Greetings bakers, 

I'm opening a small bake shop, but I'm having trouble finding a few items in bulk at reasonable prices.

-Linen Lined Banneton:

         I found them online by Matfer Bourgeat, but they were $20-$30 each! That sounds crazy!? I was paying just $9  for each 1kg willow bannenton from Germany: http://brotformen.de/.  

         Must I order them from france? I found linen/cotten bannetons for about $5: http://www.meilleurduchef.com/cgi/mdc/l/fr/boutique/produits/dec-banneton_entoile_ovale_230.html Are there any other options? Should I just make my own?

Couche: I've also found couche in the US, but each peice seems to be $20, that also seems wild. Are there any places where I can buy a long peice and cut it myself? 

I guess I'm just looking for bulk suppliers for artisan bakeries. Do they exist? Thanks! 

Want to share my recent experience from brotform.com. I purchased 3 of the natural flax couche. I am happy to report the whole experience was great. I will definitly order all my bread stuff from them in the future. The prices are the best I have seen and the quality of the products is excellent. Here is the link to my recent purchase.

http://brotform.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7&products_id=44

I recently got a $20 bakers couche from brotform.com and tried it out for the first time today.  I floured it up liberally and whomped up a couple of sourdough loaves with sesame seeds for tomorrow (Thanksgiving). 

The loaves expanded lengthwise more than I expected as they rose in the couche so I had to sort of scrunch them a little as I maneuvered them onto my oiled baking sheet so they would fit, and they wound up with some minor "accordian pleats".  A nice skin formed on the loaves as they rose in the couche and that made slashing easy as pie.  Somewhere along the way the "accordion pleats" mostly went away and the loaves turned out rather pretty!

I'm not really sure how to get the excess flour off without losing sesame seeds but I'll try to deal with that tomorrow.  Aside from the unexpected lengthwise expansion and the excess flour problem I think I like this new couche!

Any input from others on "couche techniques" would be most welcome!

I was bored, so I took some pictures of bread I was making! Enjoy!

Sourdough Rounds

Ciabatta

Sourdough Rolls

Sourdough Batards, rolls, and Jalapeno/Cheddar boulots in couche

The good, the bad and the ugly.

Ok, so I decide to really "apply" myself to this weekends effort.  Many were kind to recommend KA All Purpose (flavor and crumb very nice so that was a winner) and I blend two of Reinhart's recipes using a pate fermente.  I blend the french baguette and the Basic Sour Dough as I am trying to get more towards a baguette off of a starter I have been using for 3+ years now.  As I changed the flour and made myself a couche yesterday and two banetons I knew the number of variables were getting a bit out of hand for a proper test.  I also decided to go a bit wetter with what I learned from other posts and videos here.

I got great 2nd rise from the breads in the banetons, the same with the couche baguettes; everything looked wonderful when it was time to warm the oven.  I got the first baguette out of the couche and onto the peel with no problem, it held its form well enough for a proper slicing from the lame.  The others not so much.  Getting the breads out of the rest of the couche, and the baskets cost too much de-gassing.  The breads were VERY deflated and difficult to cut and I did not get the proper bloom in the oven, they tried but sort of petered out in their efforts.  

My plan next time is maybe not so wet (though many of the videos here seem like pretty wet dough) and hope to develop a "technique" to get out of the couche and onto the stone/parchment/peel whatever it takes to not get too degassed.

IF anyone expereinced something similar regarding the handleing of the bread please provide a link or thoughts.  

BTW, all is not lost, the bread will go fine with a nice Beef Rogan Josh, Lentils and yogurt mint Indian dish.

THanks in advance

Hank

I’ve been working since September to produce my own “perfect” sourdough bread. Three weeks ago I was pretty much there, but you know, I keep tweaking, trying to make it more sour, and the recipe more reliable. Well, my tweak this time was changing flour. I’d been using KA Bread flour, but kept reading about people using KA All-Purpose flour and it was “just the same,” “worked just as well,” etc., etc. They never said it was just as good but different. . .

I had promised to bring two loaves to the Easter Dinner party we were invited to, so I took my starter out of the fridge Thursday night and started feeding it: quarter cup of bread flour, two tablespoons purified water, twice a day. This starter is happy, vigorous, bubbly, and I’ve come to understand that the fault lies with the baker in this house, not with the starter. It’s been very patient with me as I’ve struggled to learn.

This morning I started my bread, using about 1/2 cup of starter, along with some preferment, and adding those to 500 gm warm purified water. I added 750 gm flour (350 each of bread flour and AP flour, with 50 gm of rye flour) and 15 gm salt. It was very shaggy, much more than I remembered. Hm. Can’t be all that different, right? It’ll come along. I rolled it into a ball and put it into an oiled container in my rising area. Did hourly stretch-and-folds four times. The dough was so wet I ended up working on a floured surface, with floured hands.

