Blog posts

The sixth loaf

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I am beyond happy with this! It turned out better than all previous loaves, though I'm unsure why... My 'intuitive' approach is definitely working - sticking to one recipe and just tweaking things step by step rather than going for a completely different method that's worked for someone else.

Loaf 6
250g white flour, 250g wholegrain wheat flour.
80% hydration
15% starter
2% salt

Kalamata olive sourdough: question about crumb

Profile picture for user tortie-tabby

Hi, I was inspired by some recipes I saw here. I didn't end up following any in particular because of my busy schedule. At this point I sort of have a standard protocol which involves roughly autolysing and stretching and folding the dough whenever I get home in the evening, bulk fermenting up till I go to bed, then cold fermenting until I get home the next day. It's worked well for me, this loaf was soo yummy, but I do have a few questions.

Questions

Baguettes.. baking steel and a hotel pan.

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I've been having real trouble with my baguettes but finally found something that works. 

As a semi Frenchmen, I've found I need to take matters into my own hands when it comes to baguettes. 

sourdough recipe. 

60% hydration 95F

100% bread flour (Bobs Red Mill)

2% starter - I will vary this depending on the ambient temp to control for time. 

1% salt

autolyze 1hr

salt in and slap + fold until incorporated and smooth maybe 5 min

Ferment on the counter at 55-60 18-24hrs  

Sourdough bread with cooked mixed rice

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I had cooked white rice and mixed (black and brown) rice in hand so I decided to add in using an adapted brown rice porridge bread recipe from the book, Chad Robertson's Tartine Book No. 3.

The ingredients are:

Spelt flour 50%

Whole wheat flour 50%

Water 85%

Leaven 15%

Sea salt 2.5%

Cooked mixed rice 70%

30 min autolyse, 4 hour bulk fermentation (4 sets of stretch and fold), cold-proof in the fridge for about 18 hours.

The fifth loaf

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The first in a series of experiments on my 'Loaf 3' recipe.

Loaf 5 
250g white flour, 250g wholegrain wheat flour.
80% hydration
15% starter
2% salt

Experiment: Refreshed starter overnight. 

In the morning, did 1 hour autolyse, then mixed in starter & salt.

4 stretch & folds over 2 hours, then a bulk ferment at (cool-ish) room temp for about 5-6 hours.

Pre-shaped and let rest for 30 mins

Can you bring the bread?

Profile picture for user yozzause

Can you bring some bread for our old friends gathering?  Sure can, so this is what i put together  i chose to do 20% wholemeal breads,  some sticks using fresh compressed yeast with butter and an egg in the mix .

Weekly Bake 02/11/20

Profile picture for user Crusty Loafer

Much improved this week.  After last week I did some TLC to my starter.  I had been using it and then feeding it and sticking right back into the fridge until the next bake. I wasn't giving it any feeding before I baked.

Beer Barm

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I finally got around to having a go using a Beer Barm, the flour was 20% wholemeal flour with 80% Black and Gold  supermarket  flour.

Scared

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Greetings Everyone,

     I am a 74-year-old man, and I recently began to experiment with sourdough starter.  Actually, I never baked bread at all until last week:  I baked some bread just to use up the free flour that I received from commodity (for the first time).