I work in a bakery and I am having trouble with either having to much water in the dough or not enough.  I know that weather has something to do with this but it is very frustrating .  Any suggestions will help.

I thought I would share my results trying mountaindog's version of Country French. I didn't have exactly the right malt as called for in the formula so I substituted dry powder and a little raw sugar for the sweetener. I didn't get the airy crumb through out but there was nice activity in my wet starter which I am nursing back to a healthier condition. It's hard to see in the image but the crust is very thin and nice and crunchy. My family doesn't care for a thick chewy crust so I was going for a baguette style crust. I baked this in my new Steam Maker Bread Baker unit (background) with 15 seconds of hot steam injected, covered for 10 minutes then 20 more minutes of dry heat. The crust is incredible! Thanks mountaindog for the inspiration. I think this will be my new daily bread. The depth of flavor is very nice. I have another batch behind this one for tomorrow that I swapped some of the AP flour for King Arthur 7 grain. The combination of caramelized grains gives this a great aroma and chew.

I have a friend who needs a lot of par baked bread on hand but I have been having difficulty getting the bread out at 90% baked, usually 180 F. My thermometer takes about 20 seconds or longer to show the temperature and with differing temperatures in the kitchens it's all across the scale unfortunately.

So I am looking at a Thermapen, it is expensive (120.00 CAD) but it measures temp in 4 seconds and has a good range too, -50 to +570 F.

Anyone use this item or a similar thermometer with a short temp measurement?

Does anyone know where to obtain high extraction wheat flour? I've made my own from flour I've milled myself, and it's too much work with the rudimentary tools I have. So far, Google hasn't found me a source. Another question is Does anyone know of a bolting machine or other sifting device for making high extraction flour that is appropriate for home use?

Yet another question is Does adding white flour to whole wheat produce a flour close enough to high extraction flour to make the search for the real thing unnecessary?

Thanks,

Tony

I need some guidance please from all you master bakers. I made this Thom Leonard Bread last week-end and it was so hard and dense I ended up throwing it in the trash. I was home from work today so I started a new batch last night. I followed the instructions carefully and weighed the ingredients. This dough (after nursing it since late morning) was so wet it ended up in the trash as well. It stuck to the linen in the basket and was the stickiest (sp.) I've ever worked with. (Not that I have that much experience yet). I'm not giving up and will try yet again this week-end. Floyd or someone...can you give me a description for how wet the dough should be, ...what it should feel like? I guess this has been a good learning experience - I now know what too dry and too wet are. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

I offer a challenge to anyone on this site.  I am an avid baker like many of you and have had great success recently with sour dough starter breads- I think my best success was last weekend with the Thom Leonard's boule recipe from Maggie Glezer's artisan bread book.   It was flavorful and the crust was wonderfully crunchy.  (I still need to work on my shaping, however. It came out more rectangular than round!!)

Now to the challenge:  I often buy (horror's- bought bread :) !!  a loaf of Trader Joe's Three Seed and Honey Seed bread, and it is really special tasting.  I think what makes it special is the small amount of honey and the seeds, especially the fennel seeds.  It has poppy seeds in the dough, and more poppy seeds, fennel seeds, and sesame seeds on the crust.  If anyone is familiar with this bread- I buy it in the Philadelphia area, I thought maybe you could help me to come up with a formula which would be like or probably better than the original!!!

Well, I had mixed success with TomsBread's method. I mixed 450 grams of whole wheat flour with 388 grams of water (85% hydration) and just a pinch of yeast. I put it in the beer-cooler incubator at 85 degrees F for 3 hours, and than popped it in the fridge for about 15 hours. I then pulled it out, let it warm at 85 degrees for an hour, and tried my best to mix in 1 tsp yeast and 9 grams of salt. Wasn't easy, though, because the dough was very well developed by this point.

Hi Folks,

I am brand new to the forum, but I am a pretty accomplished artisan bread baker. Mostly I make breads from Amy Scherber's book, Amy's Bread. I found the forum because I was trying to find a hint about how long one can effectively retard bread. I made some bread with a sponge on Sunday and I am just going to bake it today, I will let you all know how it turns out if anyone is interested.

However this post is about "no knead" bread. I had noticed it on this forum but didn't take the time to find out what it was all about. Then on the front page of our paper's "Taste" section (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) there was a huge article on this technique. What it didn't explain, and what I would like to know is... what is the magic of putting the dough into a dutch oven or La Cloche or some kind of receptacle? Can one make the dough, form a loaf, let it rise, then slide it onto a stone an bake normally?

Using Daniel Leader's formula for Pain Au Levain for the last few bakings, making both torpedo and boulet shapes

Levain                                                  18 ounces

Hi folks,

This is my first post here, though I've been making Artisan-style breads, mostly sour-doughs, for little over a year now. The techniques I've picked up have been mostly from Reinhart's BBA. Here's my question. When I transfer the boule from the proofing bowl to my peel prior to docking and putting in the oven, the dough sticks to the cloth such that I have to very carefully peel it away. This is very tedious at best and frustrating to say the least. I have two cloths that I use: one is a flax couche that I got from Baker's Catalogue, the other is a cotton tea-towl (not terry cloth). Both have been sprayed with oil and then impregnated with flour to try and prevent this sticking, but I can't seem to figure what I might be doing wrong or how to prevent it.