I cut it in half, shaped it into two loaves and put them into my floured couche. An hour into the rise I started to preheat my oven to 500 degrees. And put my cast iron Dutch oven in there as well, hoping it would be my life saver. (It was. . .)

An hour and forty-five minutes of proofing and they were ready to go, but I could see that they were still soft and would not likely maintain their shape. The first loaf basically de-gassed as I rolled it onto the Silpat mat I use for baking. Bummer.  I poured the other loaf into the heated Dutch oven, sprayed it with water, and covered it. I dropped the temperature to 470 and baked them for thirty minutes. The loaf was done, but pale and misshapen.  I took the cover off the Dutch oven and gave it another ten minutes at 450. It was a glorious honeyed mahogany color, with a few surface bubbles and some shallow thin streaks of cracking (I’ll bet there’s a term for that that I don’t know. . . I never slashed the surface, but it did break open beautifully with these feathery trails.)

I’d love to say that the pictures are here, but the loaf traveled to our dinner party on the cooling rack in the back seat of the car. It was consumed in total with oohs and ahhs, enjoyed by all. I’ll do it again. WOW!  The flavor was full, nutty. Not “sour” enough, but probably sour to some.  The crumb was grayish (the rye, probably) beautiful, with smaller holes than I had hoped for but lots of them, and that lovely translucence that some bread gets.

So. . . questions and comments:  Did the change to 46.6% AP flour make the difference in wetness? If so, I will go back to 100% bread flour. Is the success of Dutch oven baking more reliable? (I was desperate that at least ONE of my loaves “work!” and the Dutch oven did it with dough I thought was a loss.) With dough that wet, how could I have increased the flour after the first stretch-and-fold with any reliability, to something that would have worked as loaves. . . ?

. . . and how do I make it more sour? I’ve been reluctant to go to the citric salt that I understand is used by many commercial bakers, but maybe it’s time. 

Thanks for any comments or suggestions – love hearing from the experts and hard-working wannabees on this site. It’s awesome!

Peggy

Hi everyone,

I mentioned it in my blog but I thought I'd post it here too.  I bought a canvas drop cloth at the hardware store.  it says it's heavy duty, tight cotton weave; absorbent; washable and reusable.

See?  Okay, so it's rather blurry and sideways.

Here's as good a closeup as I can get of the weave:

It's still in the plastic in case i need to return it.

So, is it worth trying with this stuff or is it all wrong?

Meanwhile, from what i've gathered, I'm supposed to wash it (with bleach?) and then rub flour into it?  Is that all?

Thanks everyone!

Sergio

Hi All,

I tried again with the baguettes.  This time I used 1.25 cups of flour and .5 cup of water, 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast (i bought the glass jar in spite of some of ya'll's advice so i'll be using it for a while.) and 1/4 teaspoon of salt (i should've used more salt)...

So, does it count as an autolyzing if I've already added the yeast and the salt? Since i've got the active dry stuff i have to soak it first and since i'm using so little water i don't have enough to divide it.

Anyway, the dough was a lot firmer than I'm used to and I'm thinking I might try an extra .25 cup of water to see what happens.  I transferred the shaped baguette onto a hot cookie sheet and that seems to have helped with oven spring.  This time the shaping was a lot better-- I took occidental's advice and dusted the flour with a sifter and that combined with how the dough was a lot more dry than what I've been using so I managed to shape a pretty pretty loaf.

My knife obviously isn't cutting it ;) when it comes to scoring.  I went to the local wal-mart to look for straight razors (is that what they're called... oops, double edged razors) well, the saleslady looked at me like i was crazy.  I also went to the hardware store to find drop canvas-- more on that in a bit-- and some quarry stones.  All the tiles they had were glazed.  There's this place down the road that has a lot of rocks and stuff so maybe they'll have some.

The bread came out a bit darker than I like and i'm not too crazy about the taste of it.  Also it's missing some salt... actually, i've got some more dough in the fridge, let me go add salt to that now...

I'll let you all know what happens when you add salt 10 hours into a cold fermentation/rising.

Here's the crumb

The bread came out sort of dry but that may have been because i tried baking at 500 for the first 10 minutes-- i won't try that again...

I don't reckon I'll count this as a victory-- except for the shaping; it's the best shaping i've been able to manage so far...

I think i put too much salt in the dough for next time... it'll be a half teaspoon for ~1.25 cups of flour.

anyway, regarding couches-- i went to the hardware store and got canvas drop cloth.  It says it's heavy-duty tight cotton weave, absorbent, washable and reusable, 8.oz. 4'x5' finished size

sorry about it being sideways... and here's as good a closeup of the weave as i could get with my camera

It's still in the plastic in case i've made a terrible mistake I can return it.

