Blog posts

So it's now 9 a.m. (about) and we're ready to go with feed number three. We've taken apart the previous feed ball and scooop out 30g of that starter from the bubbly center.

I might note here that there's a slight sour smell present although not terribly strong.

In the meantime, Mini has added a post to the original forum thread, saying she's started up a stiff ball as well so we'll then be able to track the two stiff starters at the same time to see what happens.

So at this point, we're at the 10 hour mark and it's getting late so I mix up a fresh ball. I gather grab some of the previous ball's insides and mix up the following:

30g stiff starter
50g spring water
50g organic rye

Here I cut back from the previous 88 grams of flour which made, in my opinion, too stiff a ball. I'm still just guestimating at this point.

And here is the resulting ball:

I'm starting this blog to track the events in the life of little Audrey 2, a reluctant starter that began as a rather wet batter form and, as recommended by Mini, was transformed into a ball of stiff starter.

A few weeks ago, I finally got a copy of Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads.  While I've read the book (most of it several times), I hadn't actually tried any of his recipes until this weekend.  Yesterday and today, I made the Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread (his basic formula) for sandwiches next week and a modified version of his German-Style Transitional Many Seed Bread to have with dinner.  Both came out great, but since the many seed bread was the more interesting to me, that's what I decided to write about.

Despite the slowing economy and despite my recent price increases due to the cost of flour, business is going so well I bought a used Hobart 30 qt today!  And paid it in full with money I earned this month and have enough left over to pay a service tech to give it a good once-over! 

SOL

I'll let you be the judge(s) about the success of this attempt! I live nowhere near Pointe-à-Callière, so I can't really call the bread by that name. Miche Source Alice (?Alice Springs  in French).

1. I should've read the instructions!

I started by elaborating a starter. I used a 100% culture and 100% wholemeal (100% extraction - it's what I had at home). I ended up with 970g starter! Hamelman's recipe had the culture as 20%(D'oh!).

100% Whole Wheat boules

100% Whole Wheat boules Crumb

I had made the whole wheat bread from Reinhart's BBA a couple of time. i liked it a lot. It was, for me, the perfect bread for a tuna fish sandwich or a BLT.

I have been having a lot of fun with this recipe. I think I'll keep it; It's that good.

Cold Fermented Italian Bread