long-time reader first-time bread-maker

Agree, i like a dark crust on bread. Both look amazing.

excellent. today is another sourdough day, so will update on “crust developments” later. uh also “hearted bread” should obv be “yeasted”.

All fresh bread is hearted by me tbh

Great loaves, Fizzles, esp that darker second one. I'm a big proponent of pushing the bark of the loaf till the last moment. The flavor's just better.

those loaves look amazing!

i'm making another bread attempt, the first loaf in flour water salt yeast

i salute you!

this was fun and it appears to have worked except the bottom looks a bit too black. we'll see!
https://i.imgur.com/dq3UUBV.jpg

ooooh O_O looks good!!

damn, nice crumb!
https://i.imgur.com/tZqL0qS.jpg
i ate some and it was good, maybe will try to move it higher in the oven next time if it'll fit. i will do one of the pre-ferments next bc i like a more yeasty taste, this was sort of basic.

tremendous!!

i still can't believe i did it. i've had such a bad time with bread. it's because of kneading, i can't knead properly so i have to stick to stretch and fold for now. the only bread i've made that i've been happy with is cinnamon raisin bread from the bread baker's apprentice (will make again) and that was still too dense!

i haven’t kneaded in years. with sourdough it’s all stretch n fold.

i am on day 2 of the flour water salt yeast (i keep wanting to say salt fat acid heat) levain process. it uses SO much flour. but it's working. it has more than doubled in size in 10 hours after i re-fed it for the first time. it's alive! weird how every book uses a totally different process though.

yeah i pretty much abandoned flour water salt yeast because you either end up wasting a bunch of ingredients or have to plan ahead to make more things with the leftover levain.

sourdough waffles are an EXCELLENT use of leftover starter/levain

we’ve been making sourdough basically since right after lockdown began and have yet to run into this “leftover starter” problem

for this one i haven't yet reached the stage where i have starter. each day you have to throw away 75% of what you have and add 500 grams (2 cups) of flour. i'm on day 3 of 5 (?). you can then keep a smaller amount of starter. i don't eat enough bread to make more than a loaf a week so i will be refrigerating but i plan to make pretzels and pancakes soon.

Yeah having a growing kid who loves sourdough requires two medium-ish loaves a week so that’s driving us

successful pain de campagne, ignore all the crumbs on my stovetop. i avoided burning the bottom this time, maybe helped by parchment paper and/or a little less time in the oven.
https://i.imgur.com/8qgx8zv.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/NBrXMBr.jpg

wow that looks like the fucking business

it's really tasty and the texture of the crust is great. i'm going to make another recipe "field blend #2" with my bf tomorrow, might try a batard shape in my oval dutch oven. i have just a small bag of whole rye flour, i can't find a place to buy 5 lb bags of it other than online.

i have another book my brother got me for xmas that has a lot of scandinavian and german breads made with dark rye flour

does anyone here have a good bagel recipe, ideally a good sourdough-based bagel recipe? i've made them a few times and they're pretty good but not great. i suspect a lot of it has to do with me doing a bad job of forming the bagels in a way that overworks the dough, but it could also be the recipes i'm using

hmmm, no sour but i've made these about 4 or 5 times the last couple years:
https://serenalissy.com/new-york-bagels/

i've never gotten the toasted-on-the-outside/chewy on the inside i'm after, but they come out fairly well and satisfy a bage jones. ftr, i did cross-reference with another recipe i found and they were basically identical, so just kept the one. you could just make the dough a couple days ahead of time to get a little sour thing going i guess? think i may try that come to think of it.

curious to see another recipe if you have one convenient to hand, NA. i sort of developed my own technique for forming bcuz the directions did not make sense to me, or rather, seemed to complicated. i just make little rolls from the dough then stick my thumb through and pull 'em apart, sort of the same way i learned how to work with pizza dough.

i've used a couple of different recipes but i've just googled sourdough bagels and gone from there. they usually turn out OK but a bit too dense. i learned the first time that you can't get a dozen bagels out of a batch of dough, they end up too small. i've used the bagel forming technique you mention but then i try to smooth them out and that's when i think they get overworked. the last time they came out of the water nice and big but then deflated a bit after baking, which i believe is an indication of overproofing? i've only made them a few times so i think it's mostly just a matter of a) finding a good reliable recipe and b) making them enough times to get the technique down

I had never made bagels until a couple of weeks ago. I tried this recipe and they came out beyond anything I expected:

https://www.theperfectloaf.com/sourdough-bagel/

Now a word of warning: this guy is kind of a jackass imo - he lists ingredient quantities like "429g flour" - as if it's an architectural project. Try not to get thrown by all that. Essentially you're making a stiff sourdough bread with an extra boiling step. That's it.

