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After 3 years of baking a number of breads from sources like Complete Book of Breads and Breadbaker's Apprentice, I stopped pulling the measuring gear, volume or weight, out of the cabinets when I set out to make bread.  I use the same mixing bowl every time so that the visual information I receive is always in the same format, and then I bring together flours at my whim--KA AP, KA B, rye, whole wheat . . .

Its summer in New England and its been a fairly nice summer but lately its been hot and humid.  I know some folks live in this kind of climate all year round or in hot, dry climates but for me, baking in the summer presented a challenge.

This time, I think I got it right.  Rising times are exponentially increased since its at least 20 degrees warmer in the house....with the a/c running....than in the winter time.  It took me a few tries to get good looking loaves.

Previous attempts on sourdough have been ok, but not great.

I decide I would combine more than one process to see if I could increase the sourness and texture of my bread.

Biga overnight:

360g 50/50 starter

440g flour

365g water

per Forkish ratios

after 14hrs I had a nice biga, bubbling along nicely.

Remainder of flour, water, salt added to complete dough (75% hydration) and left for bulk ferment. 

6hrs later, good 3X rise with a decent sour note to the smell. Divide and shaped, then 4hrs refrigerated proofing.

I used my normal Method to make these loaves and it goes like this...

Mother

Currently Im using Dabrownman's method because it is so easy and versatile. You can adept it to any kind of flour and build it up just the way you like to without it affecting the mother. You dont need to feed it every week but it allways pops to double after 4 hours on the 2cond (or 3) feed. Win, win win all the way! What more can you ask for?Mine is at 50% hydration, just to keep the math simple.

Levain

One of my favorite parts of baking bread is the scoring. It gives me a chance to get a bit creative and end up with a great-looking loaf. I am, however, no expert on scoring bread. It occurred to me that a good way to get some control over the way my slashes look would be to attempt some calligraphy. This worked nicely with a sourdough boule, made with a portion of whole wheat flour. I thought Hebrew would be the best language to attempt the slashes in, as the shapes of the letters remind me a lot of bread slashes. So here it is, along with a picture of the crumb.

 I decided to use some of my leftover mashed potatoes along with some of French Style flour from KAF I bought during my recent visit.  I milled some fresh whole wheat flour and instead of using it as is I decided to try sifting out some of the hard bits and ended up with a medium extraction flour.  I have a finer sieve which next time I will use as a second step to get a real high extraction flour.

Thanks to some encouragement, I figured it was time to stretch myself some by experimenting... A bit like taking the training wheels off a bicycle I suppose. I begun with one of my favourite recipes for a basic wholemeal sourdough and modified it by adding a soaker and a little yeast, the latter to give me a bit more predictability - everything was scaled to give me a pair of 600g loaves.

Levain:

87g wholemeal bread flour

87g warm water

20g rye starter

Soaker:

30g porridge oats

30g seed mix

40g rye flour

Yesterday was a hectic day and this bread is one of the reasons. Last Sunday, I saw some beautiful red beans so I bought some; that same day while watching a late night movie minutes before midnight I decided to make red bean paste for tomorrow and I proceeded to wash and soak the beans so they will be ready for tomorrow.

Let me start out by saying, Im terrible with electronics and this is my first time trying to solder anything. So I if I can do it, everyone can!

My goal was to make a device that can be used with most cooling boxes without any (or very little) modifications to the actual Cooling box.

The advantage of these kind of coolers are that they can heat or cool. It depends on how you turn the plug. I only needed it to do one at a time.

Dear TFL experts,

I have been baking for the past 3 years, and just recently tried my hand in making baguettes. I should say that all my knowledge for this craft has came from the wonderful posts of the members on this forum - and I am very grateful to have access to such excellent resource.