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Casu Marzu posted:Any thoughts on what I could insert into my 13" pullman pan to cut it down to 9"? Make a tinfoil partition, then fill the unused area with dried beans (or baking beads, if you're that kind of tool victim, which I totally am.) e: I kept my good yeast in the freezer, and that's what King Arthur Flour recommends, too. When the current scarcity eases off, I need to buy another brick. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 20:58
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Devoyniche posted:This is old but depending on what type of bread youre making, not putting pressure on the loaf itself helps. I read somewhere you arent supposed to put pressure on the knife either, hold the knife at the hilt with your fingers and saw from your shoulder and the knife will cut through on its own--although I still sometimes get wobbly cuts that way, thicker at one side or end than the other, that type of stuff. A sharp chef's knife has been working for me lately. I also usually cut it in half first, rest it on the flat side and basically make quarter loaf slices. Hitting the crustier tops and bottoms from the side instead of the top that way seems to help. Someone mentioned shortly after that post that partially freezing before slicing and I imagine that operates on the same principal as the slightly stale bread.
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Jan 4, 2021 21:27
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poo poo I haven’t fed my fridge starter in at least a month, likely closer to two. I’ll do that now and report back.
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Jan 4, 2021 22:09
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Thumposaurus posted:If you ever feel like you need to have some apocalypse proof starter on hand you can take some of your starter and spread it thin on some parchment paper and let it dry. I made my first starter from some gooseberries in my garden but I got a baking steel recently and it came with a 'San Francisco' starter that was dried like that. Took a few days and feeds but its going good now. 
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Jan 4, 2021 22:58
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 On the left: failed The Perfect Loaf Pain de Mie. Not sure what happened even. The starter was just at peak when I used it, it got great rise on bulk, it was super strong with good gluten structure, but it didn't rise at all in the pan at all. As a desperation move I just eggwashed it and tossed it in the oven with a pan of water to steam to see if anything would happen and it's just a solid brick. On the right: I really, really wanted sandwich bread this week so I made the basic King Arthur Pain de Mie and it turned out perfect. Still wondering the heck went wrong with that first loaf.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:22
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With perfect loaf recipes I always have to change them because he's in New Mexico so the ambient temp is 25c when it's more like 18c max here. They work great once you know what you're looking for in the dough.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:37
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Is there a structural reason to make the three molded mini-loaves when making milk bread? For toast, I'd rather have the loaf have a consistent height.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:44
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Is there a structural reason to make the three molded mini-loaves when making milk bread? For toast, I'd rather have the loaf have a consistent height. In the recipe for Japanese milk bread in ATK’s bread book: quote:A staple in Asian bakeries, the loaf is composed of portions of dough rolled thin and formed into tight spirals. This shaping organizes the gluten strands into coils, which bake into feathery sheets. Here’s why: When dough is kneaded, the proteins link up in a random way. Standard shaping organizes the proteins into a matrix on the exterior of the dough, but they remain random in the interior. Shaping the dough instead into two spirals before placing in the pan builds an orderly structure throughout, creating this bread’s gossamer-thin layers.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:50
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Aramoro posted:With perfect loaf recipes I always have to change them because he's in New Mexico so the ambient temp is 25c when it's more like 18c max here. They work great once you know what you're looking for in the dough. Yeah, I've never had issues with his other doughs once I started adding an additional 90 minutes or so to each step, but I've tried his pain de mie twice now without good results. His basic AP sourdough is my goto though, I really like it. Arsenic Lupin posted:Is there a structural reason to make the three molded mini-loaves when making milk bread? For toast, I'd rather have the loaf have a consistent height. I feel like I see it a lot when it's the Japanese inspired milk breads. I never do the individual rolls and I don't have any issues w/ the loaves. Edit:  Just cut into the above loaf and I'm pretty happy with that. I probably could have gone a couple more minutes cuz the sides started sagging a bit, but definitely nothing wrong with that crumb doing just one large shaped loaf.
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Jan 4, 2021 23:51
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Just ordered a pullman loaf pan, so excited to see if I can actually make sandwich bread.
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Jan 5, 2021 00:03
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Just ordered a pullman loaf pan, so excited to see if I can actually make sandwich bread. I got one for Christmas! Haven't christened it yet.
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Jan 5, 2021 02:02
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Aramoro posted:With perfect loaf recipes I always have to change them because he's in New Mexico so the ambient temp is 25c when it's more like 18c max here. They work great once you know what you're looking for in the dough. Probably more to do with where he sets his thermostat than being in New Mexico. Albuquerque is higher elevation than Denver and is regularly below freezing in the winter. Santa Fe is even higher.
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Jan 5, 2021 02:40
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Splinter posted:Probably more to do with where he sets his thermostat than being in New Mexico. Albuquerque is higher elevation than Denver and is regularly below freezing in the winter. Santa Fe is even higher. He tends to proof at 74-76F, which is a lot warmer than my house. He also is a real stickler about dough temps, which I always forget should be something to take into consideration.
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Jan 5, 2021 02:46
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Just ordered a pullman loaf pan, so excited to see if I can actually make sandwich bread. I have one showing up tomorrow!
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Jan 5, 2021 03:27
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Casu Marzu posted:He tends to proof at 74-76F, which is a lot warmer than my house. He also is a real stickler about dough temps, which I always forget should be something to take into consideration. You can probably hit that by proofing in the oven with the light on.
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Jan 5, 2021 03:51
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Is there a downside to building a levain with discard? A lot of sourdough recipes say to use ripe starter for your levain, but the levain should still double up and be ripe after 6-8 hours or whatever if you just use discard, right? What's the flip side of that? Just different flavor profile or something from more acidity/alcohols from using post-ripe starter? I've been having a bit of a hard time Googling up good answers to this.
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Jan 5, 2021 04:23
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It probably depends on how often you are feeding and discarding. FWSY says feed and use within 24 hours for a preferment. I think bread bakers apprentice says feeding anytime in past three days is fine to build the preferment. If it’s a week or more there are enough hibernating or dead yeast cells in the starter that you might not get a consistent rise out of the levain or dough. It just depends though, if you can get the levain to work with week old discard go for it but remember you are probably only saving about 24 hours worth of time waiting for the starter to refresh. If you are worried about wasting discard just cut back your starter amount to 50g and only feed 20-30g flour when refreshing. In terms of flavor profile I think you will still get the most contribution from the overall bulk ferment time and temperature regardless of whether you use discard or fresh starter.
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Jan 5, 2021 05:08
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It depends on what your making too. Like baguettes are super sensitive to the levains age. When I was working at a bakery where we did tons of baguettes the first thing we'd do in the morning was check on the levain if it was too close to being ready we'd chuck it in the walk in while we mixed the other doughs if it needed more time it'd sit out while we mixed until it was ready. There's a certain smell and look it has when it's prefect and ready to go. It would make a pretty dramatic difference if we missed the magic window in how the easily the dough was shaped how it browned in the oven and tasted. It was better to under shoot it than over shoot it once it was over fermented it would make the dough a lot looser and the final baguettes would be flatter. Something about certain enzymes that get created while it's fermenting that affect how the dough behaves. The last thing the afternoon guy did at night was mix the levain for the next day and leave it on the bench for the next morning.  Baguette bragging I miss having an oven that can steam 
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Jan 5, 2021 06:06
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slave to my cravings posted:It probably depends on how often you are feeding and discarding. FWSY says feed and use within 24 hours for a preferment. I think bread bakers apprentice says feeding anytime in past three days is fine to build the preferment. If it’s a week or more there are enough hibernating or dead yeast cells in the starter that you might not get a consistent rise out of the levain or dough. It just depends though, if you can get the levain to work with week old discard go for it but remember you are probably only saving about 24 hours worth of time waiting for the starter to refresh. If you are worried about wasting discard just cut back your starter amount to 50g and only feed 20-30g flour when refreshing.  Thanks, this basically makes me feel like I can just kinda relax and not worry so hard about it. All the talk about using ripe starter and then ripe levain was making me feel like I have to baby sit it all drat day to make sure I hit those 2 different ripening timepoints (e.g. feed, then make sure you build your levain when the starter ripe, then make sure to mix your dough when the levain is ripe...). If I can at least get away with a ~24+ hr window after feeding the starter, then that should be good enough that I can at least make something fine and just hopefully learn through experience what works for me beyond that.And I guess maybe I should get some actual books... Thumposaurus posted:It depends on what your making too.  Yeah, just making a pretty basic sourdough boule at this point. I do a decent amount of baking, but this is still babby's first sourdough starter and trying to learn the ropes. Although I haven't even managed to make a good yeasted baguette yet, so I think sourdough baguettes will still be down the road a bit....
