HI All,
Lately I've been asked many questions about various technical aspects of making my bread. It seems the universe decided to remind me of some of the challenges so I could answer your questions from the best experience possible.

I'm preparing to vendor at a conference in a few short weeks.

Let's set aside that I decided to revise my book so the books I sell will be the most current and needed to have that done in time to self-print many books.

Let's set aside that my editor had to let go of my project about 10 pages into the book.
(My wonderful daughter took over the editing while she was preparing to move out of my house. The first night in her new apartment she stared at her computer for many hours, faithfully editing my book. I owe her big time)

Let's set aside that the ink I bought, at a good price online, has been delayed. When it finally arrived, I wasn't home and the delivery people needed a human to sign for it so it is still in their truck. (got ink from different site, not the best price, no shipping, next day delivered. I'm printing books as we speak, or as I write)

Let's set aside the logistics of packing my car for the conference: books, bread samples, humans, our own food, (we're all on special diets) rice cooker, toaster, hot pot, special pillows.

Now we come to what I wanted to really write about: I'm making samples, Mock Rye Bread. I froze some starter last week, took it out on Friday and planned to bake on Monday. The starter was sluggish, minimal bubbles, not much ferment smell at all.
Gave it an extra dose of water kefir but it didn't really help. (someone just wrote to me about just that).
Then I had to be out for a whole day so fed the starter and refrigerated it. (someone asked about that recently).
Still sluggish, no smell. I kept feeding it worrying it wouldn't be ready or perhaps it was never going to ferment properly. (Now that it's Fall the ambient temp in the house is cooler, probably part of the problem)  (3 cold aspects, frozen starter, refrigerated starter, cool house)

Monday morning comes, I hoped to have Peggy videotape a Mock Rye Bread demo for the online course but the starter is just sitting there. We switch gears and do a Feeding Technique #1 and #2 video.

Early Monday evening I feed it once more rather than dump the whole thing in the compost.
Late Monday night the starter starts rumbling and quaking and is in danger of overflowing its 16 cup bowl. (someone just asked about batters overflowing their pans)

I divide it into quart measuring cups, feed, cover and plan to bake on Tuesday morning. I'm left with 5 batches, a lot to do at once but hey, a baker's work is never done.

As I assemble the ingredients for the first loaf I see the starter is a bit too thick, so I add a little water to the next 4. They seem to be alright but instead of a slow pour into the pan, they plop in to the pan. Nowhere in my book do I mention "plop" as a batter texture.

Of course, my schedule for Tuesday does not allow for a proper rise. I will get home one and a half hours later than a 7 hour rise but I really can't get around it. As I'm driving home I visualize that the breads should stay nice and risen, hold their texture, be tall but when I come home they've fallen quite a bit. (someone just wrote about too short and too long rise times).

I bake them, they seem okay. I cut them open using a hacksaw (like someone just wrote about) Although they rose they're not fully cooked through on the top in the center of the loaf. (some wrote about that, too) I would have cooked them longer but they started to get a scorched smell.

A lot of it was usable, though, I cut off the uncooked pieces, hacksawed the rest into slices and froze them for the conference. I feel 99% sure they will be fine after thawing and toasting.
Luckily I also have some perfect loaves I made a few weeks ago.

I saved the uncooked parts and will see if they respond to double toasting. (more info for future questions)

So, All, if you thought I made perfect loaves all the time, you now know the truth. I'm still working with this fluid animal called Sourdough.
And Loving It.

I've been wanting to make this Hamelman bread for a while. I was hoping that the wheat germ would bring nutty wholesome flavors and the oil would soften the crust some.

I wasn't disappointed by the results, except for the crumb. I was careful in my non handling of the dough and it looked good before baking but I must have man handled it when transferring and inverting the three loaves.

The flavor is good and it's going to make a good sandwich later tonight.

Eric

So... time to try something new and the pictures of the pita breads on the right side of TFL has always appealed to me.

Being European, I had to use some other measurements and didn't bother getting the exactly like the recipe, so here's what I did, inspired by http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pitabread.

Ingredients: (Made 8 pita breads á 50g)

• 1 dl tepid water
• 15g fresh yeast
• ½ dl plain natural yogurt (I can't seem to stop using this in my creations)
• 5g sea salt
• 5g honey
• 10g olive oil
• 50g durum/semolina flour
• 150g regular wheat baking flour + some for dusting and adding as nessecary.
• Optional: Spices (I used a tiny bit of ground chilli, smoked paprika and ground cilantro)

Mix the yeast with the water, add the yogurt, oil, salt and honey, mix well with a fork, till it's a greyish, oilish mixture.
Add the flour, a little at a time (100g) and stir with the fork as long as it makes sense.

Knead for around 10 mins or so. Let it rise under a luke warm tea towel in a warm place for 30 mins.

Carefully fold and strech the dough, and make a sausage. Cut the dough-sausage into appropriate size lumps, I weighed them and made them 50g. Let the pieces rest and rise for 5 mins.

Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough and hopefully you'll succeed in making them circular as well. Just make it really thin, not paper thin, but 3-5mm thick.

By this time your oven should be really hot (max. heat) and if you have a baking stone (which helps), it should be hot as well. Place the pancake lookalike dough onto the stone and bake them for 3 mins in 200°C or to taste. The breads should blow up like balloons.

Cut them up sidewise and enjoy your pitas.

Filling suggestion:
Garlic and herb roasted shoulder of lamb, sweet corn, tomato, cucumber, salad leaves and hot salsa.

...I'm going to quit blogging now and eat some more...

I've been a long time viewer of this wonderful bread site and after much consideration I thought I'd post my own message. The bread bug has bitten me hard and I've been afflicted for the last 3 years attempting to make beautiful and tasty bread. The bread in this post is made in my backyard oven on wheels.  It's a Mugnaini oven put on a trailer which my uncle and I built about a year ago (Mar 2010).  Since building, I've thoroughly enjoyed the process of bread baking or pizza making as well as roasting delicious chickens, legs of lamb, and standing rib roasts.  After building the oven, my significant other and I attended a hearth bread making school at Quillisascut Farm in the state of Washington. It was a wonderful experience with great people and instructor that stepped us through the art of breadmaking in an Alan Scott design wood fired oven. 

I've attached a picture of the oven in backyard.

The bread made was adapted from Hamelman's Multigrain Sourdough, using sesame, flax, and sunflower seeds.  I've made this bread a couple of times and baked in my kitchen oven using a pan filled with lava rocks to create.  In this case, I doubled the home recipe, and baked outdoors, using a hot wet towel in a roasting pan, with hot water poured in the pan to create steam.  Met an artisan baker at the huge bread conference last fall in Las Vegas who recommended this technique.

This is picture of steam rolling out of oven after about 10 minutes prior to baking.

After loading oven with bread, I had to take a peak.  I know I should've waited, but it didn't seem to affect the bread.

Picture of loaves.  Roasting pan with wet towel seen on right side of loaves. Dark spot on left side of photo.

I baked the loaves approximately 30 minutes.  The oven floor was 500-550 degrees when I started.  The last two pictures are the finished products.  I share a lot of the bread I make with my Mom and Dad, neighbors, or other family members.  When I finished I had two construction guys at the house and after cooling the bread for an hour or so, shared with them.  I always get excited to cut into the bread to smell the aroma and taste.  The work crew and I love this bread's nutty flavor and aroma.

Hope you enjoyed looking.  Question?  I left the wet towel in for entire 30 minutes.  Can you over-steam bread?  I know from many of the books about baking bread, it states to steam first 15 minutes.  I didn't want to open oven again, so I left inside.  Thanks for viewing.

Scot