Well,

I just processed my first loaf o' bread.  I've never done this before.  I went to my local grocer and the bag of KJF stood out as being natual, rustic etc...  After my purchase I realized that I bought hard red KJF.  Not so bad as i've enjoyed 100% wheat before but I whish I bought soft or hard white.  Oh well.  I will just top it with PB and J to mask the flavor...  or my first jar of chocolate crack (i mean "Nutella."  Wow!  That stuff is truley not necessary but sooo good. )

I followed KJF's recipe on the bag and the loaf turned out good (solid/airy/cooked...) but...  The taste...

I look forward to the experienced folks in this community sharing their abilities.

I really have no idea.

Well, I shouldn't say that.  I do have some knowedge of the basics (salt, shugar, flour, fire...) but this doesn't come naturally to me.

Thanks in advance.

Clint.

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.

Hello!

I am new to this forum and new to this area, Portland, OR.  Fortunately, according to Peter Reinhart, Portland is "one of the 3 best bread cities in the country".  Anyone know what the other 2 are?  Anyway, for the past 6 months or so I have been overcome with passion for breadbaking and so find this forum very useful and inspiring.

It all began for me with Mark Bittman/Jim Leahy's "Speedy No-Knead Bread" recipe; following their instructions I produced my first wow loaf.  Since then I've decided that the bread I like best is from wild yeast starters and whole grain, so I've been experimenting.  I can't get my photos to upload yet (pixel dimensions too large), sorry.

While I am living in Portland and looking for land to start my own farm, I am pursuing this new found interest in bread baking, and am trying to get a job at a bakery.  Thing is, I don't have any professional experience!  Any ideas of places to seek employment where I can learn the craft if I'm willing to work hard?  Thanks.

-Katherine

Like many, I am starting with Reinhart's BBA. Perhaps I am crazy to want to start my home sourdough experience with a 100% rye, but there you have it!

Not thinking, I started my seed culture at 10pm yesterday after an intensive day of cleaning my home, not thinking at the time what this would mean for the 24 hour feeding and what would happen when it was time to bake! Can I slowly 'shift the clock back' so to speak by feeding my seed culture and then my 'barm'/starter an hour or so earlier each day over the week so that I'm eventually at a more convenient time without causing harm to my starter?

Like many here, I have also come to realize that this is going to make an incredibly large amount of starter! When I go to do my Day 2 feeding of my seed culture later today, can I go ahead and toss out 1/2 of my day 1 ingredients and add in only half of what Reinhart says to on pg. 229 or should I stick with the large amount of seed culture and do the discarding when I get to making the actual 'barm'/starter?

I live in a warm, dry area of the country. When I say 'dry', I mean that we got only 13 1/2" of rain total for last year, less than half of our usual rainfall, and it is not likely to change any time soon. We've had a bit of rain lately, but nothing to write home about if it were anywhere but here. It is also very warm - It's only March and already I have the A/C running just to keep it at 76F in the house! What kind of effect will this kind of weather have on my starter, and what kind of adjustments might I need to make? I can't afford to run my A/C any lower than this just for the sake of bread, obviously!

I have read here that the sourdough rye is a much wetter, stickier, slacker dough. I do not have a KitchenAid or anything like that, so will be doing this all by hand. Any suggestions for handling would be greatly appreciated.

The story thus far:

I've used the starter recipe here and gotten myself a...blob. Nothing but a blob. It doesn't do much, isn't very entertaining, and I can't bake bread with it. However, it smells VERY nicely sour. I don't want to give up on it yet.

I fed it with 1/3 cup of white flour and a little under 1/4 water today. It is the consistency of thick paste.

So as I said in the tutorial thread, if I don't see action by tomorrow I'm going to feed it with 1/4 cup rye flour and 1/8 cup water and see what happens.

I'll keep things posted here so that I don't take up the other thread with personal experiences. :)

I've been wanting to start baking our bread for some time now and once I found this site I knew it was that time.  I'm a stay at home mom living in Iowa with a 9 month old daughter.  I'm making a variation on French bread as I type this...first rise is going well and if it tastes good I'll probably post the recipe.

I hope I learn a lot while I'm here!

I am new to the site and to bread making.  I just made my first loaf tonight.  Orange walnut bread and it turned out pretty good for the first try.  I do think that I made one mistake.  During the last 10 minutes of baking I had to take out the bread and pour on top 1/2 cup sugar mixed with 3 TBS orange juice.  Instead of it staying in the middle, most of it ran to the sides.  I put it in to finish the last 10 minutes of baking.  When I took it out it was a little sticky on the top edges.  Still had a great taste.  The orange juice mixture seemed a little thick when pouring.  Not sure, any thoughts?

Also, just want to say I love this site.  I have learned so much from reading all the info.  I plan to get my own mill and grind my own flour in the near future.  Looking forward to learning from all of ya'll. 

Well, as my account name states I am a Kansas girl stuck in Maryland.  Even though I have now officially lived in Maryland (Ellicott City to be exact) longer than I lived in Kansas (Topeka)(I moved right after college graduation) I will ALWAYS consider myself a Kansan (sorry you Marylanders).

 I have always loved making bread, but have had long bouts (we are talking years) of not making bread.  When I first moved out on my own I made all my own bread.  Mostly plain white from a very old copy of a Betty Crocker bread recipe book.  I would occasionally throw in a loaf of french bread (recipe from the same Betty Crocker book).  I also whipped the occasional loaf of Dilly Casserole Bread (the best no knead bread I have ever had).  But until recently I have been in a long dry spell.

 Then this past winter I discovered the John C. Campbell Folk School (http://www.folkschool.org).  (Shameless plug).  I took the week-long breadmaking class.  Think 8-10 hours everyday of making breads and then getting to eat them.  Absolute heaven.  I came home inspired and began making bread weekly.  And I became a bread recipe junkie (you people are really bad for my waistline and pocketbook).  I was also inspired to revamp my kitchen (remodeling is frowned on in rented apartments) to give myself more room to work.  Even though I have a Kitchen Aid mixer I love the process of making the dough by hand.  I fear that when I first came back from my class I may have given King Arthur catalog the false impression that a new bread shop was opening from the continous orders I put in for about 6 weeks.

 One of the best lessons I learned from my week of breadmaking was that really good bread can take 2-3 days to make.  I now know the joy of coming home from work and whipping up a poolish in a few minutes and coming home the next day to complete the actual dough with a few minutes of kneading and coming home the next day to actually bake my bread.

 While I have owned Ruth Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible for several years I was always intimitated by the recipes.  Now I read throught the recipes and can't wait to try them.  I also purchase Peter Reinhardt's Bread Bakers Apprentice.  Several of the recipes we made in class were from that book.  What a wonderful book.  It is a great read even before you get to the recipes.

So now I come to my quandry.  Maryland (as well as Kansas) gets ungodly hot in the summer time.  AC is a wonderful thing and a blessing, but AC in an apartment is very hard pressed to deal with an oven running at 400+ degrees for an hour+.  Other than getting up at 2:00 AM to bake do you have suggestions for dealing with the heat from the oven.  I am moving into another bout of no bread baking because of the heat and I really don't want to lose my momentum.

I can't wait to read your suggestions and constantly look forward to being inspired by the recipes posted.

Anne

Hello.  My name is Lorie and I'm new here. 

I've been baking bread for a couple years now and enjoy it.  However, with my toddler running around after his two older siblings I thought I'd try out bread machines.  I find completely different results and my kids beg me to go back to my old ways.  In my search to save my bread (from the machine) I found this site.  

I hope to learn much and hopefully be a blessing as well.