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Hello thread! I've got what I hope is a pretty simple question. Is there a thread-favorite brand of store bought yeast? I've taken up sourdough in the past year so I have a lovely starter going, but basically I've committed myself to making 2 loaves with that every Monday, so I tend not to use it for anything else. So when I do make another type of yeasted dough (pizza, bagels, or something gluten-free), I grab the jar of Fleischmann's (active dry) out of the fridge. However, for some reason in the past year or so -- almost like it's bitter about me switching to sourdough or something -- it just seems to have stopped working nearly as well as it used to. I already ditched one jar and bought another, but it still seems way less potent than it used to be. So I'm kind of on a quest to scientifically eliminate all variables that could be causing this, so I figured I'd ask about the yeast itself. Not to get all  but I almost wonder if something weird happened after the yeast shortage of 2020. Or, I'm just getting careless during some other step of the process.
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Dec 6, 2022 19:28
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:55 |
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Thanks all. I bought some Red Star at the grocery store (3x packets) that I can try on Friday, and I'll look into getting some SAF online (or at a different store) if necessary. I actually hadn't considered using instant yeast because I guess in my head I just assumed "instant = worse" but if I come across some I can use, I'll give it a fair chance. Unfortunately the only instant brands in this store also contained wheat, which makes it less useful for me since I sometimes need to use it in GF baking. But I'm assuming they aren't all like that.slave to my cravings posted:Just double checking in case you forgot a step but make sure you are activating your active dry with some warm water and possibly a little sugar first before incorporating into the dough. Yeah I always do that, though I might want to use a thermometer again. Generally I feel like it activates well, but just doesn't go the distance later on. Unless I've forgotten what activated yeast is actually supposed to look like.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:56
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On the same topic, going back to my yeast issue, I tried one of those packets of Red Star and it worked like a charm. I was also extra careful about water temperature and stuff, so there are a few other possible factors, but I'm pretty sure it was the yeast. I'll have to consider this to avoid dead loaves in the future!
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Dec 10, 2022 21:48
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I do an extremely gradual "spin" where basically after the initial mild flattening (patting it down into a puck) I place it on the knuckles of both hands and pull apart, rotate, repeat. You want to get the outer edge stretched out as much as possible while avoiding the common mistake of stretching the center too much. Depending on how it's going I may occasionally sort of hold it up vertically with both hands and let it "hang" to let gravity pull it a bit, but I usually need to work a little to get it back into a circle after that.
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Jan 3, 2023 03:57
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Democratic Pirate posted:Please tell me I’m not the only one who is compelled to say clabber girl as a Jurassic Park homage every time the can comes out of the pantry.  Since I was compelled to reply, I'll post that I made baguettes for the first time a few days ago and they turned out pretty good! I followed this King Arthur recipe. I went for their "extra crispy" recommendation of leaving them in the oven with the door cracked 2 inches until cool, but next time I'd probably skip that. A little too hard for my liking, especially when eaten sandwich-style. 
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Apr 3, 2023 18:25
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Mauser posted:Did some more baguettes Sweet, I'm working on some at the moment myself. I also had issues with the lame last time, probably because of how wet the dough is. I'll probably try spraying it with oil or something this time. EDIT: Can report that the lightly oiled lame seemed to help. I should mention that the recipe I'm using doesn't really recommend dusting the dough with flour at any point during the process, they keep saying "lightly greased", so this was consistent with that. My dough was pretty much not dusted at all. It looks like you've been dusting them, so maybe dusting the lame would work better in that case. 
Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 15:58
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EightFlyingCars posted:what's the setup you all use for baguettes? do you use those baguette trays or do you just let em rock on a baking stone? I've only made them twice but I've used my pizza steel (with cast iron pan full of boiling water underneath), and they are on parchment paper as well; however, I'm having issues with them not quite fitting. Not sure if that's more of an issue with how I'm shaping them or the equipment itself.
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Apr 8, 2023 18:30
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There's a good chance I'll already have taken action by the time anyone replies to this, but I'll ask anyway: is there a particular "best way" to share sourdough starter with someone? My sister-in-law / neighbor is asking for some help since her starter apparently died. Meanwhile, I'm following my usual routine, which means I gave my starter a feeding last night to "prime" it, refrigerated it overnight, then took it out this morning and used most of it to make bread. And then re-fed it. (I use the 100% hydration, 113g feeding formula from King Arthur.) Is there any trick to it other than just feeding it a little more and giving her half of it? Because that's most likely what I'll do. I'm probably overthinking by even asking the question, but it can't hurt.
