Bread - What are you baking today…..
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@Giles thank you very much Sir, sincerely appreciated. I much prefer flavoursome flours such as rye and spelt. I will give them a go.
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Spelt is in short supply up here too. I scored some the other day, happily. Bloody loads of rye but I expect it is more of a staple flour in Norway than in the UK.
Dried yeast likes temps between 20-37C. The blog I used as a take off point recommended 32C water when mixing the starter slightly over room temp for fermenting and I’ve stuck to that. I’d suggest the temperature is what is making it slow going.
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Did a quick read….another source suggesting a starting temp of 32C is important....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough#/media/File%3ASourdough-process.svg
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@Stuart.T mine have been a good ten days or so to get going. So much that I wondered if I messed something up. Just took some time. Ambient temps of ~70F/21C.
You’ll notice a smell for sure, but it should be pleasantly yeasty with a little tang. The resulting bread is not really sour at all. You could give it to someone who doesn’t like sourdough without telling them and they’d have no clue. -
^agree, a good read.
I made the same French Rye clone this week as last, changed proportions to:
75% bread flour
25% rye flour
79% water
4.2% cider
2.2% salt
Used 50 g of both the bread and rye flours plus 100g of the water and 50g of starter to make the levain, but otherwise followed the same schedule as previously posted. Cider was supposed to be 4%, but I froze the remainder from last week in ice cube trays, turns out two cubes = 42g. Guess I could’ve poured off 2g.
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@neph93 I did away with the org strong white flour starter, the discarded starter didn't even make a decent pancake. I'm sticking with the org stoneground. It has a gorgeous yeasty smell now, like a brewery…
@Giles last packet in the store…
And hipster… Checking my sourdough starter while making a flat white, listening to his Velvet Underground vinyl boxset, stroking beard... Hipster, moi?
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@Stuart.T that starter looks good. Bubbles forming and the smell you describe sounds about right. If you have a cupboard in your house that has a warmer ambient temperature I’d consider feeding it and leaving it there for 24hr. If the volume increases meaningfully and bubbles like you see now form, then I’d say you are good to go.
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Thanks Rueben. I'll give it another feed tonight. I'm going with the 1/4/4 ratio. When I fed it usually rises and drops by double. Next weekend I might give a loaf a go! Thanks for the advice folks.
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The eternal tweaking continues. 30/70 spelt and refined strong wheat, and 82% hydration today. Not overproofed (12 hour fridge ferment after four hour bulk).
I really enjoy working with the high hydration dough now, but that and the combination of relatively high amounts of spelt make it hard to get pleasingly formed loaves. The oven spring on these was meaningful but the spelt and hydration means that the dough spreads readily on oven plate.
I’m expecting a great taste and a decent crumb nonetheless.
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Look great. No planning done and we are out of Bread, so I'm going to do a Forkish Saturday bake. Which is just a bread that can be made on the same day. Autolyzing happening as I type…
Nice… i’m going to order that book, and look at the biga recipes you tipped me on soon. But it will be a summer holiday project I think.
As for my spelt loaves, the pics are somewhat flattering. When they come out of the bannetons they have a thick «skin» with a decent amount of surface tension, but they are very loose inside. The spread outwards is immense so even with the oven spring which doubles height, they become formless.
I’ve just had a slice and it tastes amazing. Wonderful soft texture too. But they are essentially a tasty failure in terms of hipster baking. Not sure what more I can do to build strength into the dough. These had four folds in the first have of the bulk ferment which did their job.
Next tweak will be a shorter (8-10 hour) bulk ferment and less water, but I’m finding the autolyse phase with spelt requires a higher hydration than 70-75% if I’m going to get all the flour wet. We shall see...
I am also getting into a wholemeal wheat starter for the first time. It is in the cupboard now and will be used next Saturday alongside the next spelt experiment.
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Seriously? How time and labour intensive is this? Bread making really does not fit with working 10hr days, household chores, and a super active 5 year old!
Yep, rings true… https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jan/26/hobbies-british-class-survey#main content
My mum used to bake when we were kids, out of necessity, then it became cheaper to buy baked goods than it was to buy the ingredients... Starting to think lack of time x cost is where I'm at now! Must... Persevere...
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Working from home while learning the hang of it was ideal for me. When you get the routine sorted you can do a lot of stuff while you are making the bread as long as you are home.
I now do a weekly bake, with the autolyse, mixing, and bulk ferment on a Friday afternoon/evening, and the bake Saturday morning after the fridge ferment. I make four big loaves in a session and it lasts all week. Planning is important though, regardless.
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@neph93 this was my dough after 40 mins autolyse, mixing, a 2 hours resting, folding every 25 mins. It is a 70% hydration recipe. It has reasonable gluten content but just seems too wet and sticky, not holding its shape well. I was hoping to prove for 8 hrs overnight. Not likely now.
