I have been travelling for 2 1/2 years with my starter and I finally left it behind by accident. I am visiting some friends in SF and meant to bring my Starter with me and mistakenly left it behind at another friends place in LA. Are there any SF bakers with a fresh sourdough that might be willing to donate a sample I can bake with this week? I took a chance and asked at Tartine, but they shot me down. :(

Feeling naked w/o my starter, help! (I'm in Potrero, but the busses here are amazing so I can come get it probably just about anywhere.)

Thanks!

Hi Fresh Loaf Loyalist.

I'm very excited to be making my first post. I've been reading for the past year. I am new to the bread world and am currently attempting my first levain. I've made poolishe's, biga's etc... but never a levain and I'm having a lot of trouble.

I just finished the intial mix and its so dry. I know its bad to add extra water but I thought b/c i didn't weigh it perhaps there was too much flour from my rye as it could have been a heavier flour. This didn't help. Is it suppoed to be this dry?

Also, I am confused about the feed. Hamelman says to do the following:

On days 2, 3 4, & 5 do two feeds every 12 hours.

The measurements are :

1. 1/3 of the intial mix 300g

2. 1 cup of flour

3. 3/8 of a cup of water 

= the total being 10.9 oz (less than the weight of the initial mix which was 13.6 oz)

I'm confused. Do I toss the rest of the intial mix? Why am I only using 1/3 of it and do I do every feed? Keep removing and adding. It doesn't make sense. I feel like I'm reading this wrong. Please help!!!

Thanks

Jackie

Please help me to identify this mixer.  We bought it not knowing what it was, but it's missing the bowl and we only have a paddle for it.  It works, smooth and quiet, but without the bowl and a hook, it's really useless.  It is way too heavy to drag around from dealer to dealer in the hope of getting it recognized, so I thought that maybe someone on this blog may know what this is.  There is a spec plate, but no manufacturer's name on it or anywhere else that I've been able to see.  The model is MIX0040, 220V, 1 phase, manufactured in 2001.  It appears to be 40 qt.  That's all that's printed on the plate.  Google search was unrevealing.  Thanks in advance.

I have an old, old, cookbook that has many recipes which call for seemingly huge amounts of yeast, and I need help converting them.  For, example, for two loves of french bread the recipe is:

2 c milk

4 tbsp lard or butter

1/2 c yeast (this seems like a ton of dry yeast)

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

Please help, as there are tons of recipes like this ranging from 1/4 c yeast to 1 1/2 c yeast. I'm assuming they mean a liquid type of yeast, so would like to know how to convert it. I would love to make some of these recipes, especially the yeast cakes, but have no idea how.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT- It calls for 8 c. flour

I just attempted my first loaf using a recipe for Whole-Wheat Spiced Bread from the World of Breads (Casella, 1966).   I proofed the yeast successfully, but the dough never rose more than about 25-50%, and the resulting bread was delicious, but not as light as I had hoped.  What went wrong?  Here's what I did:

Poured 2 c scalded milk over:

*1/4 c brown sugar, 1 t salt, 1/4 c honey, 1/3 c butter

Dissolved 2 packets Fleischmanns Rapid Rise Yeast  in 1/4 c of warm water (120 F - I swear I read this was the appropriate temperature somewhere, but now it seems too hot).  It quickly became very foamy.  Added the yeast/water mixture to my now lukewarm milk mixture.  

Added 1 egg, 1/3 c orange juice.

Mixed in 2 1/2 c white + 4 c whole wheat flour + 1 t cinnamon.  

Kneaded for about 10 min.  Placed the dough in buttered bowl covered in a damp towel, on the stove (still warm from using the burners earlier); it was around 70 F in the kitchen.  Could it have been too hot on top of the stove?  After four hours it had barely risen at all, but I went ahead and punched it down though there wasn't much to punch,  kneaded it for another minute, then set it back in the bowl and went to bed.  In the morning, it still had hardly risen at all, but I baked in two buttered 9-inch loaf pans at 425 for ten minutes, then 350 for 25 minutes.  The bread rose some in the oven, developing a nice little dome, but just barely reached the top of the pan.    