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Jun 19, 2023 14:29
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Chakan posted:My wife has switched to gluten free and she's jonesing for some bread. I'm a novice baker so I figured I'd ask if there's any GF flour opinions in this thread, or tips for what brands work well versus don't. If there's somewhere better to ask, just point me in the right direction. I'm a huge King Arthur stan, however I'll admit that I've had more success with Bob's Red Mill. What you're looking for is "Gluten-free All Purpose Flour", not GF 1-to-1 baking flour. The latter is more intended for batters, and includes a preset amount of xanthan gum. For bread and other bread-like doughs, you want the "all-purpose", but you'll have to supply your own xanthan gum as well. (It's not that hard to find.) The rules of thumb are that you want the dough to be significantly wetter than regular dough, and usually also bake it somewhat longer and/or higher temp. Shaping the dough is the biggest challenge. Because it's so wet, you generally just let it rise in the container you're baking it in, or at least the shape. (In other words, the rise and proof are a single phase; you don't rise, shape, proof.) You may end up wanting to get specialized pans, depending on what shapes you're going for. Doing stuff like pretzels & bagels is possible, but it's always a bit of a battle. If you get it the same unbaked consistency as normal dough, the end result will probably be way too dry. (Oh, you kind of also need a stand mixer too, for the same reason.) Of course, this may be further complicated by the fact that I also can't use milk or eggs when I'm doing GF stuff, since it's for my kids who are allergic to all 3. I know there are some GF flours/recipes that use those ingredients, and that may make it easier. If I may do a tiny bit of self-promotion, I wrote a blog post covering this info here. I've also got a bread recipe which has worked pretty well for me; in fact, I just used it today for the first time in a while. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Aug 4, 2023 |
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Aug 4, 2023 19:47
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EightFlyingCars posted:it looks kinda like soda bread batter, doesn't it? can you get more fermented flavour by letting the "dough" cold proof in the fridge for a day or two? is it possible to make a gluten-free sourdough starter? I've heard of such things, I haven't really tried it much myself though. I've already got a wheat sourdough starter that I use every week, so I guess I haven't wanted to add that extra thing to take care of. It definitely is reminiscent of soda bread. I've found that GF soda bread is pretty close to the real thing, I guess because neither of them have tons of gluten development. Also, this week I tried making semolina bread for the first time, and had a similar realization. It's actually quite a bit like GF dough. Still a little easier to work with though.
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Aug 5, 2023 22:06
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I think what my wife wants most from bread is basically hamburger bun shapes. I figure I should just get a hamburger bun pan or something. Any recommendations? There's a ton of them. I think I'd want something I could put in a WFO so no silicone nor teflon-style non-stick. I bought this recently but haven't had a chance to try it yet. It could work. https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/king-arthur-hamburger-bun-and-mini-pie-pan
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Aug 12, 2023 23:44
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Ugh, after a solid year or so I'm finally having an issue with mold in my bannetons. Any tips for getting rid of it? Normally I just leave them dusted with flour; I tried giving them a good clean last week, scrubbing away all the old flour, and it looked like the mold was gone. But now I'm seeing it again. I had used dish soap, vinegar, and even some Star-san from my brewing equipment. Maybe they just didn't dry enough?
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Oct 2, 2023 18:42
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I'm prepping to make my weekly sourdough loaves (feeding the starter tonight to use it tomorrow) and I'm finding that I may not have enough all-purpose flour. Maybe half the amount, maybe a bit more, maybe I'll even be lucky enough to have all of it, but I won't know until I try. I do have plenty of whole wheat flour, though. (Almost too much really, since I only use 85g each time.) If I do end up having to use whole wheat for half of it, any advice on how this will change things and how to compensate? I normally follow this KA recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/guides/sourdough/bake (2 loaves ) 454g ripe (fed) sourdough starter 602g Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 85g Whole Wheat Flour 397g room-temperature water 2 1/2 teaspoons salt (17-18g) Summary of the steps below -- my rests usually end up a bit longer, but otherwise I usually follow this pretty closely: - Autolyze, rest 20min - Add salt and knead, cover & rest 1h - "Letter fold", cover & rest 1h - Preshape, rest for 20min - Shape, rest for 2-2½ hours - Bake
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Nov 13, 2023 01:29
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Thanks, I ended up only being about 80g short, so the whole wheat isn't dominating the process. Although I definitely felt the slight reduction in hydration; it was almost getting like bagel dough. Turned out nice though!
