October 20, 2017 - 2:02pm
Greetings from the Left Coast
Hello all
I live on the beautiful Oregon Coast where I have a small solo law practice, and I dabble a bit in both woodworking and baking as hobbies. I bake just about everything, from cookies, pies, and cakes to bread . . . but especially bread. I've been lurking on this site because it just kept coming up in my google searches, and after spending a bit of time reading different threads, it really looks like there are some great bakers on here, and I can't wait to dive more deeply into your contributions.
peace,
Scott
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The bakers here, the really seasoned ones are awesome and generous with their time and critiques. You'll love it here.
hester
It DOES come up in a lot of searches. I have learned a lot about bread baking here and I am sure you will,too. Ask questions,include pictures,use the search feature-it works pretty well. Main thing is to have fun. Looking forward to your posts.
Thanks for the nice comments. I am awaiting my new Ankarsrum, which arrives on Tuesday or Wednesday, so I will be ramping up the baking volume then :)
Welcome from the Canadian bit of the Left Coast (Vancouver Island)! This is the best site ever for bread stuff, both for the incredible knowledge of the participants and for the kindness and civility of the site (partly the participants, partly Floyd's great control of the trolls and spam).
I have an Ankarsrum which I bought a few months ago. Love it, but it really did (and does) take some getting used to as it is entirely different from the action and results of a planetary mixer like a KitchenAid.
Keep baking and posting!
Wendy
Not the picturesque oregon portion but LA concrete jungle - look forward to you posts !
I appreciate all the replies, and it's good to see some fellow left-coasters :)
I'm making some sourdough rosemary bread this morning, I couldn't wait for the ank, plus I had some firm intermediate starter that I really needed to use up. total weight is just over 1100g with about half taken up with the firm starter, so it's a pretty big loaf, biggest I've ever tried, so we'll see. I proofed and retarded overnight in the dutch oven (I have a big 7q lodge), so this will be another experiment, first time I haven't preheated the DU. the loaf proofed perfectly so hopefully the bake will go well! (I do not have a banneton so I normally proof in this 9" colander I have which is usually about the right size, but not for this loaf).
550 g firm starter (65% hydration); 300g bread flour, 250g water, about 1T chopped fresh rosemary and 2t salt. I also added about 25g olive oil, I know that enriches the dough but it's a really small amount, hopefully just for flavor. I usually just sort of wing it and make dough by feel more than anything else but I am starting to keep notes now on the relative amounts of ingredients. I'm terrible at math including bakers math but this dough is relatively wet compared to what I normally make. we'll see!
Cheers!
~Scott