myself and see if I think it makes a difference to my bread. I rather gather that it is more common to autolyse when making sourdough, which I haven't had the courage to try just yet. I have just finished a couple of slices of homemade bread, toasted, for my breakfast, which I thought was quite nice.
Thanks again, for pointing me at some information.
Bread is easy to make but GOOD bread can be finicky. Any dough you make can benefit from autolyze-not just SD (sourdough). Autolyse simply allows the flour particles time to absorb the water and swell the starchy gel in the flour particle and soften the branny bits. It mixes better, contributes to the dough's ability to trap gas bubbles to rise higher and makes a moister crumb after it is baked. For WW (whole wheat), some form of soaking is essential. It can be any method-autolyze, a cold retard (usually putting mixed dough in refrigerator for a period of time), using "the epoxy method", or making a sponge or preferment.
I used a lot of words you may not be familiar with right now but that will come with time and experience. When you get a lot of cooks in the kitchen, you get as much advice as there are cooks. It is hard to winnow information from all that. They can tell you what to do but maybe not why they do it. Try and pull out the concepts from the actions/recipe.
Learn something from each loaf. Most importantly, enjoy and bake.
Thank you.
I found that very useful, and you have introduced me to two new concepts, the epoxy method and preferment, unless you mean that preferment is another name for a sponge starter, which I have read about.