Hello to All,

Started making artisian bread several months ago after reading, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes". Love it and now would like expand my horizons. My problem is that the bread dosen't stay fresh like when you first made it. It seems like it's a one serving bread. What am I doing wrong.?

Kathleen

I live in northern Manhattan and, I am proud to say that today I baked my first pain au levain according to Peter Reinhart's Crust and Crumb recipe and it came out great.  But, I am write this to find out who sells stone ground fresh organic wheat flour in the local NYC area. 

Thanks.

Dan

Hi there 

this is all new to me, I have just started baking an Irish Brown bread, it contains, whole meal flour, Bran, wheat germ, treacle and milk. It tastes great and i have started to sell it into local shops in Sydney, i just need to know how long i can expect it to stay fresh and should i be doing anything to make sure it stays fresh for longer. Thanks.

I'm going on a 5-day river trip with a group of 14 people.  There will be two transportation days prior to getting on the river.  So...I need a bread that will stand up to 7-8 days of storage in hot conditions, and that can handle the rough treatment of being bounced around in a dry bag (a dry bag is like a back-pack that will not allow water inside.)  We plan to make sandwiches, but the bread doesn't have to be sliced loaves.

It was a bit disappointing to learn that I wouldn't be able to bake fresh sourdough daily along the way, in a Dutch Oven.  The fire regulations disallow even briquettes, so now I'm scrambling to come up with a new bread plan. 

Any suggestions? 

Thanks,

Terri

I know this seems a little late but I think we could all benefit if we define these terms in order to remove any confusion surrounding them.

What is a:

• new starter
• young starter
• active starter
• fresh starter
• old starter
• mature starter
• ripe starter

Thanks for participating. 

Oct 31, 2009  Changed title of thread so it is more easily located using the site search machine.  I may turn this into a FAQ or anyone wanting to make a FAQ should feel free to use the information.

I've been keeping my Bread in Sealed Ziplock Bags, being careful to let any air in.  The Bread is still soft after 3 days and seems OK to eat.

How many days after Baking will  my Bread be good for?

Thanks

Someone just gifted me with a bread book called "The New Bread Book" by Ursula Ferrigno, which I do really appreciate, but all the recipes call for FRESH YEAST, such as 1/4 oz(10G) crumbled, is there some sort of a conversion to instant or rapid rise yeast?  I really do not want to search out a bakery, not any in my loacal area, to get some, and I've read it does not last very long, any ideas?  Thanks. Russ

Most of us make more bread than we can eat.  And hey, why not when it's takes just as long to clean up after making 2 loaves as it does after making 4 loaves.  Anyway, for those of you who give away (or sell) your extras, these bags might be of interest.  I use them for our bakery packaging because they keep things crisp and allow me to package the loaves while they're still warm.  Plus, as you can see, they enable the customer to pick up the loaves and see them from top to bottom.   I print the labels on a single color laser printer (no smudging), which makes them easy to edit.  The ingredient labels on the back are standard name tag size, the main labels on the front are slightly larger.  I use brown ones for the bread and silver ones for the pastries.  

bag closeup

assorted bags

-Mark

I am contemplating making a sweet bun recipe that was taken from the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook 1970 edition (I believe it was published in the USA?). It calls for "a cake of yeast".

I've searched around the internet trying to find out just how much a "cake of yeast" weighs. Most sites I've found agree and say that a cake of yeast weighs .6 oz; one says it weighs .06 oz (!) and another says it weighs 1 oz.

This would mean an equivalent of either 3tsp, 1/3tsp, or 3.4 tsp active dry yeast. Rather a large difference, I'd sya...

I'm guessing that .06oz .6oz is the right one but which is it, please?

-Elizabeth, in Toronto Canada where compressed yeast is not the easiest thing to find; one local deli sells cakes of yeast in 50 and 100gm pieces.

P.S. DON'T get me started on the use of loose measurement terms "packets", "packages", "cakes", "some", "dollop" ...

(edited to fix typo)