Doing a happy dance today
Hi Y'all!
Ive been lurking for quite a while here and have been learning a lot while doing so. Im a huge fan of cooking and baking but have made it a goal to seriously increase my bread baking ability this year. Currently baking my way through FWSY while reading the bread bakers apprentice.
Milestone day for me. After three weeks of nurturing two new starters, one using Debra Winks method and the other just water i felt it was strong enough to give it a first shot. After an overnight proof in the fridge i just pulled these Overnight Country Blonde from FWSY out of the oven and doing a happy dance. Both starters seem pretty happy, i used the one started with water today. The next time ill use the other and see if i can detect any major differences.
Just wanted to thank this amazing group of bakers for all the knowledge and inspiration =)
Bart
using a new starter. Well done and
Happy baking
What is your baking setup? I see you have a banneton, and you probably have a lame.
Do you use steam or a dutch oven/
Post a crumb shot, please? :)
Regards-
Dave
Very nice.
First i would love to show the crumb if i could figure out how to upload a pic from my pc in a comment. I only see an option to upload from a site?
Im currently using a 12 qt Cambro round tub and an assortment of smaller sizes. Two 6 qt dutch ovens and 9" bannetons from the lucky clover trading company. And a lame from breadtopia. My oven is pretty typical rental fare, but it is consistent and runs about 5 degrees hot.
I live in an apartment with a small kitchen and have added a huge rack to try to get organized. At least so far, eight loaves of straight dough boules is about the most i can manage in a day off from work. And being in Northern Minnesota keeping the temps up is challenging.
I am having a blast learning though =)
There's a way to do it but it's convoluted. I figured it out and posted instructions many moons ago ... if I can find the time I'll look for the post and repost here.
-Dave
So far the two HUGE areas i need work on is transferring proofed loaves to the hot dutch ovens and scoring. But i gotta say after an overnight proofing in the fridge it felt MUCH easier to score and handle. Thanks for the nice comments and id have posted a crumb pic but it was too warm still to slice at the time =)
I bake exclusively in hot DO's. Take a piece of parchment paper. hold it tightly over the banneton. Flip it over and onto counter and remove banneton. Now tear off all the extra paper except two elongated portions on the ends. Use these to lift and lower into DO. I do it weekly and have for years. Works every time. Also prevents the extra folds of paper in the pot and prevents light spots on the bread during the 15 min. lid is on. I bake all breads in preheated 500 degree pots. Spray 5 squirts water in before I close the lid. Place in oven still at 500 for 15 min. Open oven and remove lids and Lower to 460 and finish...depends on weight of loaf..anywhere from 20-30 more minutes. Good Luck...your loaves look great ! c