Good Morning !!

Good morning everyone ! I have been browsing your site now for about a week now. I love it ! Very informative. I'm a single father of 4 children. 3 beautiful daughters and my son whos the oldest. About a month ago I had decided i was going to use the bread machine I had bought my wife several years ago as it had just sat idle since it was opened.

I tried a few recipies . they turned out "ok", but lacked anything to rave about. 

About a week ago I purchased a stone baking sheet/pan thing.(thankyou for that great advice btw) I tried an old recipie my grandmother made with me when I was very young. Its called beer bread. (I have my grandmothers original hand written recipie card which is why I remember how to make this.)

1 bottle of warm beer.(I used a 341ml bottle)

1 cup of warm water. 

3 cups of white flour

4 cups of whole wheat flour.

2 teaspoons of salt.

and she put about 5 or 6 rounded table spoons of brown sugar. the card just says brown sugar. so Im guessing grandma put in whatever she fancied at the time. (I put 5 rounded table spoons in)

2 teaspoons of yeast.

she proceeded to mix this all by hand which I tried earlier this week(I ended up giving up and letting the bread machine mix it) then I finished kneading by hand.

let double in size, punch down, rise again, punch down, shape and let rise.

I got to put it in the oven. it wasnt preheated I remember it being cold. her card says 375F until done. (it does not say how long to cook it.)

(looking at your site I did this part dif. I read about adding steam. So i did the pan in the bottom of the oven trick. I also preheated to 500F and cooked it for 10 mins. then turned down to 350F. using my new stone pan)

my first loaf came out fantastic but it was very heavy. i dont think I let it rise enough as I was getting impatient near the end. I had never made bread before up until a month ago other then that day with my grandma. the picture  with this post is the recipie I just posted above. I started it a 4 am today. I will be patient this time. Im going to try putting it in a cold oven this time.

I have a picture of the other beer bread I made but I am not sure how to add it to this post. The smell of fresh bread has my kids running to gobble it up.

Your site has brought me back to my grandmas house when I was a little boy. Fresh homemade bread will be a regular thing from now on.

I want to make sourdough, your site has a great post for making a starter. Something I want to do badly.

I will take pictures of todays loaf to share with you all later today.(if I can figure how or where to post it)

does anyone have any suggestions on what to change? or why theres so much brown sugar? why not white sugar? what is the diference? most recipies I have read do not call for that much sugar. and usually its white granulated sugar thats called for.

i just edited this post to add that i changed the picture of my dough ball to a picture of the finished bread!