The day they were baked they were just freakishly good. Subsequent days, and after a freeze and thaw, they were still good but pretty standard.

thanks, Tracer! bread flour seems logical. and i love the shaping pics. am definitely gonna use this recipe as a guide next time.

By the way, I didn't have any 'barley malt syrup' (!?) so I found some thick, gooey date paste and used that instead. It worked great. You could probably use molasses or even honey or something.

I also didn't use any diastatic malt powder. Sue me.

yeah i've used maple syrup as a sub before. thanks tracer

comcast is working on something and internet keeps going out intermittently (it's on now obv) therefore i "can't work" and will make a raisin bread

i'm on day 2 of the three-day bagel recipe. i formed them with the snake method this time and i think i prefer it, even if my bagels still turned out a bit lopsided.

omg. tell us how it turns out!

the swirl doesn't appear because this is near the end of the loaf but this worked a lot better than the last time. i wasn't so fearful of overkneading (i was using standmixer and just let it go and go until i reached the required texture), which led to a much stronger rise. and used 8.5x4.5 pan instead of 9x5.
https://i.imgur.com/CJ73yqg.jpeg

i mean last time it was too dense, tasted fine though

That looks wonderful

i am going to make some loaves this weekend. have been feeding my starter regularly to get it ready instead of what has become my habit of just every few days. i want to put in some seeds, maybe one rye with caraway and one with sunflower. does it absorb too much of the water or do i just add them without worrying about that? also looking for some new flour ratios. i have whole grain spelt and rye.

by weekend i mean wednesday because i am only working today and tomorrow #veterans

ok i have discovered you need to soak the seeds. i am looking forward to this seedy adventure.

i made a pretty good rye, caraway, beer and honey loaf from claudia roden’s Book of Jewish Food at the weekend. i think it needed to be slightly more hydrated but it tasted great.

Oh, we have that book! What would you do different next time?

so the recipe says to add only enough beer 'to make a dough that holds together.'

i took that pretty literally (and followed the quantity guidance, which was 125ml water, ~350ml of beer - so very low hydration), but i the dough was just too dry and crumbly (and absolute murder to knead). I'd add slightly more liquid to get a more elastic dough next time. she does say in the next paragraph not to add too much flour in the kneading stage as the dough is intended to be 'a little sticky compared with white bread dough,' so i was a bit wtf Claudia make up your mind.

weekend sourdough here - heavily floured because FUCK ME it keeps sticking, which makes. me. mad.

https://i.imgur.com/RtWhMqi.jpeg

slightly crumbly rough looking rye here:

https://i.imgur.com/yTuqABW.jpeg

(smells and tastes great mind)

Yeah I was thinking when I was reading that that the fragrance alone would make it a really nice bread (for someone else in the house) to make especially as it’s pretty cold rn. As ever, your sourdough looks very good!

made this, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/kansas-sunflower-bread-recipe , just came out of oven 30 min ago so i haven't cut into it yet. instead of 361g white bread flour i did 201g AP flour, 80g white whole wheat, 80g spelt (i believe this flour is "sprouted" but i'm kind of confused by the label from the bulk place). i always get dough that is too wet from these recipes, it won't even make a ball in the mixer, added back another 1/2 cup or more of AP flour. it looks like a very tall loaf, the tallest i've ever made, so i don't think anything went wrong.

ok here is photo.
https://i.imgur.com/Nr2fq8E.jpeg
great-tasting bread, perfect density, but a bit crumbly. probably because of aforementioned flour adding. i'm just afraid of very wet dough. but this was not just very wet, it was way too wet. no one would have been able to knead it. i am going to try letting it sit after mixing next time. especially with the whole grains. this would be a nice tuna fish sandwich or grilled cheese bread. i just toasted it and had it with some peach jam.

yum

that is amazing.