Does anyone know whether it'll work or not?  By the way, I need to wash it (with bleach as well as detergent?) then once it's dry rub flour into the weave?  is that how one turns it into a couche?

 On the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of "Good Eats" I've decide to get my "nerd on" and offer a detailed explanation for a small detail.

 From time to time I read discussions on couches and couche care on these pages and I encounter what I will call "folklore" about the fibers and  fabric care.

I will not wade too deeply into the various controversies, but I do have some small expertise on fibers and fabric care and would really like to share it for those who desire a more complete understanding of this fascinating topic.

 Let's start with linen.  Linen is a bast fiber (other common bast fibers are jute, hemp, and ramie) which means that it comes from the center stalk of a plant.  In the case of linen, it comes from the center stalk of the flax plant.  The fibers that are known as flax before they are spun and linen after they are spun are the long fibrous strands found between the outer "bark" and inner core of the flax plant.  Although the flax plant obligingly provides us with seeds for use in our baking as well as fiber, the culture is different between those plants destined mostly for fiber and those destined mostly for seed.  Plants to be grown for fiber are planted close together so that the plant will grow tall and straight with little branching and fewer flowers.  Plants grown for seed are planted further apart so that they will branch and produce more flowers.  Additionally, different varieties of flax are cultivated commercially for these purposes and to achieve these ends, so while it is a romantic notion to think that the very same plant gives us linen for our couche and seeds for our bread, it is a just a bit invalid here in the early days of the 21^st century.

 Because it is a bast fiber, linen is extremely strong.  Also bast fibers do not have any crimp (like a lock of wool or a cotton fiber) and so will not shrink.

 Because of the expense of producing cotton (more later) and its limited growing range, linen was the most commonly used fiber in Europe until the end of the 18^th century and continued to be widely used until the invention of the cotton gin.

Flax becomes linen in a multi step process.  After the plant has reached maturity, it is harvested - preferably by pulling it from the ground root and all to maximize the length of the fiber.  It is dried, the seed pods removed, and then retted.  Retting is a process where the flax is kept wet - either by submerging it in water or keeping it on a moist surface (like the dew on grass) until the outer layer partially decomposes exposing the fibers.  Once again it is dried.  The next step is breaking where the outer layer is further broken mechanically.  Scutching comes next - where a knife like device is used to further scrape the outer layer from the fibers.  At this point the fibers are mostly clean, but they are further cleaned and straightened by a process known as hackling.  A flax hackle looks something like a medieval torture device and is a board from which protrude number of sharp iron spikes.  The hackling process will produce long fibers that will be spun into fine linen and short yellow fibers called "tow."  When we look at a blonde child and call her a "tow head" we are comparing the color and texture of her hair to the color and texture of the tow produced by this process.  Tow can also be spun, but it will not be as smooth as fine linen.  After all this, the fibers are spun (after mounting them on a distaff) (oh, and they are usually spun wet to give the smoothest results) and become linen.  This can either be bleached (by the action of chemicals or the sun) or left natural.  Then it is woven and there is one more chance to bleach it. 

 After all it has gone through to become cloth; one really must ponder why we have come to think of this fiber as "delicate."  Yes, it can be finely spun to produce a very fine fabric, but this is a tough fiber indeed.

 I have planted and tended flax, processed it and spun it into linen.  This is one of the reasons why $9 per yard for couche linen does not cause me to flinch.  While I understand that people's economic situations and propensity to spend vary, I consider the number of steps to create that cloth and I can't begrudge anyone the money.

One characteristic of linen is that it absorbs and evaporates moisture quickly.  This makes it particularly suited for use as a couche, since in theory one of the functions of the couche is to pull moisture from the surface of the bread to prepare it for better scoring.  This also means that once a linen couche is used and has absorbed some moisture, it will dry more quickly and so prevent mold.

 New linen couche cloth needs to be washed to rid it of any chemicals used in finishing.  It will ravel somewhat, but well woven linen couche cloth will not ravel excessively.  It can be washed in hot water simply to get it as clean as possible.  There is no need to use hot water to shrink it (for, as mentioned before, it can not shrink).  Mild soap should be used for fine or antique linens, but for a couche as long as you feel good about it rinsing out of the cloth, the linen does just fine with any modern detergent (I routinely launder my linen aprons in regular detergent and they are holding up just fine...).  This being the one of the sturdiest fibers there is (consider that sails were made of linen) there is no need for a gentle cycle for couche cloth.  (Again, fine or antique linens are another diverting topic in and of themselves and are treated differently.)  Linen couche cloth can safely be dried in an automatic dryer.  (Actually, the dryer is the biggest enemy of linen (and cotton) - not because of the heat, but because the tumbling action will cause friction on the fabric and pull off parts of the fiber which we experience as dryer lint.  However, since the couche will not be washed often - have no fear.)  Fabric softeners (liquids or dryer sheets) should not be used as they impact the absorption qualities of the fiber (this also goes for cotton.)  (Won't get involved in the whole "toxic chemicals" debate.)  It might be slightly puckered after washing and drying (and again, this is wrinkling, not shrinkage) but since this is the one and only time you should be washing it, any raveled threads can be trimmed and the cloth is ready.  No need to hem or serge it.  If you wish to iron it, it should be ironed when quite damp.