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Jan 5, 2021 06:23
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Democratic Pirate posted:poo poo I haven’t fed my fridge starter in at least a month, likely closer to two. I’ll do that now and report back. Follow up, fed Clint Yeastwood right after this post and he doubled in size after a few hours in a 70 degree kitchen. He won’t make any Instagram quality crumb at the current strength, but I’ll build a levian with him tomorrow and I’m betting it turns out a solid loaf of bread for home use.
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Jan 5, 2021 06:44
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Time traveling:bolind posted:Are there any resources on reducing salt content of bread? I was given a sourdough class, which I participated in, and I've been running with that recipe for a while, but it calls for 30g salt for 1000g flour. I'm calculating that's 3% salt to the weight of flour and that's high for my own tastes. I'd be overwhelmed if I was eating that with other salty stuff (butter, sandwich, butter sandwich). I tend to stick with 1%, so 10g of salt for 1000g of flour. The yeast will party harder and faster so your rests will shorten. I learned about potassium chloride from older folks in The South who had to reconcile America's hidden heart disease pastime with sweating buckets half of the year. You can switch it out but it isn't a 1:1 change. All I've seen for it is a bit of hand waving.
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Jan 5, 2021 18:13
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Democratic Pirate posted:Follow up, fed Clint Yeastwood right after this post and he doubled in size after a few hours in a 70 degree kitchen. He won’t make any Instagram quality crumb at the current strength, but I’ll build a levian with him tomorrow and I’m betting it turns out a solid loaf of bread for home use. Oh hey fellow owner of a starter named Clint Yeastwood!
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Jan 5, 2021 20:56
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Ours is call Janice after we asked our 4 year old nephew what we should call it. He doesn't know anyone called Janice or even met one as far as we know
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Jan 5, 2021 21:13
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Anyone know a recipe that doesn’t involve special tools or ingredients? I have bread flour and yeast (instant or active). Just starting out, I’ve made loaves that were kinda alright, but dense. I’ve had the most success with a no knead recipe, but I want to learn how to knead better, and every recipe seems too advanced, is sourdough, or is no knead. I’m looking for a crisp crust and a soft pillowy crumb with air bubbles.
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Jan 5, 2021 23:47
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skooma512 posted:Anyone know a recipe that doesn’t involve special tools or ingredients? I have bread flour and yeast (instant or active). Just starting out, I’ve made loaves that were kinda alright, but dense. Do you have a dutch oven or a baking stone? Edit: Here is the King Arthur basic knead by hand and toss in an oven back of the bag of flour recipe This isn't gonna be the crispiest, or with a big uneven crumb, but it's a straight forward knead by hand and bake in the oven without anything special bread. Here's another one that uses a poolish, but not actual sourdough https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/european-style-hearth-bread-recipe Casu Marzu fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Jan 6, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 23:51
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Casu Marzu posted:Do you have a dutch oven or a baking stone? Made the poolish since I'll be around in the morning. Thanks!
