For those of us who feared that Peter may have nothing left to say, the wait is over.  He has much left to say and it is very interestng.  While retaining (his) personal favorites (pain a l'anciene, Struan, retardation, pizza), he has brought them forward with the addition of the stretch and fold technique (first encountered by me in Mike Avery's post with video right here).  I tried the stretch and fold after encountering Mike's post here and loved it.  I am delighted to see Peter embrace it as it brings us closer to the dough (actually 'into the dough').  Anyhow, back to the book.  It is well orgrnized and should be in every bread maker's collection.  After reading it, the amateur baker might well reconsider the need for expensive mixers and such.  Peter shows that, as earlier bread masters did, you can produce world class bread with only a few simple, inexpensive tools and a contemporary home ktchen.  Thank you, Peter, I can't wait for the next one.

Ok This is my first post - I have this nagging question after experimenting with my bread making the last yr.

I have been reading reinharts text ( break bakers apprentice) and taken a bread baking class and I have come to the conclusion that

1. Preferments are critical for best tasting bread - however that it doesn't reeally matter - a Starter, biga, poolish, preferment, sponge - they only really differ by water content - so if you make a biga it las less water than a poolish you can use them in the same recipe you just need to adjust the water content. I usually find it very easy just to add a couple cups of flour and some water 1-2 cups, a pinch of instant yeast - the exact amounts are really not that important - just mix up a patch and let it ferment !

2. More confusing to me - is that if you are going to go through the trouble to make a preferment - How is that different from just making the whole dough batch mixing it up (without kneading) and letting the dough preferment 12-24 hours - ???  Then just prepare as usual  adding flour or water ad needed ? seems to create very taste bread for me .

3. Recipe smecifi  - I admit I hate following recipe's - once you develope a feel for the mix -  (just like making pancakes - anyone who has to measure pancake mix and water and cannot just tell when the batter is the way they want it  is well, either completly ocd or ??)  I just get a feel for when the dough is the right consistency, try to get confortable with wetter doughs - add whatever I feel like into the dough, herbs, seeds, oats, barlley, different flours - whatever I have on hand , and all my breads seem to be quite tastey.  So to me it seems like unless you are a bakery and trying to put out the exact loaf all the time - the whole idea is to have fun , be artistic, creative and experiment - don't be a slave to recipes . 

I am interested in your comments .

kj

I am a newbie bread baker. I enjoyed reading Reinharts BBA and thought I would start with his campagne recipe.

I believe I followed the recipe religiously; my first result looks and tastes as described in Floyd's lesson 3. But I have no holes in my loaf. I let the second attempt proof for several hours. A few more holes but still not what I want or am use to seeing from loaves from my local baker.

In contacting King Arthuer Flour, they suggested a wetter dough.

I have my 3rd pre - fermente in my fridge now. Any suggestions?

-Jim

Hi,

  We just moved from Fairbanks, AK down to Anchorage and are renting a smallish duplex ...with a smallish fridge ...no room for containers of dough being retarded overnight.  It is below freezing outside, so that's not an option either.  No garage either.  Have any of you experimented with other techniques for chilling dough overnight, but outside of a fridge?  Big bowl of ice water surrounding a bowl of dough?  Any other ideas?  And don't ask me how to retard formed loaves without a fridge either... sigh.  We'll be in this duplex for 3 to 9 months and I really don't want to have to avoid using retardation techniques... sigh.

Brian

I had the most delicious lunch today, salad all picked from my spring garden accompanied by the first baguettes I've ever made. I wanted to come here and say thank you to everyone, for all the points and tips that helped me gain the confidence to even try. Actually it was watching Steven Sullivan ACME baking with Julia Child in the video Marc linked to the other day, working with his dough, which made me finally decide I could at least give it a go. 

http://www.pbs.org/juliachild/meet/sullivan.html

I've had RLB's Bread Bible out from the library and as her instructions are so easy to follow, decided to use her method which was inspired by that of Maggie Glezer, ACME, as a master class. I figured the dough would be similar to that which Steven was using, so that was part of the decision too.

Started at 8pm Monday night and it's Wednesday here now. The pate fermentée and poolish which the method calls for were left for the maximum time suggested and the overnight retarded proof was also maxed out to 14 hours. The formula is for two baguettes, however I made three ficelle from it, to suit the size of my tiny fridge and my oven stone. I adjusted baking time for the smaller size.

The resulting ficelle were beautiful to look at; rich gold, with lots of little blisters and despite the blade catching when I was slashing, had pretty gringes. Broken open the crumb was creamy and airy, but the crust although delicious and crispy was thick, around 2-3mm. I like ficelle because they have more crust, but this was a bit more than even I want.

