Where and What in Aus? - New here
Hello,
Sorry if this is in the wrong section, but so many sections seem to fit (baking, mills, etc) that I wasn't sure where else to put it.
I am in Australia and buying bread has become long in the tooth. Every shop out there selling 'artisan' bread tastes like cardboard/paper bag, feels like its full of all kinds of preservatives, or dry in the middle, crust is not crunchy whatsoever, and its just... well everything is named artisan but it all tastes like shop bread.
I only found 1 actual bakery in NSW that provided amazing bread where the crust was thick, crunchy, inside was soft, moist etc... was a dream to eat but over 120km from where I live so It isn't something I have bought in over 3 years.
I figured the solution was to learn to make my own bread from my own milled flour.
So the 2 questions I would have for anyone in this Country, NSW specifically (Sydney or close enough)...
1: Where can I go to learn to make proper sourdough bread - Bread that has that crunchy thick crust with that soft moist middle and not sour to the taste? - REAL BREAD - from spelt grain or oat grain or Rye grain... something I can learn to make with a variety of ingredients, white or wholemeal (stone ground).? What about making proper italian style Pizza bases that are soft in the middle with a crispy outside, or wraps like tortillas where its soft and something you can wrap without it breaking etc?
2: What kind of stone mill is best to buy for health reasons and to keep the nutrition in tact? I was considering a Salzburg MT12 - being a natural granite stone, there wont be any glue (bonding agent) of the ceramic/corundum going into my bread... but I wasn't sure about the temperature... will that over-heat the grain, is a MT5 worth it, is the MT12 the better investment, is there anything else I should be looking at?
Thanks for the help.
1. https://sourdough.com/blog/sourdom/beginners-blog-starter-scratch
You can start from here or buy sourdough starter from somewhere, to reduce acidity you should use a stiff starter instead of liquid, to reduce sour taste even more you can convert original starter to liquid(500% hydration), and then convert it back to stiff(heard this from someone). For me the instructions gave good results with a slight hint of sourness as bread became older(I used 100% white flour, 5% olive oil and stiff starter(which is from my previous dough))
Hi from Rosebud Vic. Welcome to TFL. This is a great community to learn from and very supportive. Members are from all over the world.
Answers:
1. The best book I have for learning techniques and wonderful recipes is Hamelman's Bread. I have editions 1, 2 and 3. They are the best IMO for learning. Many people here like Peter Reinhart's book. I highly recommend Hamelman's 3rd Edition.
2. I have a Hawos Billy 100 stone mill and love it. They have bigger options, but I like the 100 for my home use. I've had it a couple of years and use it several times a week without fail. URL: Hawos BILLY 1 – Skippy Grain Mills
I also recommend looking up all things Debra Wink here especially The Pineapple Juice Solution, Part 2 | The Fresh Loaf.
Cheers,
Gavin
Welcome to TFL! Where some of us are half-baked, but no one is real crummy. (Does that translate well into Australian English? ;-)
Gavinc (above) and Yozzause (Derek), https://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/yozzause are two active and helpful bakers in AU. Derek is a retired pro baker.
The web site owner, Floyd, is also in a Commonwealth country, .CA.
Albacore is a regular participant here, located in the mother-country, .UK.
Me, here in the rebelious former colony, well, I've seen all the Crocodile Dundee movies, have eaten a few jars of Marmite, and used to own a pair of shoes made from one of your hoppy animals. :-)
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Here's a web site dedicated to Australian baking. It proved useful to one AU newbie-baker a couple years ago, when it came to figuring out when to use diastatic malt or other dough improvers. It seems not all AU flour is directly compatible with the fancy book formulas designed for North American flour.
https://www.sourdoughbreadrecipe.com.au
Based on this web page, some Australian bread recipes do require diastatic malt:
https://www.sourdoughbreadrecipe.com.au/methods/how-to-make-a-bread-dough/
The malt is in step 5 where the water is added.
These two pages talk about Diastatic malt powder:
https://www.sourdoughbreadrecipe.com.au/ingredients/
https://www.sourdoughbreadrecipe.com.au/slider/malt-flour-for-sourdough-diastatic-or-non-diastatic/
An Australian recipe that calls for a pinch of diastatic malt, and some stoneground (presumably whole grain) flour which adds some bran and its attendant enzymes.
https://www.sourdoughbreadrecipe.com.au/recipes/sourdough-baguettes/
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Please share your baking adventures, including photos if possible, with the TFL crowd.
Enjoy!
Another website to explore is this one: https://www.ellyseveryday.com/
Elly is in the Brisbane area. She has a number of helpful videos, using AU grain (wheat, spelt, oats) she mills at home. She helped me learn a lot about working with sourdough and freshly milled flour. She uses a Mockmill, as do I. After 2+ years of regular use, the stones look the same as they did when it was new, and I see no evidence of anything going into my flour.
Be aware it's a bit of a steep learning curve to learn how to successfully bake 100% whole wheat sourdough bread using freshly milled flour. Many find it helpful to initially use some combination of bread flour and whole grain, while learning about hydration, how to develop dough structure, etc. The taste is definitely worth the effort!
Wishing you the best of success!
Mary