Does anyone have any experience retarding shaped loaves in a temperature-controlled fridge? I have a theory that an second-hand fridge, maintained at 10-12C, will allow me to retard 36 loaves. I've been considering deep plastic pizza dough boxes to hold the brotforms, but I'm concerned that these may not allow sufficiently rapid cooling of the dough. Does anyone have any experience? Educated guesses? Better suggestions?

I'm moving up from a few years of regular home bread baking to very small production (to sell to friends, etc.). I've always preferred the taste and crumb of dough retarded during secondary fermentation (and the schedule control it allows). My best results have been acheived by using an old freezer, hooked up to an eBay temperature controller set to 10-12C for an overnight fermentation (directly after shaping), with the brotforms sealed in ziplocs to prevent excessive drying. My loaves are generally whole grain or 50:50 whole grain:white, scaled to 750g.

I'm considering buying 6 stackable deep pizza dough boxes, which should hold 6 brotforms each, more or less filling a standard fridge. I'm assuming the fridge will be better than the old freezer as there is much more airflow in a fridge. I'm concerned, however, that the dough boxes, which are designed to seal to one another, will insulate the dough too much and prevent sufficient cooling. Pizza dough boxes have the additional benefit for me that they can be used to transport shaped loaves, as I need to move dough to a rented oven until I can build my own WFO (this would be much more difficult if the brotforms were stacked on sheet pans or boards, which I have also considered).

Obviously, in the long term, some sort of retarder that can accept racks would be ideal, but I don't want to spend too much capital on that right now. If someone has a brilliant idea to build a retarder on the cheap in my basement, I'd love to hear about it.

I make bread weekly, but having a problem storing it. We don't mind the fact it gets a wee bit stale, we use it only for toast after the third day. But what is the best way to store homemade breads, sourdoughs, artisian, and plain old white sandwich breads? I have a plastic bread box that seals air tight, also my antique oak bakers hoosier cabinet has a bread drawer with tin lid (with holes punched in the tin).
How do you store your left over breads?
Love all the information on this site and everyone is so helpfull!!
Thanks
Also, I have a recipe that call for "spelt flour" what can I use in place of "spelt" flour? (I have never heard of it, and don't recall ever seeing it at the grocery)

Hey you guys.  Anybody out there need some plastic bannetons / brotforms?  I'm doing all of my bread shaping 'freeform' and haven't used them for a few months so I figured I would clear some space and sell them off.  I'm asking $8 each, plus shipping on top of that.  The number I have of each is in (parenthesis) and I'm selling them first come, first served.  They are all German made, and the shiny green round ones are the vented kind.  They've all been used but are clean and dishwasher safe.  If you're interested, you can post here or email me at the bakery at  eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%4d%61%72%6b%40%54%68%65%42%61%63%6b%48%6f%6d%65%42%61%6b%65%72%79%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%4d%61%72%6b%40%54%68%65%42%61%63%6b%48%6f%6d%65%42%61%6b%65%72%79%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b'))  
Thanks.
-Mark

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

Hi all,

Love the site, excited about baking better bread.

I moved to rural Kenya in the past few months to teach music at a high school and have been frustrated by the lousy bread (mostly wonderbread, or a whole-wheat version thereof). I grew up in a French city and I love to cook, but my bread-baking has been limited to basic loaves from the Joy of Cooking. Now I'm trying to elaborate (the white loaf is a little boring), and I want to take a stab at the Rustic Bread (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/rusticbread) found on this site. I have a few questions:

1) I'm at fairly high altitude (about 7,000ft). Do I simply reduce slightly the amount of yeast I use?
2) The only yeast I can find locally is Instant, either in tiny packages or in 1KG packages (much to my surprise). Will this do? Should I be springing for the large packages (only thought here is that larger quantity implies bakery usage and therefore better quality).
3) I've found all-purpose and whole wheat flour, but many people here use a corn flour (maize flour) to make an "african cake" called ugali (it's a firm, gluey texture, just flour and water cooked). Can anyone suggest recipes that might use that flour? Can I mix it into regular bread recipes?
4) Is plastic-wrapping the Preferment necessary? I understand this is likely to seal in the moisture, but plastic-wrap would likely require a trip into Nairobi to find. Part of the reason baking my own bread is appealing is due to the fact that I can be a bit self-sufficient, so if I can avoid importing plastic-wrap I'd like to. Can I cover with a towel? Or cover with a plastic bag cut open with an elastic band around the edge of the bowl?

Thanks. I look forward to sharing my experiences and learning from yours! Now if only I could figure out how to import a copy of "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" ...

I was wondering what materials people would recommend for use when making bread, I've made a fair bit now with help from this site, and recently picked up BBA and LOVED it, I was wondering though about a few things, First off is there a reason to use wood over plastic, metal or other materials? I enjoy wood and find it pleasing to handle and look at, but wasn't sure if it was worth the investment to get a solid wooden board and bowls to knead and proof dough in, Some sites recommend it and I notice every picture in BBA has bread being kneaded or proofed on wood (Or in a couche with wood sides that I'd imagine is sitting on top of wood) and the rustic image of a bakery in my mind imagines wood as being the 'right' way of doing things, but aside from some vague mentions of wood becoming seasoned like cast iron, and adding flavor over time through a build up of fermenting dough in pores (Which I don't think seems too likely or healthy), I can't find any good information one way or the other, I've been proofing dough in metal bowls with a bit of spray oil and it's been working fine, but for larger recipes I'm going to need to get some new bigger bowls soon, Any suggestions there?

The next question is regarding a baking stone, We have a cheap ($13 CAD) circular stone from Walmart, that has actually worked out very well so far, but again with larger loaves or with a few smaller longer loaves (like Baguettes) it's not big enough and will soon need to be replaced, any recommendations there? I need something that can be easily moved out of the oven for other things, preferably is rectangular, and is thick enough to hold heat for my purposes.

Next in regards to tools, I'm looking for a decent Dough Scraper, and Lame for scoring, I've been using an xacto-knife/scalpel which works quite well for some things, but the blade is so thin that even though it cuts the dough well, sometimes it doesn't spread the scores enough and they reseal, I've poked around online but the name is a bit ambiguous to search for on ebay or google, where (Preferably in Canada) can I get a decent lame from? I'd imagine a dough scraper would be easier to find online, I haven't looked yet but if anyone cares to make a recommendation I'd appreciate it.

in Ingredients, I found out I can buy Gluten powder from a few stores in my area, would it be worth it to add this to all purpose flour? Or will I get better results with just getting bread flour, (The difference in price isn't big enough to bother me between the two types of flour, I'm baking more but I still don't bake enough to worry that much about the cost of flour) I'm just looking to get the best results, the only bread flour in my area that I've been able to find is Robin Hood brand, anyone with more than one type in their area able to offer a comparasin?

Thanks for any replies ahead of time, and for this excellent resource of a website, I've learned so much from here and it's really enabled me to enjoy this fun hobby :)