Blog posts

Hi

I am looking for help and advise on refreshing and keeping a Levain going. Having made the Levain from the chef and baked 3 x Pain du Levain i now have approx 500gms Levain which I have kept in the fridge for a week. I refreshed it with 125gms water and 175gms flour on Wednesday and again today being Saturday.

Is this still a Levain ? Or is it now some type of hybrid Chef ?

Thoughts and experience would be greatly appreciated.

The last time I made Ciabatta I made a sourdough version that came out quite good.  In my never-ending quest to try to create something new and hopefully great tasting I came up with the concoction below.

In gratitude for all of her help in my yeast water bread quest, I created a YW bread named for Akiko,  that would be fitting for her graciousness, generosity and skill.  I made this bread today and it is everything I would want in a YW bread if it were to be named after me but, she is the one stuck with it now  :-)  Thanks again to Akiko also known as teketeke at TFL.  A great YW bread named after a great lady.

Made Floyd M's Honey Whole Wheat today. For the 1 hour whole wheat soak, I used 9 oz KAF White Whole wheat, 3 oz Hodgson's Whole Wheat, and 4 oz Bob's Red Mill Spelt. I use active dry yeast activated in 3 Tbs water. ~10 oz. total KAF bread flour. Added 1/3 C roasted unsalted sunflower seeds and 2 Tbs canola oil. Having read through the comments, I heeded Jmonkey's and others advice and did 2 stretches at 30 and 60 mins of the total 90 minute bulk proof.

ok,

so far i´ve had a couple of successes, especially the last couple of loaves (where i omitted the flex and sesame seeds which i thought complicated matters!) 

now on the road to the stable recipe i´m making some changes, first off i will use less gluten rich flour and only whole wheat flour (spelt is too expensive and until i start using the rye starter i´m gonna stick with whole wheat)

It was a stunning day in Melbourne yesterday so I decided to bake my first gluten free sourdough loaf by the pool, I figured my day was going to end in disappointment with my bread so I might as well enjoy the sun while baking. lol

• This ain't your Momma's traditional cornbread, but if you want to try  a great tasting bread with a nice sourdough twang, and corn flavor then read on.