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Nov 13, 2023 20:57
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Cimber posted:Scones are a quick bread, so they count in this thread, right? My #1 question is where's the buttermilk? #2, where's the baking soda? The flour/sugar/powder ratio seems way off too. Wherever you got this recipe it just seems to be missing a lot of the really basic elements. Although I will say we've never used a scone pan, so I'm not sure how that affects it. My wife makes scones all the time and this is the recipe she uses (for sweet berry scones, others have some variations): 3 cups flour (all-purpose) ⅓ cup sugar ½ tsp baking soda 2½ tsp baking powder ¾ tsp kosher salt 1½ sticks (¾ cup) unsalted butter 1¼ cups buttermilk 1 tsp vanilla extract Then there's a mix of roughly 1-2 cups of mixed berries, and optionally some heavy cream and sugar to be brushed/sprinkled on top. It sounds like you're probably doing the butter right, but just in case, make sure it's as cold as possible and you're cutting it into the dough without melting it. And then to shape them, basically the dough just gets gently shaped into a thick disc and then cut with a dough cutter. Also notice no egg, though I'm not necessarily saying that's a requirement. Just posting what works for us. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Dec 9, 2023 |
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Dec 9, 2023 16:17
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Cimber posted:I pulled that recipe from the King Arthur cookbook. Don't need baking soda because baking powder is the soda plus cream of tartar that gets activated with the liquid. Baking soda needs an additional acid (your buttermilk) to activate. OK well King Arthur has never really steered me wrong, so so that's surprising. The flour ratio really threw me off though; it just seems so extremely different. I will say, from a brief survey of their website, the various scone recipes I'm seeing still seem to have ingredients proportioned much closer to the one I posted. My wife's recipe is pulled from the Alice's Tea Cup cookbook (a restaurant in NYC). I was surprised to find very few photos of her scones, I have way more photos of my attempts to make gluten-free non-dairy ones (not terrible, but still kind of a work-in-progress). But here's one. A few different kinds pictured here, including a plain savory one which came out more crumbly than she'd like. 
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Dec 9, 2023 16:56
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That definitely looks way better. The flour amount was the single biggest question mark in the other recipe. Nice job! You see them shred cold butter all the time in the Great British Bake-off, so it's definitely a proven method. You can also get one of these: https://www.target.com/p/oxo-dough-blender-with-blades/-/A-76341853#lnk=sametab
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Dec 10, 2023 15:09
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I'm sure there's an almost endless variety of different ways to make sourdough, considering its history. Personally, my biggest "a-ha" moment was giving the starter another feeding the night before I use it. (The King Arthur recipe referred to a "ripe" starter and I wasn't sure what it meant initially.) More specifically, I feed it and then put it back in the fridge (the one time I tried it without refrigeration, it bubbled over). Then I take it out the next morning (this is very roughly 10-12 hours) and let it warm up for another 1-2 hours. If it's a cold day I might use the oven to give it a little kickstart. When it's grown noticeably in the jar, I know it's ready to use. Then I give it a "real" feeding after making the dough, and put it back in the fridge for a week. I started mine from scratch and it definitely took about half a year for it to become truly reliable. But these days the results are very consistent.
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Jan 6, 2024 00:23
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Brain Curry posted:I don’t think I have a pound of starter. Probably about 300g total. I’ll have to feed it extra to give this a shot. At least in my interpretation of the recipe, the 454g is after doing a 113/113 feeding the night before. I was really confused by that number as well, originally.
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Jan 6, 2024 20:49
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Since it seems to be on topic, I'm starting a gluten-free sourdough starter today. As far as I can tell you pretty much follow the same process as the regular stuff, but just with a different flour. I'm using sorghum. Yeast is yeast, I guess. We were hoping our son would outgrow his wheat allergy this past year and it was kind of a punch in the gut when we saw no positive change whatsoever. So this year I'm just going to try to make the best drat gluten-free bread I can. I was kind of resting on my laurels thinking I wouldn't have to do it much longer, but now I'm really committed to making it just as good as the normal sourdough bread I also make every week. We'll see. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Jan 7, 2024 |
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Jan 7, 2024 00:36
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Yeah and if you're in a climate that's cold this time of year, it'll probably take twice as long as whatever recipe you're using. I wouldn't even be surprised if you saw no activity at all for like a week. The worst part is you'll generate a lot of discard. I like to basically keep that in its own jar and let it do its thing also, as long as they look different so I don't feed that with the good stuff by accident. You can also just use it in discard recipes every day, but ain't nobody got time for that. Either way, find a few good sourdough discard recipes and have fun with it. No need to panic at the discard.
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Jan 7, 2024 14:25
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I usually don't use the stand mixer for bread mostly because I like the bucket I use for the initial mix and the rest times, and I'd just rather not have another thing to clean. The big exception would be gluten-free doughs where it's pretty much essential, since they're more like cake batter.
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Jan 10, 2024 17:23
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:55 |
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If you want to get real serious about bagels, you may want to go for malt powder (diastatic in the dough, non-diastatic or syrup in the bath) and an even higher-gluten flour. Of course, using sugar in the dough would probably achieve a comparable effect in terms of texture, so I'm not sure if that's really the issue. But that is how I do it. I've never tried sourdough for bagels, but I generally do an 8-hour sponge, which has a similar effect. For me the trickiest part to get right is the prove after shaping. They've definitely gone flat on me more times than I'd care to admit. Also, I used to do the hole-poke method from that recipe but I've moved on to the rolling method. There is a risk of not sealing the ends well enough, but overall it works out pretty well for me. Basically just make a rope, wrap it around your hand and press down real hard. I figured since all the cool places call them "hand-rolled bagels" it must be a good idea.
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Mar 28, 2024 16:32
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