hi there

does anyone know of mistakes in Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day (ABED)?

In particular, I have been trying the Pain au `Levain (p 61) different times, with poor results. The recipe calls for a lot of starter in relation to flour: 16 oz/458 g starter being added to  16 oz/458g bread flour (+ 11 oz/312 g water and almost 3 tsp salt)

this is a 1:1 ration, starter: flour.

is it correct? is it a printing mistake?

isnt' it too much?

the dough doesn't develop any proper gluten. It looks and feels as if the starter "has fed" on all the flour - apologies for my lack of technical explanations. After the initial proofing (2.30 hrs), the dough doesn't feel/look elastic and shiny and if you try to check the gluten, it tears, instead of stretching (and yes I had mixed it according to recipe and even a little longer, on separate tests.

has anyone tried this recipe?

plus: do you think I can use all this bread dough-turned odd/unsable dough as a levain? yes, there is some salt, but it should not be a major problem?

what do you think?

has anyone tested recipes from this book,

I Am a fan of Mr Reinhart, but this book has not won me over and I don't feel hundred per cent confident in its recipes (the way I was with P Reinhart's previous books). Am I totaly wrong?

pls advise

thanks

stefano

Hello to all,

I've read book reviews here, on Amazon, and other places about apparent errors that were noted by readers in Jeffrey Hammelman's and Daniel DiMuzio's otherwise wonderfully rated books. Both of these books are published by Wiley, and I was surprised and bothered that Wiley hadn't posted Errata pages for either of these books.  Dan's book only came out this past February so one can possibly excuse the fact that there isn't an Errata page for that one, but Jeffrey Hammelman's book was published in 2004, so it's hard to find an excuse for that.

I contacted Wiley and after several emails back and forth they essentially told me that there weren't Errata pages because no one had brought any errors to their attention. When I pushed them on this they elaborated somewhat further and this is what they said:

"Thank you for contacting Wiley Technical Support.

When errata is reported by a customer we escalate the issue to the editing department of that title. It is the decision of the editing department to post an errata page, or to update an errata page that is already posted.

We appreciate our customer feedback when an error is identified. If you have any errors to report please use the "Ask a Question" section of our customer service website to report the error."

The Wiley URL for doing this is:

http://wiley.custhelp.com/app/ask/

So, if you want to take the time and trouble to do this, surely it will benefit all of us who are struggling with what we may not realize are errors in these or other bread baking books published by Wiley.

Of course it remains to be seen whether or not Wiley will actually follow up on such information or if they were just paying me lip service.

Best regards,

Mitch

Hm. Yes, must remember to remove the waffle from the oven before stepping into the shower. Does not bode well for this weekend's baking.

Last week's miche turned out quite well though. And I have a couple of loaves rising right now that I'm optimistic about.

Oh well...

After reading so much about people's love of the Thom Leonard country French bread, I decided to try it, following the steps in mountaindog's post. Here's the breakdown: