Submitted by majorvox on October 13, 2010 - 10:06am

Hello from Renton Washington! First time post


Hello Everybody!

I have been bumping around trying to bake bread for several years.  My Grandmother had a recipe that used half a box of the old ban cereal that looked like twigs and sticks, but the result was a firm, excellent, basic white sandwich bread.  I remember spending what seemed like to my 7 year old mind an hour at least kneading the dough, although I'm sure it was not that long.  So far doing my own kneading by hand most of my attempts have not been very successful.  I am not sure I am kneading correctly and I should probably watch a couple of Youtube videos on the subject.  I have to admit that I have arthritis in my hands and kneading by hand is not that wonderful of an experience for me.

I love sourdough and I have managed to create a wonderful sourdough starter that I have kept alive for several months now and I call it Frank, (Yes as in Frankenstein).  I have made a sourdough cornbread that was almost more like a creamy pudding!  It was wonderful, but my breads have for the most part tasted okay but the crumb has been poor.

I am now trying to use weight measurements for my ingredients since it can be tricky determining how much flour to use, packed or fluffed?  I live in Northwest Washington State, just South of Seattle and it is usually between 45 degrees F/7.2 degrees C to 69 degrees F/20.5 degrees C.  So I have a finished, insulated shed in my back yard that I can heat up to 80 degrees F/26.6 degrees C and I have found that I can do all my rising and proofing in the shed and get decent reactions from my dough. 

Yesterday I started the 100% Calvel sourdough Pain au levian bread.  I have to admit that I was extremely surprised when I made the refreshed culture and this time I put it in a tall, 6 inch diameter juice container and marked the container where it should be at about triple the volume and after 6 hours it had actually reached that mark!  I was skeptical that it would actually rise that much!

Since I had not thought the recipe through very well I found myself up at 1:00a.m. to mix the dough, which to some extent was almost a disaster since I had also not figured out the measurements ahead of time
Where does this website hail from?  Australia?  I'm just curious since almost all of the measurements are in grams and I have to convert everything to ounces which can be difficult when the conversion is an odd number like 1.18 ounces and my scale is a physical needle with one ounce markings.  I will have to pick up a nice new digital scale.  Any suggestions?

Anyway I digress, I found out quickly that slightly over 4 cups of flour and the amount of water is more than my nice little Cuisinart 5.5 quart stand mixer can handle!  It was too late to do it all in two batches so when I was finished I had to hand kneed the dough to make sure everything was incorporated and then I had to spend a half an hour with a tooth pick and paper towels removing dough from the upper housing of my mixer! Ooof!  That was a lesson I will not forget. 

Well I am doing the mix the dough and refrigerate until tonight when I will divide, shape, proof and bake half of the dough.  According to the threads in the

100% sourdough bread from The Taste of Bread by R. Calvel

forum topic I should be able to get 3, 1.5 pound loaves from half of the dough.  I am going to also see if I can find a stainless steel bowl to cover the dough for the first 20 minutes and see how that does for helping my pathetic old gas oven bake a springier loaf.  If I can't find a bowl I do have a stainless steel pot but it is Teflon lined and I am not sure I want to get it up to the heat levels that it might inside my oven.  I also have a medium sized dutch oven that I can invert over the loaf as well but I am not sure how much room it has inside to allow the loaf to rise as far as it might.

Anyway, this is my first rambling hello message in these forums!  I will post my results after tonight!  So far at least the measuring by weight has been more successful for the first results!

David Chapman

Submitted by fatdog on December 21, 2008 - 1:01pm

My Wife is Very Very Good to Me

My wife was very good to me on my birthday (Dec. 18).  She gave me a copy of The Taste of Bread.  What an amazing book.  I had borrowed a copy of it from the local library and had started reading it, sorta' rushing through the science to get to the baking.  Now I can take my time reading while I am out for the Christmas break (I teach high school drafting).  Right no there is a 70% hydration French dough in its primary fermentation.  I'll let y'all know how it turns out!

 R. Alan "Doc" Kinsey
"Better a dry crust with peace and quiet,
than a house full of feasting with strife."

Submitted by dolfs on March 12, 2008 - 2:11pm

"Bread and baker: From the Source" - podcasts


For a while now I've known about the existence of a set of three VHS tapes: "Bread & Baker: From the Source". It is a 3 tape set (VHS) which has Prof. Raymond Calvel teaching, in detail, the production of various types of bread as part of his visit to the Culinary Institute of America. It was co-produced by the BBGA (Bread Bakers Guild of America).

If you look around the Internet you'll be able to find them for sale (although not easy to find). Right now, there is a set available on eBay for $135. Problem is that many of us don't even have a VHS anymore. Second problem is that $135 may be well over most people's budget, and that is a "good" price. In the past the BBGA made it available to its members only for $150!

CIA comes to the rescue. They have taken the most important segments of these videos and made them available as video podcasts. While this section is about book reviews, I decided these videos should be of enough interest to warrant review here.

This is really a little bit of a misnomer. Podcasts are typically streamed to your computer and loaded on your iPod. These are basically MPEG4 videos you download. You can, however, put them on your iPod if you wish. They are 640x480 resolution, which means they are nearly the resolution of Standard Definition TV. Image quality and sound quality are very good.