I'm trying not to get too discouraged on my first attempt, the bread was completely edible afterall.  Does anyone have any ideas about where I went wrong?  Thank you!

Help! I accidentally spilled about 1/8 to 1/4 tsp of salt into my starter! I gave it a larger than normal feed and am hoping for the best...is it doomed?

~Krista

Hi there,

I am here in California and have joined your lovely site after ANOTHER failed yeast recipe :(  I totally SUCK at yeast breads and I have no idea why lol.  It appears I am getting the proper rise out of the products its the end result that is the disaster.  1.  BLAND BLAND BLAND 2.  Not soft and supple in the middle.  The crusts are turning out good but the middles are not.  Could it be I am so scared of over kneading that I am actually under-kneading? Am I not putting in enough salt and they are turning out bland?  I just tried a no knead roasted garlic and caraway bread - beyond bland and the center was - weird - not soft -kind of hard.  It looked good with lots of holes.  It just totally stunk and we threw it away.  I feel it was close but I am missing something.  I have only used AP Flour and granulated yeast. 

Does anyone have a fail proof basic recipe? I have some fresh Rosemary or Asiago cheese I could add to it.  Maybe I should knead by hand instead of letting my KA do it? Any input would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!!!

On Sunday I made my second attempt at a starter, following Chad Robertson's (Tartine) directions from a recent artlcle in Martha Stewart Living. I mixed the flours and water, weighing all ingredients carefully. The starter bubbled and grew predictably over the last couple of days. This morning I attempted to make the first feeding. Per the instructions, I removed 75g of starter and discarded the rest, then added 150g flour mixture and 100g warm water to the 75g of starter. The instructions say I should have a "thick lump free batter" but my result is a dry-ish ball of what looks like dough! I know I followed the directions exactly because like I said, this is my second attempt. First attempt was last week, on Thursday. The result I got on Saturday when I tried to feed my starter was exactly the same. Does anyone have Robertson's book or know whether the recipe in MSL could have been a misprint? This doesn't seem right and I'm weighing my flours and water on a metric digital scale.

Hello from Amelia Court House, VA

I am been looking at the forum and trying some of the recipes here for the past couple of months and I finally decided it was time to join.  I am very new to baking.  I have made pizza dough, rolls, french bread and a few other recipes from this site.  I think I made have had beginners luck with my first few attempts.  I am very confused about gluten development.  I make all of my dough by hand in a big bowl with a big wooden spoon.  I am not sure how log I should mix it and kneed it.  My first few attemps the dough would come away from the sides of the bowl and kind of wrap around the wooden spoon as I mixed.  The dough was pretty easy to work with and shape (not real sticky and wet).  Doing the same recipe again using the same ingredients (I weigh the flower, yeast, water etc) the dough would be very wet, sticky and almost impossible to work with and try to shape.  When I try to make bread into a baquette shaped loaf it ends up being pretty flat and will not stay round and or rise properly.  I am not sure if I mixed and kneeded too much or not enough or if there is another issue.  I would appreciate any tips.

When I mixed my poolish this morning I thought I was using too much yeast, but I stupidly dumped what I had measured out into a bowl of flour and water. Now I realise I used nearly 10 times more yeast than I should have! I neglected to move the decimal place over! Darn! I haven't put it into my dough yet, I'm not sure what I should do to make sure the bread doesn't taste too yeasty. Should I just use less poolish? I'm not sure if I can mess with the rest of the flour and water because that lump of dough is currently doing the 12 hour auto-lyse section of txfarmer's 36 hour sourdough (well not sourdough for me). What's the best fix for this blunder? I used 80 grams flour 80 grams water 2 grams yeast by the way.