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Jan 6, 2021 06:11
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Aramoro posted:Ours is call Janice after we asked our 4 year old nephew what we should call it. He doesn't know anyone called Janice or even met one as far as we know
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Jan 6, 2021 07:16
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i like nice words
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Hoping this thread can help me out. I tried several times to make a sourdough starter and they all end up smelling extremely sour and not rising or straight up hooch. I get my flours from an actual windmill with big rear end millstones and they are ground at most a week or two before I buy them. I can buy rye, spelt and wheat, spelt and wheat whole or sifted. I tried a starter with rye. Can someone point me to a website with a good manual on how to fix up a starter? Also a manual on what is levain and so on would help, most manuals I found online were written by hippies and very unreadable. (Oh yeah, I am from a country where in the 70s hippies kidnapped sourdough and it has only been the last few years since we got good and sinful white bread sourdough that is not a dense brick of sadness from the nature store) Goal: to bake a weekly loaf of wheat / spelt based sourdough that will fuel my weekend long run, provided my wife and kids don't devour it when I look away for two seconds. Just reading Aramoro talk about it like this is making me very jealous and I want that super tasty bread too!
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Jan 6, 2021 12:57
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Keetron posted:Hoping this thread can help me out. I tried several times to make a sourdough starter and they all end up smelling extremely sour and not rising or straight up hooch. I get my flours from an actual windmill with big rear end millstones and they are ground at most a week or two before I buy them. I can buy rye, spelt and wheat, spelt and wheat whole or sifted. I tried a starter with rye. Can someone point me to a website with a good manual on how to fix up a starter? This one worked for me. Get some rye flour as a boost for it, and I've used whole wheat otherwise. It took about a month after it was ready to really be useful as the only leavening; in the meantime I threw a tiny bit of commercial yeast (like .25tsp) into the bread dough to help it get a better rise. If that one doesn't work, there are a lot of other good ideas on that site for a starter, like the pineapple juice one (part 1- background part 2- more science and the technique)
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Jan 6, 2021 13:38
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effika posted:This one worked for me. Get some rye flour as a boost for it, and I've used whole wheat otherwise. It took about a month after it was ready to really be useful as the only leavening; in the meantime I threw a tiny bit of commercial yeast (like .25tsp) into the bread dough to help it get a better rise. If that one doesn't work, there are a lot of other good ideas on that site for a starter, like the pineapple juice one (part 1- background part 2- more science and the technique) Cool, thank you. Do you have a similar link on how to actually use the starter to make a bread? Also on that I get lost in fuzzy instructional websites that assume a degree from a culinary school...
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Jan 6, 2021 14:44
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Re: levain vs starter My understanding is a levain is an offshoot of starter built specifically to dump into a recipe. So if your recipe calls for 150g ripe starter/levain, you could either: -do a big feed of starter. Once risen, scoop out 150g to add to the dough, making sure not all the starter is used -scoop out 30g of starter from your container and feed it with 60g flour and 60g water and set aside to rise. This is the levain. Once the levain is mature, you can dump the whole thing in the dough because it was purpose built for this loaf of bread and you have your normal starter feeding away in another container.
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Jan 6, 2021 15:35
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Keetron posted:Hoping this thread can help me out. I tried several times to make a sourdough starter and they all end up smelling extremely sour and not rising or straight up hooch. I get my flours from an actual windmill with big rear end millstones and they are ground at most a week or two before I buy them. I can buy rye, spelt and wheat, spelt and wheat whole or sifted. I tried a starter with rye. Can someone point me to a website with a good manual on how to fix up a starter? I don't have a manual but make sure the starter is riping in high enough temperature. I had similar problems with bad vinegar like smell when I first started out but then I took more care about the correct temperature and it started to smell more mild like lactic acid (which you want). I have achieved best results in ~30°C/86°F. I get this temperature if I turn on the oven light and leave a wooden spatula in it. And give it time and keep feeding/refreshing. My starter looked dead for quite some time (>5 days) until suddenly it didn't anymore. I have a rye starter so I'm not sure about wheat but I'm refreshing mine with rye whole grain flour and it had enough power to leave out the yeast after 2.5 weeks already. Ymmv though
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Jan 7, 2021 01:04
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Keetron posted:Cool, thank you. Do you have a similar link on how to actually use the starter to make a bread? Also on that I get lost in fuzzy instructional websites that assume a degree from a culinary school... I love the Fresh Loaf forums so much. I learned about the 1-2-3 sourdough loaf from there and there are a ton of threads on it. The community bake one is the largest and most informative, if hardest to navigate. Even has people asking for troubleshooting help with their starters. The no-knead version (lots of pictures in the comments!) is what I usually do since I have barriers to kneading.