The good thing is that you can selectively buy any of the 9 segments (varying in length from 5-17 minutes) for $4.95 each. Here is a description and brief review of each:

  1. Introduction (Size: 52.3 MB, Length: 6:41)
    An introduction to bread and Prof. Calvel and his life and work. Introduction to basics of French Bread baking, technique and quality requirements. Interesting background material. Not much technical information.
  2. Ingredients and Mixing (Size: 96.4 MB, Length: 11:46)
    Gives detailed information about ingredients and their properties. Discusses why you want to use unbleached flours, milling, resting period, baking performance, gluten water absorptions. Water quality is not important except for chlorination (undesirable), or too high mineral content. Amount of water needed and environment. Yeast and its role. Salt and its role. Additions such as ascorbic acid, malt and lecithin. The importance of proper mixing and over oxidation (improved mix vs. conventional mix) and the use of autolyse. Presents his philosophy on great bread. This is all still background material, but well worth knowing.
  3. Fermentation (Size: 38.7 MB, Length: 5:46)
    Importance of correct (and long) fermentation. Direct method with intensive or conventional mix versus using pre-ferments. Discusses poolish, sponge (levain), and pâte fermentée. Short mix. Does not show technique, but teaches the difference and importance between mixing techniques.
  4. Division, Molding & Baking (Size: 43.9 MB, Length: 5:32)
    This is the first segment where you can learn technique that may not always be obvious. Not everything is explained, but watch the hands at work and learn. Discusses purpose of bulk fermentation vs. proofing. Humidity and its importance. Scoring and baking. Crackling or "singing" crust.
  5. Baguettes (Size: 134.8 MB, Length: 16:31)
    While dedicated to a particular bread it shows much generally useful material (fermentation, keeping quality etc.) and useful tips (e.g. put dry yeast in at beginning of mix, before autolyse, but fresh yeast after). It shows the complete process from start to finish. Also shows making of the "Pain Rustique" and "Parisienne", made from the same dough. This segment is really half of a set of two as the formula is not presented until the end of segment 6.
  6. Pain de Campagne (Size: 82.7 MB, Length: 10:20)
    Country bread is the sister of the baquette and is baked in many different shapes. Includes "Pain Fendu," "Couronne" (ring & horse shoe), and "Bouton d'Or" (Butter cup). Comments about excessive application of flour on the outside. Finishes up with the formulas for baguette and pain de campagne. Other comments are similar as to the baguette section.
  7. Pain au Levain (Size: 125.8 MB, Length: 15:31)
    This is the first of three segments belonging together: Specialty Breads. This segment is about the French version of sourdough bread. Shows all steps in producing and refreshing a (stiff) starter and introduces correct terminology (Seed culture, Mère, elaboration, tout-point, Levain). Shows the shaping of the boulot and boule. Other comments are similar as to the baguette section.
  8. Pain de Seigle (Size: 47.7 MB, Length: 5:46)
    Rye bread, eaten in France with seafood and charcuterie (cold cuts). Discusses formula (and use of viral wheat gluten). Other comments are similar as to the baguette section.
  9. Pain de Mie (Size: 68.6 MB, Length: 8:07)
    Pulmann bread, or pan bread, also known as sandwich bread. Includes formula. Shows three different shaping options: round ball shapes (5 balls), pan roll, and "twisted" shape. Advantage of machine shaping: uniform texture. Even shows a bread with a small defect: "Even a pro can good up!" Other comments are similar as to the baguette section.

All together 691 MB of video, just under 90 minutes in length. If you don't want all segments, or can't afford them, I'd suggest getting 2, 3 and 4 together for basic explanations and techniques, and only getting any of the others if you have a particular interest in those breads. Segments 5 and 6 can be used individually, but are part of a combined section. Segment 5 is also useful as a single segment extension to 2, 3 and 4, showing the whole process.

The CIA's online shop is found at: http://www.ciaprochef.com and these videos are found on the podcast page. You may want to explore the online store: there is a lot of other material available. After you order you'll receive an email with links to download the segment(s) you bought. The servers are quite slow and, effectively, you will only be able to download one video at a time. For all 9 videos, and on a very fast Internet connection, this took me about 70 minutes. So beware! (Tip: Download each next segment while watching the previous one).

Conclusion: Great buy for anybody that wants to learn more than baking one recipe all the time and wants to venture into a couple of different styles of bread. Any or all of the segments are well taped and digitized with as good a quality and resolution as may be expected from an original VHS production. The material represents classic knowledge about french techniques that have wide applicability to all bakers. As video material, this is necessarily less complete than Calvel's seminal work "Le Gout du Pain" or its english translation "A Taste of Bread", but at the same time it is much more friendly to the beginning or home baker that wants to learn more. Well worth the money, in my opinion, for each segment that is of interest to you, or for all of them. Unfortunately there is no discount available for getting all of them.

--dolf

Submitted by ryaninoz on September 24, 2007 - 3:05pm

Bosch Mixture and Raymond Calvel French book translated Taste of Bread

Hello all have a few questions that I should separate into two forums but decided to just have a go in one.