Blog posts

It's been quite a while since I've made a rye bread, and I've been missing it. I've been admiring the ryes other TFL members have been making, especially those with a very high percentage of rye. I've also noted the comments about the special sweet flavors reported when hot rye soakers or mashes have been included.

Hello, This is my second try making Chad Robertson's Country Bread, from his book, Tartine Bread.
I am enamored to say the least! I will be coming back to this again and again - it is SO good.

I was away from home and baking for a long time, but now I'm back (at least in the way that I count as being "at home.")

I had the chance to be with one of my oldest friends and some of his friends the other night and it hit me like a ton of bricks that my time in Okinawa had changed me in some pretty profound ways and that I will never be quite the same person ever again.  I think it all came out on the plus side, but the changes are real.

 So why keep baking the same old bread?  So I decided to goose up some of my formulas.

Now and then I need toasted bread. The supermarket varieties are, of course, off limits. A loaf that yields without putting up any resistance to my probing finger is not worthy of a Schwarzwald ham or Fontina topping. I want my toast delicately softening when I spread it with butter - not disintegrating into mash!

Late Wednesday night after a long day at work, I found myself in the kitchen grinning devilishly at the thought of what's to come. Focaccia!

Previous Blog:  http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/20032/1-little-2-little-3-little-chia-rye-loaves

Have your ever felt that the expression "Couldn't see the forest for the trees." applied to you?
I think that this may be a case where it really applied to me <Blush>

The wood-fired oven project must go on hold till Spring comes.  It is located in a very wet area of the back yard and I don't have enough dry days left free to do anything about it, or to protect it if I press on.  So, it is under cover for the winter, and I'll pick up with building of the new dome once the rains have passed.  That could be January, or it could be May.  I'll just have to wait and see.

Here is the WFO then, bedded down for the wet.

This is another bake from "Whole grain breads" of P.Reinhart. It is Whole Wheat Hearth bread.

It is 100% WholeWheat.  70% of WW flour was from a sack of Indian Chakki atta (stone ground flour). I suppose Chakki atta is 96% extraction. Remaining flour was milled from red winter italian wheat, sifted. Therefore, i suppose that this is not entirely 100% ww, but close.