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Jan 7, 2021 05:28
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effika posted:I love the Fresh Loaf forums so much. I learned about the 1-2-3 sourdough loaf from there and there are a ton of threads on it. The community bake one is the largest and most informative, if hardest to navigate. Even has people asking for troubleshooting help with their starters. The no-knead version (lots of pictures in the comments!) is what I usually do since I have barriers to kneading. You made my year.
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Jan 7, 2021 22:37
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I was planning to bake one of the Field Blend recipes from FWSY tomorrow which I've made before and love, and have had good results with. The problem is I have no Rye flour, and just cannot find it in any store near me. Field blend #2 uses 540g White flour, 175g Rye flour, and 85g Wheat flour. Is there any specific amounts to think about to substitute the Rye with a combo of white/wheat? Or just whatever I want to make up the 175g. I've baked some decent loaves of sourdough but so far in my breadmaking career I am just following recipes and don't know enough about flour characteristics to know how this would change the bread. This recipes is a 5 hour fermentation and a 12 hour proof in the fridge if that matters. Why the gently caress is rye flour so hard to find.
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Jan 8, 2021 22:18
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nosleep posted:I was planning to bake one of the Field Blend recipes from FWSY tomorrow which I've made before and love, and have had good results with. The problem is I have no Rye flour, and just cannot find it in any store near me. Rye is hard to find unless you have a specialty foods store or Whole Foods nearby. It would probably be in bulk sections and not packages. You could order some online from King Arthur but with shipping it may be cost prohibitive especially if it’s only for a loaf or two. Maybe you could combine it with a larger purchase of regular AP/bread flour to make it worth it. Rye has very little gluten and provides some malty and sometimes sweet flavor than white or wheat probably won’t provide. Whole Wheat has less gluten than all purpose and would probably be better but it absorbs more water. The problem is I think that recipe would have too much whole wheat in it then to make it a fair comparison to the original blend. If you subbed the rye with 1:1 white:whole wheat you will probably still get a serviceable bread. FWIW I’ve made the FWSY overnight country blonde that calls for 802g white 50g rye flour 28g wheat by subbing the rye for whole wheat and I don’t think it made that much of a difference.
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Jan 8, 2021 22:38
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slave to my cravings posted:Rye is hard to find unless you have a specialty foods store or Whole Foods nearby. It would probably be in bulk sections and not packages. Thanks for the info, that's helpful info to know about the differences between the three. When I've made it before I had just ordered Rye and just keep forgetting to do it. I'm just going to order a couple bags to have in the pantry. I'll try a 1:1 sub and see how it goes. I've made the overnight country blonde quite a few times and have done ok, I just like this recipe because all the work is the night before, proof in the fridge, and just wake up and bake them. Hope it turns out ok, thanks!
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Jan 8, 2021 22:43
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Keep it in the freezer if you buy more than you're going to use in a short amount of time. Rye loves to attract critters
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Jan 8, 2021 22:50
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You may need to adjust the water with the extra whole wheat. Also I was just checking in FWSY and he has a section in the chapter on advanced levain doughs where he talks about changing blends (although in his case by adding rye) and flour absorbency:quote:Changing Blends
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Jan 8, 2021 22:54
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slave to my cravings posted:You may need to adjust the water with the extra whole wheat. Also I was just checking in FWSY and he has a section in the chapter on advanced levain doughs where he talks about changing blends (although in his case by adding rye) and flour absorbency: Update My fiance, who earlier told me we might still have some rye flour, but I assured her we used it all a long time ago, just walked in and showed me a near full bag that she found in the back of our cabinet  . I'm an idiot as usual, so will proceed with the standard recipe. I did learn some good info in any case (which I probably would have learned if I just read FWSY in more detail).Will update if I produce a couple successful loaves.
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Jan 8, 2021 23:34
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