The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

15 Percent Whole 7 Grain Sourdough with Potato Flakes

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

15 Percent Whole 7 Grain Sourdough with Potato Flakes

 Lucy is back to work but she isn’t happy – not one little bit. She just started to get back into the swing of things when they announced that 800 million jobs worldwide will be eliminated by robots in the next 12 years.  Lucy thought she did important stuff but she is mostly an esily replicable pet and baking apprentices will be the 2nd to go - after pets.

They say that these people will find jobs fixing robots and programming them but one programmer can program 25,000 robots and your robot will come with a 10 year extended warrantee for free and probably will never break if they make them like robots make cars today.   The thing about technology is that the jobs they replace are lost forever. – they never go somewhere else for anyone.

Then GM announced that they are going to have a huge fleet of driverless cars on the road as taxis by 2019….. in just a year plus.  So all the people that lost their jobs during the last recession and replaced them as Uber drivers will be replaced by a kind of robot car that doesn’t really have a robot in it…..and it will happen very soon.

I’m guessing the last recession will seem like a big holiday at the beach when 800 million people can’t find work to support themselves.  It is going to be worse than the walking dead because these folk will be real ….broke…..and hungry!  It is a good thing we make bread to feed them – at least until robots do it.  On to better times!

We have over 200 flowers on our Sweet 100 Cherry tomato and a crumb shot

This bread has equal amounts of rye, spelt, oat, Kamut, einkorn, red and white wheat whole grains plus 10% potato flake with an overall hydration of 80%.  The levain was 15% pre-fermented flour, all of the whole grains, at 100% hydration.

 

A Rosemary Christmas tree

The levain was built over 12 hours and retarded for 24 hours when finished.  We autolyzed the dough to 1 hour with the salt sprinkled on top.  Once the levain hit the mix, we did 2 sets of slap and fold of 50 and 8 slaps and 3 sets of stretch and folds – all on 30 minute intervals.  Then the dough rested for a ½ hour in an oiled SS bowl before being retarded for 16 hours.

Thanksgiving Bubbles and Squeak - thanks to the UK for the method to make all the Thanksgiving leftovers great again!

The dough warmed up for 2 hours the next morning before being shaped into a long batard.  It was placed into a towel lined basket for 3 hours of proofing.  Once the dough hit the 500 F bottom stone with Mega Steam it really bloomed and sprang well giving Lucy 3 big smiles with ears.  We baked it bold and took it out at 209.5 F.

Another nice soup and salad

Comments

alfanso's picture
alfanso

Robby The Robot now helps make baguettes in many bakeries.  Throw some dough into the top of the baguette roller and out pops a rolled baggie out the bottom.  No lunch breaks, no vacation, no coffee breaks.  And...

--You caught the bug--You caught the bug--.  Be careful now that your getting into the long batard swing of things or you'll abandon boules altogether!

Looks great.  Now see if you can get Lucy onto Long Term Disability payments till the end of days.

alan

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

uI enjoy all shapes and sizes of bread and just can't get stuck on one:-)  The robots are coming and there is no way to stop them, not that I want to.  What makes us different from other animals is that we are curious and always wanting to make our life easier.  That is why we invent things.  We are the laziest of beings and only want to invent stuff that will make us even more lazy!  That is our lot in life.

I just got Lucy health insurance so she won't have to go on disability but disability is a much lazier kind of life so why not?  She sure thinks she is people.  

Since no one will have a job sooner than you can say welfare, I think there might be one way to stop robots.  If you want less of something all you have to do is tax it to death.  I heard someone say that we need to start taxing robots that take jobs away from people or we soon will have no tax dollars flowing to government for them to waste.  I think that might be ticket.  Just tax robots out of existence.  That would mean that people would still have to work, which goes against our genes and DNA, so I'm not sure that folks would want to work that much.

I don't know about you but I sure enjoy retirement way more than working and think people would be happier if they didn't have to work but not if they starved to death s a result.

Happy baking Don Baggs.

alfanso's picture
alfanso

but never loved it, nor was obsessed with it.  I always wanted to do a better than good job and was willing to go toward extremes to ensure that I did it as well as I could.  When you work for a high caliber IT org like Intel, there is no second degree of work attitude acceptable - those folk typically don't last long in that environment.

Regardless, I never woke up a day in my life and thought that I'd rather be at work than be at home - or someplace else.  Laid off in 2003, I never looked back and just about the only thing that I missed was the "water cooler" relationships and conversations.  And paychecks!  

And as much as I had a lot or responsibilities at work, as did my wife and even more so my brother, not once did any of us receive a call from work asking us about this or that or to clarify something or other.  Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.  From Charles DeGaulle: "the graveyards are filled with indispensable men".

