Hello from Las Vegas!
Hello!
I'm new to this forum, but was once a pretty decent amateur home baker before I moved from the shores of Lake Michigan to Sin City. Once I got out here I had problems getting a decent loaf (bricks) and I simply dropped baking my own bread. I've had a couple of attempts at returning. It was during one of those times I picked up PR's BBA. I recently had some success using a poolish to make some ciabatta, and I realized I could make decent bread here if I adjusted my recipes for the drier conditions.
Currently I am developing a SD starter. I used Debra's pineapple starter schedule. Not sure how I want to go with maintenance, so I currently have two WW starters. One is a 125% hydration and the other is in the ball park of 65% hydration. Both are in their first week on the counter and are showing good yeast activity.
I am hopeful the firm one will eventually develop lb sf as I am leaving it at room temp, feeding daily with WW, and slowing the bacterial growth with the lower hydration; the sum total will (I think) push it towards favoring heterofermentative bacteria, which will possibly be attractive to sanfranciscensis. I will see how they are going in another week or so as I get them on a regular twice daily feeding schedule that works with my job. Of course it's never that easy with living things... or work.
Hopefully if all continues to go well I may have some pics to present of my first loaves of sourdough next weekend.
John
Welcome. Floyd Mann is our host. I hope you can get the baking going again; keep on plugging.
Ford
Hello. I to have struggled with loaves that come out as bricks. I find a good autolyse period and higher hydrations help immensely out here where we're averaging 6% RH!
Barrie
I used to make very silky doughs without a hint of stickiness that rose beautifully and had great texture. Moved here and just thought I could keep doing it that way. Wasn't until that ciabatta recipe that it hit me. That dough was incredibly slack, but came out with very good flavor and lovely texture. Turns out even to make a decent plain loaf here in the desert requires almost a similar level of hydration. No wonder I got so frustrated. On the other hand, the desert seems to be producing some incredible sourdough starters for me.
....and first boule! Used a recipe I got online that seemed simple enough. I was supposed to use a firm starter, but I had anticipated using a recipe that called for 100% hydration and used the majority of my starter to convert to 100% hydration. Not a huge deal. The dough was quite slack and was pretty darn close to 90%+ hydration. Was very slack until the S&Fs when the gluten started to really made things easier to handle. After the folds, I split the dough into two parts and put them in oiled containers and they went straight into the fridge to retard for 18 hours. I pulled them out to warm up, did another round of S&Fs to shape the dough and turned them out onto cookie sheets to get oven ready. Baked at 500 F and lowered to 450 F to finish. I was expecting that they wouldn't get tall being 100% whole wheat, so I was looking for good color on the crust and nice open holes inside and a chewy crumb. Good sour flavor, but not overly so. For a first try, I am very happy with the outcome.
