The Fresh Loaf

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"Bread" Wonderful book!

ehanner's picture
ehanner

"Bread" Wonderful book!

I have been baking for about 2 years now. A check of my history shows that I have been on the road to enlightenment for 1 year and 23 weeks at TFL. I started with the BBA by Peter Reinhart and then his Whole Grain Breads. A few other books have caught my interest along the way and I noticed that Hamelman's "Bread" always got high marks but some thought he was really talking to the pro audience. I started to notice that many of the breads I liked had references to Jeffrey Hamelman so I thought I would take the plunge and see if I could keep up.

To my delight, I spent the afternoon browsing my new copy of Bread. This is a wonderful book. The recipes are easy to understand and well described. Yes there are larger volume recipes for a commercial bakery but in every case there is a 10% Home version for my uses. Every technique I have been curious about, every style of bread common in this part of the Artisan world is covered with clarity and detail. Many have options for enhancing the flavors or adding ingredients to change the personality.

I have already been baking some of these recipes so I know they work, not that that would be a serious question. I'm going to enjoy trying some of the more unusual breads in this collection and learning the special techniques.

We at TFL are generous with sharing our recipes and methods and that's a good thing. Being able to pick up this book and understand the author from the first page is saying something. Mr. Hamelman is an effective communicator. This is a well written book and I highly recommend anyone who desires to understand baking and the methods involved, purchase a copy or try to get your local library to get it for you. The Amazon link from the front page here will take you to a link where TFL will get credit for the sale.

I'll be posting the results of my experiments here.

Eric

 

Comments

kanin's picture
kanin

One of the most intimidating "special techniques" in the book is the Detmold 3-stage process. It calls for building the bread at a specific hydration and temperature in 3 distinct stages.

I'm really interested in how a home baker can improvise to maintain the specific temps called for in the formula. The temperatures are generally slightly above room temperature and I can't think of a way to accurately maintain it. Has anyone tried this process at home?

 

http://www.applepiepatispate.com

ehanner's picture
ehanner

Kanin,
I haven't looked at Hamelmans angle on the Detmold-3 stage starter yet but-- I have been playing with it for a couple years. If you want to learn how to do this process I suggest you take a look at Smartha's site first. Here

I use an aquarium heater and a small fish tank pump to circulate the water in a bus pan. The small amount of starter needed to make home size batches easily floats in a Glad plastic tub. Smartha has excel spread sheets for building any size and percentage of rye you might want to build.  In the summer Months I only need to use the water bath for one segment of the process. It's easy to understand if you spend a little time at it and Samartha is pretty good at getting back with questions.

Hope this helps.

Eric 

ehanner's picture
ehanner

kanin, now that I have looked at Hamelmans section on rye breads and the 3 stage Detmold process I see what you mean. I would find a place around the house for one of the temps and use a warm water bath for the warmest. The coolest for me is near room temp.

As I said in the first post, I use an aquarium heater that has the temp range I need and a small water pump I picked up at our local garden store for making water fountains. I start the water off at the high end of the temp range and adjust the heater to come on in the range. This is a simple and inexpensive way to manage the requirements of detmold.

 I don't make a 3 stage very often but it is so good, I should. I have promised myself that this is going to be the year that I learn more about those deep German flavors, recipes and methods. Hope this helps.

Eric 

sphealey's picture
sphealey

One solution I have looked at for retarding dough in the 55 deg.F - 65 deg.F range called for in the detmold process and other recipes is a wine cooler with a digital temperature control. I have my eyes out for a thermoelectric model (vibrationless) with a decent-sized cavity at a reasonable price. My outstanding question is whether the low-end models can consistently hold a temperature in the higher range (63 deg.F for Detmold IIRC); when I was at the Kitchen & Bath Show last year I talked to an engineer for a high-end product and he confirmed that his cooler could do that, but there was no way I could afford that unit.

Until then I just do the cool stages by leaving them on the counter for 30-60 minutes then in my refrigerator overnight. Seems to work OK.

sPh

ehanner's picture
ehanner

Depending on the time of year I have had good luck placing a small cooler inside a larger cooler with a small ice pack in the inside. This takes a bit of experimenting and sometimes I end up placing the small cooler in the fridge for periods of time. A wine cooler would be nice if it worked or a brewers thermostat on a second refrigerator. I just don't do enough detmold to make that kind of investment in space and money. I did break down and get a remote temp probe so I can monitor what is going on inside.

Eric

SteveB's picture
SteveB

For those who are electronically and mechanically inclined, this might be a viable path to a low-cost controlled-temperature environment:

 http://www.electronickits.com/kit/complete/peltier/ck500.pdf

I haven't tried building it yet, but it's on my "To Do" list.  

SteveB

www.breadcetera.com