Howdy all,

I've recently been given the wonderful opportunity to experiment with a local farmer's recent wheat harvest.  He just started growing wheat, and doesn't bake much himself, so he's looking for some practical feedback.

He gave me ten pounds each of hard red spring wheat, hard white spring wheat and soft red winter wheat.

I've got some ideas of my own, but curious what yall might think

Also, I've never used fresh milled flour before; anything to keep in mind (keeping it cold, lack of enzymes, etc.)

thanks,

Gerard

SUSAN'S SIMPLE SOURDOUGH CHALLENGE - TAKE ONE

On October 4th, ehanner's blog presented Susan's Simple Small Sourdough Challenge. Ehanner's challenge was simple - make the bread!

Susan, justly famous for her "magic bowl" baking method and photos of perfectly round, scrumptious looking boules, has posted her recipe and approach several times. Here is Susan's recipe for one small boule: 12g firm starter, 175g water, 225g high gluten flour, 25g white whole wheat flour, 5g salt. Here's the Baker's Percentage...

SUSAN'S SIMPLE SOURDOUGH

I scaled the recipe up to make two loaves and baked them as batards, since we prefer this shape. Susan likes chewy bread but we do not, so I used unbleached bread flour rather than the high gluten bread flour Susan prefers. Whole grain flour was (home milled) hard red wheat. My sourdough starter is 100% hydration, so minor tweaks were made to the recipe.

The dough was definitely wetter than I am used to (my weekly sourdough bread is about 68% hydration with 20% whole grain). I followed her method for minimal kneading and periodic stretch-and-folds. The dough has a long bulk fermentation (at least 8 hours) and, after shaping, an overnight proof in the refrigerator. The risen dough gets a brief warm-up period, then into a pre-heated oven it goes.

Here's the risen dough, ready to be slashed and baked...

My batard was baked on a stone in a preheated oven, covered with the bottom of a turkey roaster for the first 13 minutes, uncovered for the rest of the bake. Here's what it looked like after the bake (hmmm, what's that weird shape?!)...
...Holy Major Oven Spring !!! - it's the end product of a frustrated oven spring. The loaf rose so much during the start of the bake it hit the top of my turkey roaster cover.

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HOLY MAJOR OVEN SPRING !!!

My turkey roaster bottom is 4-inches high and has low ridges on the inside...

...so my 22 ounces of baking dough hit the top and did it's best to keep on rising. Thus the flattened top and indentations, which you can see a little better in this photo (the right hand photo has blue lines added to emphasize the indentations)...

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So what if the loaf resembled Quasimodo? When sliced, who can tell? The taste was great - not too sour (we don't like really sour sourdough) with a nice open crumb. Here's the obligatory crumb shot...

Strange request, I know, but at a Roman restaurant a while ago we were served savoury bread rolled up like a Chelsea Bun (for the UK) or a Cinnamon bun or raisin Danish (for others). The filling was pieces of prosciutto and semi-dried tomatoes, and the crumb was soft and dense, and probably contained a fair bit of oilve oil. The whole thiing was absolutely delicious. So delicious that I completely forgot to even ask what they were called or how to make them.

I'm sure I could make these, given at least a hint of the type of dough that might have been used.It will be a while before I get the chance to go back to the restaurant and ask.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Jeremy

i made another batch of dough from richard bertinet's book 'dough', this time i made the olive dough. i weigh all my ingredients but still feel i need to add more water. still, love his technique and books. had a couple questions though,

in his book he speaks about keeping back some dough and refreshing it from time to time, i wasn't sure though if i immediately cut off a pce of dough and leave on the side or after i let the dough rest? also does it matter what the dough contains eg sugar, fats etc does it have to be just basic flour water salt yeast?

also, what is the point of bulk fermentation? does it make much of a difference, because it seems that resting time would be faster if you divide immediately and shape into small balls eg if making pizza etc

thanks heaps in advance for any feedback.

im very excited because i just bought some razor blades from the barber, so had to make some dough to try them out, hopefully i won't have any trouble with scoring.

if anyone's familiar with richard bertinet methods etc please share, i am currently poring over his books dough and crust.

From Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice...

Beautiful, soft crumb with exceptional flavor.

Hi All

Well I finally made a nice crumb with decent holes BUT I had to go to 80% hydration to get it. I am weighing everything, KAF, overnight fermentation, followed Anis Boubsa's recipe to the letter "T", oven temperature checked and rechecked, you name it, I have done it LOL. Except perhaps a little higher hydration but couldn't get holes in the crumb until I went to 80%. Although I was somewhat pleased with the end result I still don't think everything is quite right. At 80% the dough was as close to impossible to work with as one could imagine. Instead of shaping the baguettes, I would call it more like "slurping" it together to try and get some kind of a form to it. And there was no way possible to score anything this wet.

If this didn't work, I think I may have given up. But would definitely appreciate comments, tips, suggestions, etc on what I am (may) be doing wrong.

Thanks very much.

Hi All

Is anyone familiar with the Cuisinart BRK-200 Convection Brick Oven? If not can anyone recommend a good convection oven for baking baguettes?

Thanks very much.

Hello -

I am attempting to bake a loaf of fresh baked bread most evenings for dinner. The family loves it and the house smells absolutely incredible.

The first technique/recipe I tried is Jim Lahey's No Knead Basic Recipe.

I used an Staub 8 quart La Cocotte to bake the bread. What a beautiful and functional piece of cooking hardware.

The crust was thin and crackly with nice coloring.

The crumb was light, had nice mouth feel and beautiful hole structure.

The fact that I baked four loaves in one week speaks volumes. I have never baked more than one loaf a week in my life. The bread looks, smells, and tastes fantastic.  I'll talk about a few good & bad points in the next post, but the "short and sweet" summary is that Lahey's method works very well.

Brian

Hi, Eric.

In another topic (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9943/can-you-turn-semolina-durum-flour#comment-88745), you mentioned using a small amount of durum flour in dough as a flavor enhancer. How much do you use? 5-10%?

Are you using fine durum flour for this or semolina?

This sounds like something I need to try.

David

I've been recruited to bake for our church Thanksgiving feast.  They asked me to bake a loaf for each table, which will only end up being 10 or 12.  I thought I'd use my dutch ovens to do the baking, as I'm very comfortable with this way of doing it (15 min covered, 20 min uncovered basic white)

I was thinking I could do this over a couple of days by par baking the loaves and freezing them. Then, on the day of the dinner, put them all on baking sheets and finish them off.  I have, of course my home oven to work with.  Then, at the church I have two ovens.  Am I right in this thinking?

So, how would you suggest I go about doing it?  I was thinking of taking them out after the 15 minute covered bake.  Then when I go to rebake them, bringing them all to room temperature first and spritzing them with a little salt water.  Then toss them into a preheated 500 degree oven.

What are your thoughts?