Last weekend I took another stab at the Sourdough English muffins, going with some of the modifications that I suggested in my previous post. Here is my recipe for this batch with the changed ingredients from Nancy Silverton's original recipe in boldface:

SPONGE:
18 oz White Starter
2 cups plain soy milk
7 oz unbleached white bread flour (high extraction - 14% protein) (I used 1 oz less)
3.5 oz dark rye flour

DOUGH:
Sponge
10 oz warm water (85 degrees)
0.3 oz of SAF instant yeast
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup rye flakes
2 tbs raw sunflower seeds
2 tbs raw pepitas
7 oz unbleached white bread flour (high extraction - 14% protein)
1/4 cup (minus a smidge) honey
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 tbs kosher salt
Cake flour for dusting
Semolina flour for dusting

This was my first shot at making Essential's Columbia bread..................batards slightly deflated when they were scored...probably overproofed a little.  Anyway,  this is a very good bread.  Thanks Mountaindog for your wet starter recipe. 

I've done a fair amount baking of sourdough hearth breads using standard recipes from Reinhart, Glezer, et al. I've always used standard flours from KA, such as their whole wheat, white whole wheat, rye blend, bread flour, Sir Lancelot high gluten, and others. Recently someone brought me some "sifted stone ground whole wheat flour" from Littleton Grist Mill in NH. I found I had some trouble with it that I suspect revolves around the need for malted barley flour addition, possibly aging, and possibly hydration differences, as well as needing to figure out the protein content and adjust for that, as well. But, it did get me thinking about exploring the availability of flours straight from mills in retail quantities and motivated the questions below.

Hello Flour Fanatics

Just thought I would post a couple of thoughts and discoveries.  The first involves the gentle handling of the dough in order to not degas it.  I do my best to handle the dough as little as possible but now i'm not sure how much difference this makes.  I made pizza this weekend out of the same dough I use for my everyday bread.  I mixed, folded and proofed as usual.  I then rolled it out pretty flat before attemting to throw it.  Bottom line is I brutalized this dough by my standards.  I topped and baked and guess what happened?  You got it, tons of bubbles, some were quite large.  The edge of the crust was light and airy and full of irregular bubbles.  This was no ciabatta but if you saw the dough after the roll out you would not have thought there was a whole lot of gas left in it.  Me thinks I have been a little wimpy handling my dough in an attemt to get that crumb we all desire.  I therefore have to think that good crumb is more the result of good complete proofing rather than gentle handling?  I would be curious to know if any of you have noticed the same thing.

I've had Manoucher www.manoucher.com a few times now and I must say that each bread I've tried is so thought provoking. Not just how to follow the recipe, but what Manoucher was thinking when it was created.

What impresses me as well is that they hand make all their breads and still sell 50000 loaves worldwide weekly! 

I'm new at this and I'm spending a fortune buying artisan bread so I'd better learn to make my own need help to learn how

Boy howdy, did I just have a horrible experience with all-purpose flour. I'm not sure I just got a bad sack or if the flour was simply wrong for bread, or if I should have done something completely different.

The grocery where I made my last shopping run did not carry King Arthur bread flour, my default choice, so I picked up 5-lbs of White Lily AP. Tried to use it with Floyd's daily-bread recipe and it was a disaster. The poolish never developed more than teensy little air bubbles, and the dough absolutely refused to rise more than a little bit, even after 24 hours and a number of folds. The dough ended up as too stiff and too sticky at the same time, if you can picture that.

Ok my first attempt at a marbled rye sourdough was an awful mess. I think I need to add more starter next time as it was so sour the whole kitchen stunk, the kids stayed away from it. Good news though, the sheep loved it (I feed all leftover rock hard bread to the sheep)

I also used blackstrap molasses to colour the rye flour but next time I am going to double sift my dark rye so it will be lighter and maybe shift to caramel to colour the dark dough.

No pictures this time. 

The Phoenixville Farmers' Market(www.phoenixvillefarmersmarket.org), a highly successful Saturday morning grower/producer market, is seeking a baker to sell artisanal breads and breakfast pastires.  Phoenixville is located 20 miles west of center city Philadelphia, and is a proven location to sell locally produced high quality foods. For more information, contact Bill Andersen at 610-291-9288 or .

Question #1: Please clarify for me what is meant when Julia Childs in her baking video says that it is necessary to feed the yeast with salt and sugar at the very beginning of the process.  However, Rose Beranbaum in her Bread Bible on pg. 45 says that "salt can kill the yeast if it comes in direct contact with it."  Question #2: Why is it that when after the first proofing I go to knead the dough and rather than being elastic it bounces back and won't allow me to knead it?  It is hard for me to keep my kitchen above 70 degree