long-time reader first-time bread-maker

then the yeasty beast is too unleashed

Tartine country white from sourdough starter.

http://imgur.com/gallery/e0YFyXv

Beautiful!

(update on loaf 2: it stales p quickly but was good fired for breakfast on day three and toast with soup for supper)

(loaf 3: saturday if i am spared)

We made a gargantuan boule of no-knead sourdough following the King Arthur recipe and it’s GREBT

I’d post pictures but it’s half eaten already. Can’t wait to make some open faced cheese sandwiches with it. 24 hour first rise and dutch oven is definitely the way to go. And kosher salt is better than sea salt imo.

Save y’all the googlin

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-sourdough-bread-recipe

Makes a big one. We’re halving the recipe next time.

I think I've had good flavour and low strength - ie tends to go a bit pancakey - when i've tried a long proof. Probably needed more stretch & fold. Definitely game for trying again.

busy and a little low on starter so I tried my first yeasted bread, a nice simple white loaf. Just a completely different game - the dough behaves itself quickly, and the fucker swells fast.

I'm starting this BA focaccia today: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/easy-no-knead-focaccia

the first three recipes i googled for making a wholemeal loaf mention a loaf tin but obviously i can do it without a tin

(can't i)

hmmmmm it may be quite.... low and flat. the nice thing about a tin is that no matter what happens it’ll have a nice shape. you could use a round cake tin maybe?

i do have cake tins yes, but no way of working out what the volume equivalent is

(i realised* my wholemeal flour is in fact strong)
*(by reading the outside of the packaging)

opinions vary on the loaf-tins, acc.to the platform i quiz abt it

Well you can definitely try a free-standing loaf. You might try reducing the water a few percent to get a stronger, stiffer loaf that won’t go flat in the oven. (Though it might be fine anyway)

Definitely don’t succumb to the temptation of adding flour in the last stages of shaping your loaf, either because you have sticky hands, or because you want it stiffer, or what have you. Any flour you add after your various stages of rising etc will be UNFERMENTED and won’t taste good and will interfere with the action of the rest of the dough. Nothing wrong with a little dusting flour on your work surface or your hands when you’re shaping your loaf at the end, but don’t try to genuinely incorporate more flour at that stage.

so is part of the science here that a wholemeal loaf actually needs the heat to closer to the middle, via reduced distance (width is less) and also via conduction?

closer i.e. than a free-standing would-be spherical loaf (like the second one i made = a plain four loaf)

hmm I don’t know. I don’t think it matters. You want a really hot oven when you put it in, and reduce a bit after 20 minutes, regardless of what kind of loaf you’re making.

Freestanding, but shape it as a batard rather than a boule?

ALAB series

i will never not cross the streams

ok it is somehow the afternoon I am going to bake something instead of watching bakewithjack videos.

using woof's pan of boiling water method, my pos blob of wholemeal dough is rising like a mfer: punching down begins in two mins

i am making 2 x wholemeal baguettes from a recipe which used US cups = the worst of all measures

agreed

be gentle with the punching my friend

ok so here's what i don't really get: what does punching do when if i'm shortly required to re-knead that the second knead doesn't do

Nothing, probably - you’re right

ok these guys have browned nicely on top and sound hollow to the tap from above

BUT one of them had to be pried off the baking tray and both bases are worryingly soft (i have flipped them over and given them a last little blast)

caught a little on top thx to final blast but the base is now as i hope so

https://files.slack.com/files-pri/TV20059EW-F0113ULDAQJ/2020-04-04_18.33.35-2.jpg

woof i think i need an account in that 'workspace' to see that. i don't know who the administrator is.

Yes you do

Aha!

I've been charged with folding the sourdough today, as part of my working from home responsibilities.

Did that yesterday.

my nice downstairs neighbours sourced me some strong flour :)

what is a good recipe for starter if you have no yoghurt (i have no yoghurt)

No need for yoghurt at all - just water and flour.
I followed this one blindly at the start of the year, never having baked before:
https://www.theboywhobakes.co.uk/recipes/2019/5/30/how-to-make-a-sourdough-starter

the boy who bakes is us

(can include girls)

that looks like it would work. i have found it a bit easier to get going with rye. (you can still make white and whole wheat loaves with a rye starter.)

The dough is very fluffy! We're going to do half for bread and half for pizza.

second edition of the no knead sourdough (we made half the recipe this time since the last one turned out so gigantic (and flour is hard to find)) is going in the oven shortly

I should have kept a some of Gilberto* last time he came to stay.

*Gilberto is a sourdough starter I look after when my Brazilian friends go on holiday. He is descended from the starter at French restaurant that sadly closed last year.

this made me wonder how old the oldest starter is and of course it's a thing and there are rival claimants and it's possibly 122 years (if this isn't fake)

according to my e5 bread sensei, after about 5 years it doesn't really matter how old it is on a practical level

former ilxor redacted trumped my google fu by finding someone who had made a starter found in an egyptian tomb

i mean with yeast spores found in an egyptian tomb

sarcophagus_juice.jpg

i bet you could make some good WRAPS with that.

request for a hot cross bun recipe accessible to the noob

lol now i have two, direct from two top bakers = mr p.hollywood & mr t.hand

naturally mr hand's is the more advanced, it requires i make BUTTERMILK (but i found out how with a lemon so that's OK)

do any of you bread people know the trick to making sourdough that's actually sour? i've had decent success at making levain bread with no yeast but it never has much of that strong tangy sourdough flavor. looking at recipes online for san francisco sourdough, it appears the trick is either a) using a san francisco sourdough starter bc that has special bacteria in it or b) doing a very long fridge proof/ferment. i've done overnight fridge proofs before and not had that result.

you can fridge a 65% hydration levain for 24 hrs. more acetic acid because of more struggle. then proceed as normal (and do a fridge proof too).