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

there but there is huge difference between loving what you do at work and doing what you love in retirement.  I don't think DeGaulle was worth too much but I do like his quote .....so his life was not a total loss - like most of us!  Even though CA doesn't tax SS benefits you would still be paying through the nose for other income and stuff if you still lived there compared to FL which has no state income taxes of any kind and gives you much warmer water on the beach for a lot less real estate cost.  You recovered well from being laid off for sure but the next wave of lay offs will be massive . I'm not sure all of these folks will be as prepared financially or well as adjusted as you were.... but we can only hope they figure it out without killing the rest of us:-)

kendalm's picture
kendalm

A bagard or batuette.  Looks amazing and impressed you used einkorn as I recall you 'don't really care for it' 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I don't like Einkorn as a whole bread but it is fine as a small % of anything.  I love all kinds of food but pickled pigs feet isn't at the top of the list....well maybe that isn't a good example:-)  I am trying to use up the Einkorn Lucy has hidden away in her secret pantry though.  The smiles and ears on this one surprised her too!  Glad you liked it and 

Happy baking

kendalm's picture
kendalm

Some of the best food is made - ie incorporating whats available. Gotta agree though as a whole bread flour its not great - gooyey dough, strange flavor and straight up weird !

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Impressive!

There is a Chinese saying that goes:  "The older the ginger, the spicier", which means as one ages, s/he is becoming more capable/experienced (than the younger generation).  Those grignes tell me that you are definitely an "old ginger"! 

Yippee

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

saying that goes - The larger the pot of beans, the fewer friends you will have in your doghouse.  I like yours better by far and I am definitely getting to be older, old ginger every day:-)  I seem to have fewer friends as I get older for some reason.  I saw a thing on the internet where you type in the year you were born and it tells you what percent of the people born that year ......are still alive.  I found that depressing in a happy way since I could still find out how lucky I am.  They say there is always a price to pay for the life you lead ......but I have yet to pay it....  yea!

Hopefully we will live forever - at least in Metaverse 2.0!  Glad you liked the bread Yippee and 

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Tell Lucy to stop worrying about the robots and to get her fuzz butt into gear! There isn’t anything she can do about the robots but she sure can come up with decent recipes for you to execute. This one seems pretty good but I know she can do better. ;-)

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and my daughter stole half of this one last night.   With Holiday Baking getting into full swing, I can see some darker baking, notably 1849 Gold Rush Sourdough Fruit Cake and rye cookies for Santa who was originally a German  who only ate rye cookies:-)

Getting Lucy to do anything worthwhile is getting increasingly difficult as she becomes older, forgets she is just a Doxie baking apprentice 2nd class and thinks she is human too!  Plus this is not SF, the home of SD,  where you can shoot a young woman and kill her as she walks arm in arm with her Dad on a pier and get away with it Scott Free if you are an illegal alien either.  If I spoke to her harshly they would lock me up for at least a year here - so there is a limit to  what kind of persuasion I can use for this determined German.

Robots do scare her though .....so I am getting her one of those Japanese Robot Companion Dogs here 

http://www.newsweek.com/japans-robot-dogs-get-funerals-sony-looks-away-312192

so she will get the hint that she can be replaced:-)  Maybe that will do the trick!

Glad you like the bread and Happy Holliday Baking Danni

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Getting a dog robot is a delicious way to be evil! (Insert maniacal laughter here). I love it! I would love to be a fly on the wall when she opens that present!

I got my fruit cakes done this year with a bit of an oops. I grabbed the 2/3 cup measure instead of the half cup. It worked out anyhow with a bit extra juice. There is a reason why I prefer weighing my ingredients! 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Oh the shame!  Opooppppsss.  I forgot you said cakes...My scale only goes to 11 pounds and, If I made as many as you do, I couldn't weigh the ingredients either:-)  But, a half a cup of brandy just would not do it for at all for so many fruit  cakes.  Heck, forget the cakes. that isn't even enough brandy for the apprentice much lass the master when making fruit cakes!!

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Plus the rum I pour on the loaves after they come out of the oven and again just before wrapping to age them. Have no fear, they gave lots of booze in them. 

Oh and I used the good stuff! French Brandy and Cuban rum. ;-)

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Just add wheels!

I think Lucy could squeeze inside this beauty if you added some wheels to it!

No robot is ever going to replace our furry apprentices...I don't think petting stainless steel is going to work for me :).

So jealous that you have all those tomatoes ready to sprout.  It's mild here this weekend in the low 50's but the cold is on its way.

Look forward to seeing the crumb shot.  I'm sure this one is going to make some great grilled bread and cheese sandwiches.

Happy Weekend to Lucy from her East Coast buddies.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

open faced sandwiches this morning toasted, with butter, Minneola Marmalade, melted Colby Jack Cheese, hot sausage and home made smoked and then fried pork belly on top!  It was pretty killer and I did give Lucy a taste of it ...or maybe two:-)

I'm thinking of getting her a robot dog companion just to let Lucy know who is still boss.  If I was Japanese, I might consider replacing her in a heart beat.  It is odd how they think these fake dogs need funerals.   I find that more disturbing than I care to admit - so I won't!  Sweet 100's are my favorite cherry tomato because they are such wonderful producers.  It must have already set 50 little gems and they are sweet too!  I'm hoping that one of the tomatoes that came up volunteer is a yellow cherry one though...... I know one of them is a black Russian.  Will know soon enough as all of them are setting loads if tomatoes - even the orange pear one that lived though the summer heat.  It has been unusually warm so maybe that it why they are doing so well.

Lucy sends her best to her Island buddies and she hopes you have a great weekend Ian