Hi all.

I'm getting ready to make a Rosemary Olive Sourdough and I'm trying to figure out the best way to handle the Rosemary part. I bought a small plant for the windowsill and would love to use it fresh, but there's a chance I will end up making these 12 loaves at a time, and I don't think the plant would give me enough. Will dried Rosemary give me the same results? What's the best way to incorporate the dried herb? Do I need to rehydrate it somehow first?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Stephan

hi everyone.

i have a question that has been bugging me for the longest time. perhaps someone here can answer it for me.

i understand that older recipes, or handed down ones might have use for self raising flour.

why, in any current cookbook, would author have some recipes using self raising flour, and other "quickbread" type  recipes, in that same book,  using ap flour with appropriate amts. of baking powder, soda, and /or salt?

i have tried to figure out the rationale, and cannot. it seems silly to stock yet one more type of flour, if not necessary. it is also a bit frustrating at moments to switch up, interchange the quantities.

why bother even including self raising flour, at all, in the recipe? does self raising flour have some property that ap mixed with leavening agents does not?

i thank anyone and everyone for answering this for me. this should be the worst thing i worry(not really worry,of course) about, in life!! lolol

i have been long time baker, loving it so much, loving the journey of creating , and i enjoy learning from all of you. thanks in advance for your input.

nora

and a belated happy and healthy new year to all!!

I found these threads mentioning inulin as a product ....

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/12016/there-way-increasing-fiber-count-homemade-bread

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7282/wow-oven-spring

.... but couldn't find anything re:  using it as an ingredient in home baking.

Most of my home baking tends to be medium-high hydration (70-75%) partial whole wheat loaves (~40-65% of total flour weight as WW), baguettes (72%) w/pate fermentee or some sweet brioche-esque formulas.

Anybody have any experience adding inulin (I use generic "clear" fibre, the type you mix in water) as an ingredient in home baking?  I'm tempted to start with, say, 5-7% of flour weight to test.  Any issues I should watch out for?

Thanks in advance.

I just came across a blurb on the internet that has disturbed me, and Iwas wondering if I could get it straightened out. According to this person, who shall remain nameless, the use of instant yeast in bread automatically, irreversably, and certainly affects the overall quality of the bread (in a bad way). According to this indivdual, use of instant yeast will mean that your bread will *never* reach really high standards in flavor, particularly.

 Now, this has thrown me, primarly because instant yeast is all I use. I plan to tackle sourdough breads shortly, but all I have is a starter who is less then two days old, and on the advice of various bread book authors and internet research, I use instant yeast. Is this person right, partially right, or a complete quack?

By the way, this person did not make a blunt suggestion for a better method. All he says is that there are better ways, far more complex, to reach the best flavor. He makes it sound, honestly, as if it will never happen in my tiny home kitchen, a depressing thought which I suppose might be true if taking my personal abilities into account, but  I had hoped I  might create full flavored beautiful loaves if I just keep trying to improve and stretch myself (like the baby sourdough starter that is currently sleeping on my counter) I will never own a profession grade oven (unless I win the lottery) and I don't have access to fresh yeast (which he may or may not have been referring to as a better choice), so I am concerned. Please let me know your thoughts.

I recently moved to Tucson, Arizona from the Phoenix area. I am having no luck finding a store that sells high-quality unbleached bread flour in 10 or 25# bags.  I used to buy flour at Honeyville Farms store in Chandler and was very satisfied with their products. Can anyone give me some recomendations for finding flour in Tucson?  Many thanks!

I'm new here to TFL and have recently gotten into bread baking. I was given a few more exotic flours for Christmas and I'm curious to know how best to use some of these ingredients I am unfamiliar with. For example, I now have tapioca, quinoa, and brown rice flours. Many of these I have seen used in gluten free recipes, but I don't have any gluten restrictions in my diet. Can I substitute a small amount of some of these flours into other recipes and get new and interesting flavors? Or are these ingredients really only used in gluten free breads? How would you all recommend using these flours?

After reasonably (!) successful and reliable sourdoughs, I had in succession one very flat loaf and then a cowpat (overproofed) - the cowpat was a new recipe but the flat loaf was tried and tested.  Even the cowpat seemed relatively fine - not very active bulk fermentation, so fridge overnight, it felt heavy when I shaped, then fell apart before final shaping...  The thing I'd changed - was to a new flour!

The new flour came through Bakery Bits - a 100% stoneground white, which I thought would be great.  Looking at the label, it comes from Little Salkeld:

http://organicmill.co.uk/node/143

and is the biodynamic, which I'm assuming therefore is potentially only a protein level of 9%(?) - it doesn't specify protein on the label :(

I've been using either strong bread flour, or the very strong Canadian flour (Waitrose) - so I'm guessing this is what is challenging!

Question: how can I best use this new flour, as I have 6kg of it?  Should I mix it with the strong Canadian to make a sort of standard bread flour, or are there particular techniques I should try to get the best from this flour?  I'd like to be able to use it and see what it tastes like - but I don't know the right techniques.  Any suggestions much appreciated!!

thanks
Salilah

Been making bread for 1 year now with bread machine. The recipes all call for 3 choices of yeast; active or quick rise or bread machine yeast. I was reading the recipes yesterday and noticed that for the last year, I've been accidentally doubling up on the yeast... ooops. The loafs are always big & fluffy. I just made one with the recommanded yeast and the 1 pound loaf is way small compare to before.

Is too much yeast bad?

Thanks

Hi all,

I'm really excited to report that as of New Year's Day, NYB is implementing new shopping cart software that with features and functions that make it easier than ever to do business with us. Our new capabilities include:

• Automated order acknowledgement and shipping notification.
• Expanded payment options that let you use all of the major bank cards, as well as PayPal.
• A new and improved Shipping Calculator that provides access to a broad range of shipping choices that more closely reflect actual delivery times, weight and distance.
• Search and Advanced Search features that let you quickly find items that you previously had to hunt for.
• Your full Order History, as of our 1/1/2012 go-live date.</li>
• A Permanent Shopping Cart that remembers the items you add until you either remove them or proceed to checkout.
• A Personalized Address Book that allows you to have orders delivered to addresses other than yours - perfect for gift-giving.
• Product Reviews that let you share your opinions of our products with other NYB customers.

And last but not least all NYB customers are automatically enrolled in the NYB Frequent Flour program, which awards customers 1 point for every dollar spent on NYB merchandise. Points earned translate intoacross-the-board discounts of as much as 20%, starting immediately and good for as long as you maintain a qualifying point balance. We're automatically setting up accounts for all past and present NYB customers, and you can look for an email on or about New Year's Day containing your log in information.

Think of it as our way of saying "Thank you" for your continuing support.

We're really excited about this and invite everyone to have a look around. www.nybakers.com

Happy New Year!

Stan Ginsberg
(posted with Floyd's permission)

Hi. I have a question about high-gluten flour.

The bread books I have, mention high-gluten flour at 14% protein. I can't get this in Australia (at most, 12.5% protein flour is the strongest I could source).

I've made a sourdough multigrain bread, which calls for high-gluten flour and I made my own high-gluten flour. I'd like to know if adding gluten flour (or vital wheat gluten) is the same as getting flour made from a high-gluten wheat (e.g hard spring wheat).

I used some basic algebra to make my bread flour (12% protein) into a 14% protein flour, using gluten flour (which comes with 70% protein - but this is made by mixing flour with water into a slurry and washing out the starch, leaving only the gluten, which  is then dried and milled into a flour. This means the gluten was first hydrated, then dried and milled).

Does added gluten behave as normal gluten during mixing (i.e gluten that hasn't been hydrated first)?