The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

What's with all the bread lab posts?

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

What's with all the bread lab posts?

Have we become the site for sharing some school experiments? Just seems odd that we have a bunch of people posting in the same format. 

tptak's picture
tptak

Why odd? Isn't it about home made bread? :)

I'd say it's flattering that someone comes here to get advice and present what they managed to achieve.

The only problem was someone with submit button issues ;)

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

It does seem odd. All of a sudden there has been a big influx. It's not just one person but in the past two weeks there has been many new people here posting a single science experiment in the exact same format. 

tptak's picture
tptak

Looks like a class project, where one is expected to get some external feedback and publish results. A blog post on the Fresh Loaf is a way to publish it for feedback, I'd assume. Is it different than usual? Yes, it is. Is it OK? I think so.

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

Then no problem at all. Perhaps an introduction about what's going on would help. I'm no expert but happy to give a layman feedback.

tptak's picture
tptak

I think this one has most explanation: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51058/making-best-bread

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

but yes, it is a project. I think it's actually a nice idea if I knew what was going on. It's very technical for me. I know how to drive a car but don't know what's going on under the hood. I can comment on the practical but not so much theory. Perhaps Floyd can accommodate them and open up a section on his website specifically for the project. I'm no computer expert either so apologies if this wouldn't be feasible.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

then perhaps it should be given the green light by Floyd (which it may have).  We are all independent contributors here.  But any group exercise should be subject to moderator approval prior to initial postings.

tptak's picture
tptak

Why? It is not a massive commercial campaign. A couple people have started sharing what they have managed to achieve in their class. In that manner, we all are a group exercise.

The forum lets commercial entities share their materials, and also individuals. Why should a group from a certain school be treated differently. Isn't their doing what Blogs section is for?

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Please don't interpet my use of the word "odd" to indicate disapproval. It isn't up to me to decide who or what gets posted. That would be incredibly rude on my part.

However, It would be nice for someone in the group or all of them to give us a bit of an intro to what is going on. I feel a bit lost with not enough context to place these posts. Do they want feedback? What is their assignment or project? Then again, I guess I could be accused of being nosy! In that case, it would be true! :-D

alfanso's picture
alfanso

between cute and abusive.  Considering the supposed age of the students, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to know better.  But this is a class project and the teacher surely should.

And we are not all a group exercise.

 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

as a school educator and a parent is that one can easily  find these kids. They have their names, their pictures and their school posted as well as the name of their teacher. Considering that this is a public forum viewable anywhere in the world, there is a definite lack of attention to internet safety!

That being said, I am having fun reading their observations. 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I found a video in this post:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/51065/bread-lab-lucy-isha-and-peyton

I must say that they have an interesting technique for kneading bread. 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

video or pumpkin bread.  Maybe few want to get down and dirty now a days.  I think it is great that there is such a thing as a bread lab, in some school somewhere ....before bread making and baking is banned by environmentalists,

Dixongexpat's picture
Dixongexpat

Environmentalists hate bread???

gary.turner's picture
gary.turner

Real environmentalists don't, but the greenies do.  Actually, they seem to hate anything anthropological; it's a political thing, not ecological.

What can we do? If it weren't this, it'd be something else.

So bake your bread, make a roast beef sandwich and enjoy the outdoors with a glass of beer and your favorite companion.

gary

Floydm's picture
Floydm

It's cute.  If I'd known in advance, yeah, I could have set up a special area for them, but they seem to be doing fine on their own.  

Edo Bread's picture
Edo Bread

Yes a little pre-info and I think they could have gotten  more out of the site and the people here willing to help.

Colin2's picture
Colin2

Yup.  It's not unusual to have school assignments that have some sort of internet posting of results, and this is about as benign a site as you could imagine to do that on.  But ... I'm not sure this was a very well-conceived lab.  The extremely hasty proofing and baking times reported suggests that groups were trying to mix, proof, and bake a yeasted dough within a single class period, which guarantees failure.   Soda bread would have been much more appropriate.  There's also a lot of wrong information in the writeups.  My guess is that the person who designed the lab doesn't understand bread very well.

It's also not clear that the groups are really looking for feedback - the posted lab reports have the air of being done, and they're on to the next assignment.

 

Pandequeso's picture
Pandequeso

Hello there! I am a student that participated in this school assignment. I'm sorry that we have intruded your website with lab reports, but this was the only forum we had for our blog assignment. We've learned about bread making and we appreciate your feedback. Sorry about the influx of labs and the confusion it may have caused. I hope you have stupendous baking experiences in your future :) 

Lechem's picture
Lechem (not verified)

No-one understood what was going on. Everyone here is very welcoming and friendly and would have loved to have participated. This assignment could have gotten more out of this website with some background and perhaps Floyd could have assisted them better. It's just a shame that they didn't get the 100% input needed from us for their project. I've tried to comment where I can but it's impossible for me to comment on everyone's project. Hope I've helped where I can.

nmygarden's picture
nmygarden

I agree with Floyd that a dedicated format for it would be useful, but the posts and responses have been beneficial for the students and for the rest of us, too. I feel flattered that this site was selected and felt like a safe and appropriate forum for their activities.  :)

Cathy