The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.
Lap's picture

Purchasing a new Home Oven

November 20, 2023 - 3:49am -- Lap
Forums: 

I am a home SD baker and bake high heat doughs at least 2x/month. My 8 year old Capital Oven went on me. They no longer manufacture the part for my oven. Anyone have recommendations on purchasing a new oven for my house. I am limited to just under 30" wide. Right now I am cooking with propane on with the burners and oven.

Thanks

Lynn

kimemerson's picture

European flour substitutes?

November 20, 2023 - 2:50am -- kimemerson

Hello all,

A little research on my part... If one has a formula for bread which is from Europe, calling for European flour, what can we use here in the US to substitute, considering we (I) can't get European flour here? Do you just wing it and go ahead with US bread flour? If I understand correctly, US bread flour is from hard red winter wheat whereas European flours (00) might be soft white spring flour. Or something like that.

WatertownNewbie's picture
WatertownNewbie

Recently I posted a blog with my revised version of Infinity Bread.  That version used emmer flour, and I commented that I intended to try the bread with einkorn in place of the emmer.  Here it is.

This is an excellent bread too, and in some ways I prefer the einkorn version over the one with emmer.  Of course, a few bakes with each will be necessary before I can conclude that, and in any event both versions are fine.

Here are the two loaves.

A friend received one of the loaves.  Here is the crumb from the one we kept.

Once again I thank pmcool for launching the Community Bake that resulted originally in the emmer bread and now this one with einkorn.

Happy baking.

Ted

bakerman's picture

Different types of preferment?

November 19, 2023 - 1:02pm -- bakerman
Forums: 

I was doing a little reading about different types of preferment and the terminology and the different uses. This article I linked below seems to challenge received wisdom--and common sense?--about using different kinds of preferment for different purposes. It seems obvious, for example, that to obtain a bread (or whatever) with less sour character, especially in warm weather, one could opt for a stiffer preferment, which, developing more slowly, would yield a yeastier and less sour result within a similar timeframe.

Sugarowl's picture
Sugarowl

I did the Infinity loaf challengeon October 30, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. I did not really like how the bread came out. It was very crumbly and a bit sandy. That said, I'm not really partial to cornbread either.

The "other" flours I used were rye, oat flour, and corn meal. For seeds, I used soaked bulgur wheat and toasted pecan pieces. The inclusions were fine. I'm not so sure about the cornmeal and oat flour though. I'll try it again after the holidays. And soak the cornmeal next time.

I posted somewhere else the exact quantities so I'll go back and look at that later.Found it: https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/73115/nothing-too-exiciting-here#comment-527139

The biscotti that I made came out pretty good. I did this November 4. on The only thing is that I should've sliced them a little thinner or baked them longer. Or both. the recipe I used is from Joyofbaking.com: Chocolate Almond Biscotti. The only changes I made were to use toasted pecans instead of the almonds. The dough was a little tacky.

 

Sorry for the late posts, it's been really hectic around here.In October, I made around 3 dozen muffins plus 3 dozen cookies every week for 3 weeks for a fundraiser. Not much sold. But when I was at their display, it was so overcrowded with prepackaged snacks that it made sense that they didn't sell.

Currently I have 300g of starter rising to start 3 different breads tomorrow: two chocolate breads with cherries and pecans and one I'm not completely sure about yet.Probably a whole wheat and bread flour tangzong milk bread.

On Monday and Tuesday I'll be baking bread, cookies, and muffins for when we go see my parents for Thanksgiving. The cookies with be sugar, oatmeal, and 2 kinds of biscotti: The one I just posted and one with cocoa powder and cranberries. Also part of my future lineup is to make a 1/2 semolina biscotti to see if the texture is different when I come back.

louiscohen's picture

Hamelman's 66% Sourdough Rye

November 19, 2023 - 11:15am -- louiscohen
Forums: 

I made the dough per "Bread" and baked half as a loaf and half as buns.

The loaf had the best grigne I have made in a while; instead of the usual dutch oven I used baking stones above and below, a steam pan, and an additional spritz on the loaf after 5 minutes in the oven.  

I waited 24 hrs to slice it (not easy to wait); it was pretty good, but not quite as good as another Hamelman formula that used whole rye (sourdough rye with walnuts; this one was medium rye and bread flour). The whole rye really did get better over 3-4 days; we'll see if this one does.

louiscohen's picture

Home Oven Steaming

November 18, 2023 - 12:42pm -- louiscohen

For longer than I would care to admit, despite using a steam pan on the bottom oven rack I could never get good oven spring, much less a gringne, in our home oven.

Eventually I tried a dutch oven, and things got a lot better.  And then I got into high whole wheat or rye breads, and the oven spring got smaller.

metropical's picture

humidity for starter

November 18, 2023 - 11:53am -- metropical

I usually feed my starter water <100º F and place in the closed oven for 90 mins to 2 hrs and repeat till I have enough.

I normally rise a loaf in a small foam chest with a bowl of boiled water under the pan.  This helps the speed and quality of the rise.

I'm wondering if the starter feed would also benefit from being in humidity rather than just a "closed" space.

The house humidity averages 50-60% most of the year until summer.

I'm sure the humidity rises a bit when in the closed oven with the 100º F water feed, but ....

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