Sourdough Rise Time Chart and home milling
A fellow who was very active for a while on TFL contributed some brilliant work that helped many of us in many ways. His name is Bill Wraith and his work is searchable under user name, bwraith. Here is his sourdough rise time chart which puts a degree of predictability in the process and can be adapted to your own starter. If you take a moment to figure out how it works you can clearly see what happens to rise time after inoculation of starter, depending on the percentage of starter, temperature and hydration. It's an invaluable chart for learning how changes affect performance or, for building your own variations on a known recipe you want to change. Bill is a brilliant guy and put a lot of work into this chart and the dough calculator on another Tab at the bottom.
Bill is also an avid home miller and has taken the process to an art form. I would love to be adopted into the family just for access to the toys in the basement. Here is the link to his blog. There is some very good reading here.
Eric
and quite a few others who have contributed to TFL for a while and then vanished.
Paul
Me, too.
I've been thinking about Bill a lot as I get into home milling flour.
David
When you get that eccentric sifter - let me know...:>)
I'm not wealthy enough to be eccentric and I very rarely sift anything.
Paul
Bill Wraith's sabbatical from tfl predates my joining, so I want to thank you, Eric, for posting his threads. I expect to have a much more clear understanding of sourdough leavening through his spread sheets and explanations.
As an adjunct to learning, I put a logging thermometer in my usual fermentation and final proofing spot on the counter.
cheers, and thanks again,
gary
before I joined as well. I cam across his sourdough ciabatta fist, and he helped me to accomplish that goal.
I agree that his blog has some of the best guidance on the site. At the same time, I am amazed that a right brain person such as myself can bake at all when I read about the work of the technical people here. I guess it's the results that matter in the end.
When I first joined TFL, I was surprised at the level of technical and scientific experience here. At the time, there were a lot of IT folks who were active posters. A lot of people want to understand how things work to some degree, but few of us are trained to the level that we understand the science involved down to the cell level. You don't need to understand the microbiology involved to be able to use it. It is nice however to be able to find answers to questions if you are curious.
The collective wisdom here and in the archives is one of the things that make TFL such a great experience. Being able to learn to make breads like they did 1000 years ago is priceless. Having at your fingertips the ability to learn the chemistry at work is, well, that's priceless too.
Eric