 Linen contains a wax that when exposed to the heat of an iron will provide the fabric with a luster.  We hardly care about this in our couches, but when dealing with fine linen cloth it is best to iron it on both sides to maximize the luster.

 Cotton requires a warm climate and a long growing season to reach maturity.  When picked from the plant, the cotton contains about 2/3 seeds to 1/3 fiber.  Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, these seeds needed to be picked out by hand or by putting each cotton tuft through a couple of rollers to squeeze out the seeds (either one a labor intensive process.)  When the cotton is dried after harvest, the fiber dries into a flat ribbon shape that corkscrews.  This is the crimp that will cause cotton to shrink.  It also gives cotton more elasticity than linen, so it is less prone to wrinkles.

 Because cotton fibers are relatively short (different varieties of cotton have different fiber lengths, but they are all considered short in relation to wool - and of course linen where the fibers may be 2-3 feet in length), they require a great deal of twist when spinning.  Although cotton is easy to spin, putting in a lot of twist causes spinning to be relatively slow.  In an environment of hand spinning or limited mechanical spinning, cotton is a luxury fiber.  Most folks who live in the US are familiar with the role that the cotton gin played in the American South and how ensuing events lead to conflict.

 I have also planted, grown, harvested, cleaned, and spun my own cotton.  It seems like it should be less effort than processing flax, but harvesting is kind of grueling (yes, the cotton pods are sharp!), and picking out the seeds - although simple - is pretty time consuming.  Also, I could grow flax in Colorado and not cotton.  And I like it here...  In fact, it is this limited growing range that created an important cotton trade.  Flax, on the other hand, was readily grown in many climates and never reached this kind of economic importance.

 Cotton does not have the wicking power of linen so will take longer to dry and "in theory" will not perform as well as linen to pull moisture from dough.  I won't weigh in on the cotton vs. linen couche decision except to say that I like the feel of linen as opposed to cotton.  I like touching it and I try to use it when I can.  (A linen bath towel dries like nothing else, by the way.)  Obsessive perfectionists might want to blow the money to get the absolute perfect fabric for the application (and it is.)  If we look backwards to "the old ways" - especially old European ways - linen would be the fabric of choice as cotton would have been too rare and expensive.  But cotton is just fine.

 Once again, a well woven cotton couche will ravel when washed (and it should be washed to remove finishing chemicals), but not so much as to be a problem.  Since this should be the one and only time the couche is washed, these threads can be trimmed and will not be a problem again.  No need to hem, serge, etc. unless even the smallest amount of raveling (in the past) is something you simply cannot tolerate.  Similarly, since the couche will not be washed again, washing it in hot water will cause it to shrink a bit, but there is really no need to shrink it.  Most cotton that is commercially available has already gone through enough processing so that any major shrinkage has already occurred.

 No matter what fabric you use, the couche should be dry before storage, or stored in such a way that it will dry quickly in storage.  Those of us in dry climates can be a bit careless, while those in humid climates might wish to find a spot to hang couches until they are dry.  Folding any fabric will result - over time - in permanent creases and will eventually cause weak spots in the fabric along those crease lines.  "Over time" is sort of a relative thing.  For a couche which we might be using for ten or twenty years and will not be passed down to the children and grandchildren, this should not be a concern.  Creases will develop, but they will not substantially reduce the functionality of the couche.  For treasured quilts or tablecloths, many experts recommend that they be rolled, or if that is not practical that folds be padded with acid free tissue paper and that periodically they be re folded in a different way.  Personally I can roll my couche and so I do.

 Yes, it's a long winded post with no pictures and I realize that it will fade away as more blogs are created, but I've really done my homework on this and attempted to present facts as opposed to folklore.  Hope it is useful and dispels some myths.

After I proof my Basilicata-style high-hydration loaves, one of two problems occurs.  Either I've floured the couche too sparingly, and the dough bonds to it so that I have to separate it with a knife blade (sometimes with unhappy results), or I've floured too liberally, and the dough carries a thick layer of unincorporated flour that spoils the crust.  In the second case, I try to scrape off as much of the extra flour as possible with a blade or a brush, but still the extra flour still prevents portions of the crust from caramelizing, and leaves an unpleasant dusty feel on the tongue when you bite into it.  How do you wizards do it?