Knock, Knock
Hey,
Where is everyone? Out baking bread? Trying out the good recipes on the site?
I have been busy lately. Started working part-time at a local grocery bakery. They use the bake off method primarily. They mix, shape, bulk ferment (?), then freeze the breads at their corporate bakery. Then they ship them to the area stores.
Not getting any experience with the big mixers like I want. But getting some experience with the proofers and oven. We use a rotary rack oven. It does have steam injection which is a plus.
They also have La Brea breads. They are partially baked when we get them frozen. We finish them up.
I enjoy working with the breads. But not real keen on the donuts and such. We have a local donut shop and Krispy Kreme is in the area. Eventually want to open our own family bakery. Will focus on artisan breads. But will make the others as well. It's all about choices I guess. :-D
Gordon
Floyd has been busy working on the new technology for the site. It will be cool I think - the blogs on the site right now are awful to work with (they were from some Japanese plugin that was basically a broken tool to begin with - I think folks will be a lot more willing to have their bread blogs here when they arent so UGLY to work with!) and any tiny change we wanted to make to the layout was a royal pain with the existing technology. He's been busy with getting it all figured out and is close to putting out a beta of it - then when folks take a look and stuff he'll move the site over.
Oh! And another cool thing about the new stuff he's doing is that it will make it easier for you guys to write articles here too, so it's not just him (not that I mind eating all the experiments he has to bake to get a recipe down enough to post about it! But he'll be the first to admit that he's no expert, and there's a lot of folks here who have a wealth of info we'd love to have them share!)
In the meantime, he's been making simpler breads and things he's already posted about here (breadsticks, pizza, zuchinni bread, banana breads...) -and he's been testing out the new mixer! yay!
So he just hasnt had a lot of time to do the fun experimenting. But he'll go back to doing that again once the site is all working on the new technology!
What she said: I've mostly been working on technology changes for the site, which I'll be rolling out the beta of very soon. It is going to be neat: there will definitely be a little getting used to the new package, but in the long term it is going to make the site much more collaborative and give me a lot more flexibility as an administrator.
I've been assuming a lot of folks are on vacation and doing outdoor things right now. Web traffic, in general (not just on this site), tends to sag in August and September. It'll pick up again soon.
Neat to hear you are working in a bakery.
I noticed that our grocery store chain started carrying La Brea breads too. Sounds like I was right in guessing they are parbaked. One part of me thinks "that is cheating" and fears that that makes it more difficult for independant artisan bakeries to get shelf space, but then another part says that anything that gets more people exposed to decent breads is a good thing. And that, ultimately, it'll encourage them to look for even better, fresher, locally baked bread. At least one can hope so.
Floyd and dstroy
From what I read in an earlier post/article, the new technology will truly be neat. Looking forward to seeing them.
Yes, I too thought some would be on vacation or busy outside. Wasn't sure though. I see a few browsers online when I grab a minute or two online. But not many logins.
One thing I like about this site is that there seems to be quite a few seasoned bread builders as well as novices here. I like to learn from more seasoned bakers as well as novices. I guess I fall somewhere in between.
I was hoping to get some tutoring from a local bread master instead of the grocery bakery. But the shop he was working in seems to be closing down or cutting back. The owners had a devastating death of a 2-year old twin recently. My heart goes out to them. But my wife and I know from experience that you shouldn't make a life changing decision in the midst of grief.
Gordon
Hehehe. :) Hi, sonof'yah!
I'm still around. Just been going through some health related issues and not baking much. :)
Since the heat wave ended, I've been working on the painting and the garden... But this past weekend I made the "Poor man's" Brioche from the BBA. Excellent product! Great for toast (including French Toast) and sandwiches. I think it would also be an excellent dough for dinner rolls.
I found the dough rose faster than expected, in about 75% of the time in the formula. All in all it is excellent and the directions worked very well. If you have the BBA, you should give it a try!