If I were to use this formula again what would I do? I'd try some of my sourdough in place of the pate fermentée made up to the same hydration. And while I had no problem at all managing the dough, with a rice-floured linen teatowel as a couche, I couldn't figure out how to seal them with sprayed plastic wrap, as RLB instructed and just put everything inside a large plastic bag which I sealed tightly. It's my assumption that the thick crust was because the dough dried out during its 14 hours in the fridge. I was aware of this and sprayed the dough before it went in the oven, used David's two tiered steaming method and sprayed the oven. Perhaps I even overdid the spraying.  They might have come out of the oven a touch sooner too. I'll need to think it through a bit more.

However, now I have my 15m certificate (NZ swimming reference, meaning having confidence beyond my ability) I plan to tackle the scrumptious looking baguettes Jane & David have introduced here.

Apologies my digital camera has stopped working, so no photos.

Robyn

I made 3 loaves today but only had 1 cast iron pot to do them in.  By the time I got around to the 3rd one - doing them one at a time, I think it had overproofed.  I baked it anyway and it's OK, but it didn't get the oven spring I think it should have.

What would be my solution in the future for this type of problem.  This is a large recipe - Mark Sinclairs whole grain.

Can I punch it down and then reshape and re-proof and then bake or is the leavening (in this case - yeast) pretty much done for?

-susie

I'm sure lots of you folks have made recipes from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.  I have a loaf doing its final rise in the pan right now, but I had a problem with its "volume" after I formed it and put it into the pan.  Technically I don't know what the problem is.  Maybe it's just how I shape the loaf.  For the recipe, there's a first rise, which goes just fine (doubles and all).  I do the envelope folding and it goes back in the bowl for the second rise (again just fine -- doubles).  But after that, when I shape the loaf and get it into the pan, it seems completely deflated (okay, not completely but a lot).  The book says it should come up 1/2 inch from the top of the pan -- mine is closer to 2 inches from the top.  It will eventually rise above the pan top, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  I had the same problem with the "Banana Feather Loaf" recipe.  Both seem to be very "wet" doughs, but I don't know if that would cause what I'm seeing.  Any ideas?

I don't punch it down or try to deflate it in any way.  Just the folding to redistribute the yeast and gas.  This is the first time I've done the sweet potato loaf, but when I've done the banana feather loaf, it eventually turns out just fine (seemingly for a beginner) even though it takes a while longer for the final rise after being shaped.  I just don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if this is just the way it is.

Has anyone tried putting bagels in broiler for crispyer crust . I have seen 2 recipes that called for placing in broiler. One called for placing in broilier for 1-2 minutes each side before you boil them in water. The other said to broil for a minute or 2 right before baking then continue to bake .Has anyone tried something like this

Fall has finally reached Tallahassee and I have been having a good time experimenting with longer sourdough rising times.  Last winter was my first cold season as a sourdough bread baker and I had a lot of ups and downs (literal "ups and downs" when it came to dough rising!).  This year I feel a little more in control of my starter now that I know how to manage the feeding schedule so that it suits both my lifestyle and that of the creatures in my starter.  Of course, a consistently healthy starter is only part of the equation when it comes to making a great loaf of bread!

In a recent thread I got some inadvertent reassurance from Eric (ehanner) that I could let the bulk fermentation go on overnight at a cooler room temperature.  The main goal being that the dough should double in volume.  I breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded with my baking.

I followed the BBA Basic Sourdough formula (as usual these days) but used about half white whole wheat flour, resulting in a nice flavor but a dense crumb.  I didn't realize until shaping the loaves that I should have increased the hydration to account for the "thirsty" whole wheat flour, and my "feel" is not developed enough yet so that I can easily tell if the hydration is correct when I'm mixing my dough.  Overall though, I was happy with my loaves and when I think back to the soupy pancakes that I was producing last year I know that I have come far.

Mixed dough ready for it's overnight rise.

Doubled by the next morning.  You can see where I poked it in the upper left hand corner.

Shaped loaves ready to rise.  I'm still working on sealing the bottom seams better.

Boules scored and ready to bake.  Batards still under the blanket.

Finished boules.

Finished batards.

Batard crumb (slightly out of focus).

Thanks to everyone who read this post.  Any feedback or suggestions are always appreciated.

Summer

anything i should bring to prepare? i am going to be driving from south jersey all the way up to vermont so its going to be a journey. i will be bringing a camera and a notepad. anything else for the 3 day class? also, any nice places to eat on the way up there?

thanks!