occidental's blog

After reading several posts about Hammelman's Vermont sourdough with increased whole grain I decided to give it a try.  I've been impressed with my results from the basic Vermont Sourdough and this version didn't let me down either.  I found the errata sheet on the web here: ( http://mellowbakers.com/ErrataSheetJune2010.pdf ) and used those amounts to put the formula together.  I proofed one loaf in the kitchen (~67 degrees) and the other in the garage (~50 degrees) to account for the extra time the second loaf wou

I've been attempting to improve my baguette making skills over the past few weeks.  This weekend I came up with my own formula based on a few of the things I learned from my last effort's with Pat's (proth5's) baguette formula.  Most notably I wanted to come up with a relatively low hydration formula using AP flour.  I also wanted to get a bit of whole wheat flour in the mix as well, and come up with enough dough to make two decent sized baguettes .  With that in mind I came up with the following formula which I calculate to be at 66% total hydration:

It's been a long while since I posted.  Summer came and bread baking was put on the back burner.  With fall comes colder temps and more time around the house, so back to bread baking I go.  I've actually baked quite a few loaves in the past weeks but have not posted them.  Anyway, I won't attempt to catch up but will post today's bake at least!

Today I made Ciabatta Rolls from the formula found in "Local Breads".  This is of course a very wet dough but since there isn't really shaping involved it's pretty fun to work with.  Instead of loaves I stretched the dough out and used a pizza cutter to make rolls. 

I placed these on parchment and let rise for about 30 minutes, until they start to get 'pillowy' - yes a very technical state of dough.

Recently I baked Oatmeal Cinnamon Rasin bread form Hammelman's "Bread".   There are a few good write ups on this bread on this site, just do a search...

A few days ago I made Lavash Crackers from Reinhart's Bread Bakers Apprentice.

Inspired by Susan's post on her [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/15544/today039s-bread] sesame sourdough [/url] I recently made my own attempt. I admit it isn't as pretty as hers but the taste is great and the crumb is also to my liking.

I've been reading David's many posts on his [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/dmsnyder] blog [/url] about San Joaquin Sourdough, a formula he developed that was inspired by a long bulk ferment [url=http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/janedo] Janedo [/url] wrote about after a visit with Anis Bouabsa.  David had tried enough variations of this formula I had to do some reading before I settled on the approach I was going to take for my first atte

I recently baked Pain au Levain from Hammelman's book 'Bread..."  This is the second formula I've tried from this book, following two fairly sucessful attempts at Vermont Sourdough.  There are a few differences between the two.  Vermont SD starts with a liquid levain while PaL starts with a stiff levain.  Hammelman calls for whole rye in Vermont SD while calling for medium rye flour in PaL.  Also, a long final ferment is called for with Vermont SD while it is recommended not to go for the long ferment with PaL.  I didn't vary from the formula and had pretty sat