My grandmother had a wonderful wholegrain toasting bread my family all loved... she is no longer with us, so we have been trying to "get it right" for years.  I had some success by using Jim Lahey's overnight method, but her recipe uses mashed potato and potato water and I was wondering if that would be ok (food safety wise) for an overnight room temperature ferment.  

I know some people use dried potato flakes, but I would prefer to use the fresh potato if possible.  

Thanks in advance for any wisdom on this!

Ok, so here are my bagels, not my first time making them.  I've actually been making bagels for several years now.  I haven't had any complaints about them, in fact, many people say they really like them!  However, I was on a quest to see if I could get more out of my bagels, see if I could make them better.  So, I tried Peter Reinhart's recipe, minus the baking soda in the water on most of the bagels. I did do 2 bagels in the baking soda.  I always thought that having baking soda in the water would make it taste a lot like a pretzel and I don't think that's how a bagel should taste!  Well, I was wrong, well according to my husband :)  Definitely a little tougher crust, in a good way and the malt adds a little but more flavor!  Other than that, they taste just like the bagels I've been making for years. 

But.....I'm not sure that the process I went through makes this bagel any better than the way I've been doing them.  I've been following a very simple recipe, flour, water, yeast, salt and sugar. Let is rise until double, divide into 4 oz pieces, shape, let rest for 20 minutes, boil for a minute each side and bake for 15-20 minutes at 400-425.  If I left the bagels to rise overnight in the fridge, they would turn out the same.  I just don't know if the retarding process is really necessary.  What do you think?

I am able to control the temperature of my sourdough loaves for overnight retarding and proofing and I wanted to get everyone's opinion of what you think the best temperature is and why. There has been a bunch of recent thoughts and discussion on this circulating in books and whatnot and I wanted to put this question out there to the masters.

Thanks!

Nick

I'm a long time lurker and first time poster.

Last week I finally got a decent sourdough starter going, based on the instructions in Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I used it successfully to make Pierre Nury’s Rustic Light Rye and some Sourdough Waffles, both of which came out well with the clear instructions provided. I decided to try making some 100% whole grain bread, which I've never had much success with, and finally settled on jmonkey's recipe.

I used the stretch and fold technique for kneading, shaped it into a boule, and baked it in a 450ºF oven on a stone. Also, since I can only get soft whole wheat here, I added vital wheat gluten to the flour to compensate (around 2-3 tsp/cup).

It might be too caramelized for some tastes, but I liked the way it came out (thanks jmonkey!). I expected the crumb to be more open based on what the recipe said, but I think I may have underproofed the loaf a bit. Next time I will also put the stone lower in the over since the bottom took much too long to finish. As far as taste goes, it was delicious, one of the best whole grain breads I've had. What do you think?

Chris

I've been using my Breadman Ultimate for a number of months to make almost all my bread.  I am now experimenting with sourdough.  It doesn't really rise fast enough for the breadmaker, so I have tried adding extra yeast, but that's a bit hit & miss - I had one loaf that sank, and I think it must have risen too much.

So I am now experimenting with overnight fermentation.  I had quite a successful first attempt.  The Breadman won't allow you to program any phase for more than 100 minutes, so I did the following:

• Set it on Dough

When the dough is made, reset the machine run a program as follows:

• 30 mins preheat to get it back up to temperature
• 15 s knock back
• 2 hours prove (by using both the Rise 2 and Rise 3 phases with no "shape" in between)
• bake

It was a loaf made with approx 1lb of flour (including sourdough starter) of which 2oz was wholemeal and the rest strong white, and would have risen for about 9 hours before the second program kicked in.

It was pretty successful - the crust wasn't dark enough so I will add a couple of minutes to the program.  tasted nice, with more sourdough flavour than a quicker fermented loaf, and a slightly chewy (but well risen) texture.

So - I just wanted to ask - am I doing it sort of right, or is there anything else I should be doing?  I'm in the UK and don't have the heating on overnight, so it gets reasonably cool.

And before anyone suggests I make the dough in the machine and do the rest by hand, I want to utilise the convenience of the machine and be able to get up to freshly baked bread.

Cheers,

Phil

Hi,

 Thanks for your help on this topic.  I searched all over the web, and nobody even on this impressive site had the recipe I was looking for.  Fortunately, a family member found an old copy of this spectacular, no-knead, crusty bread.  Always a hit w. my people on special occasions.  Anyone who would like to substitute more specific measurements (like 'stick of butter'), please do!

 Monkey Bread (so-called by the friend of my mother who gave her the recipe circa '68)