Bread - What are you baking today…..
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@neph93 To be honest, I was lucky as hell, used every trick I knew to make this work, and don’t know if I can replicate it. The conditions today were bad: cool house, damp, no real warm spots until I used the oven light and warming drawer.
I’m glad that you guys mentioned the folding technique as I would never have got it right otherwise. I’m still not happy with how my folds looked vs. the ones in the video, but the product turned out well, even with my shortcomings.
As to taste, it’s a lovely bread and will be added to my list of breads to make. Super light, fantastic crust, and will go well with a soft warm cheese (Brie?). Wife loves it and the kids say it’s lighter than a croissant in weight.
The Forkish book and the addition of a proper kitchen scale has changed my skill level dramatically. I was not able to measure accurately using volume and have my results turn out well. Salt, yeast, and flour are always measured with the scale to the recipes recommendation. The water is give or take. The book has taught me that over hydration is not a bad thing and that hydration levels need to take into account your environmental conditions.
Taking all of that into account, it’s still the accidents that make me the most happy with today being one of them. I went into it expecting failure, didn’t know if anything I was doing was right, and the results exceeding my expectations (which were very low).
I hope it’s not a fluke accident, but either way, something that I will continue pursuing.
"I don't give a shit what anyone else is doing, we will do what is best for us and our customers" - Giles P. :)
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only way to know if it was a fluke is to do it again!
Your bread looks picture perfect to me @goosehd. I found hydration to be extremely forgiving as well. It's not as critical as people say it is unless you're trying to make pan de cristal with pastry flour
Even then, that might be a fun experiment..... -
@Tago-Mago you don’t expect me to waste my cat herding focus on something like the science, art, and enjoyment of baking breads. Of course it’s store bought…
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Here is a fairly local mill that produces some different flours and I was wondering if you could give me some input on what you would try.https://arvaflourmills.com/pages/our-flours
The two in particular that I'm looking at are:
- Daisy Unbleached Hard Flour
- Area White Spelt Flour
Love to hear your thoughts if you have a minute or two.
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@goosehd, this is an incredibly easy choice
Get both, and if you can, buy it in a larger bag of daisy and a smaller bag of the spelt.
Then use something like a ~90/10 or even 70/30 ratio of the two flours. Spelt is among my favorites to blend in.
Also know that you can buy whole grains of spelt, sometimes called farro, and mill it yourself. It will keep much longer this way. In either case for spelt, be sure to store it in a tightly wrapped bag, double protected, and in the freezer to make sure it keeps longer. Count on a year of good life for the spelt flour and maybe as much as 2-3 for the whole grains.edit: Also, their Emmer flour sounds amazing! That one might actually be top of my list. Then again, I'm still working through a 50lb bag of KA Sir Lancelot so my need of more AP or a base flour is fairly limited.
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Answers on a postcard as soon as possible please (I'm trying again today). I tried starting with a 25-minute autolyse (almost per @pechelman , but I did not read how long to do it for until after I had mixed the other ingredients
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I followed the King Arthur recipe to the letter with fold times (total 4 folds) every 20 minutes, and rest for 80 minutes. The last two folds and rest were done in a warm environment (oven light turned on) and 80 minute rest was in the warming drawer.
Proof for two hours on the parchment paper and slid onto the stone when ready.
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Thanks @neph93, it tastes better the day after too
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@goosehd said in Bread - What are you baking today…..:
Bake Temp: 475f
Pizza Stone
15 minutes on the pizza stone
12 minutes on the upper oven rackTotal cook: 27 minutes @475
While this will yield solid results, most other techniques suggest a hotter oven to start for the first 10, with loads of steam, and then dropping for the last 15ish mins until done. My go to was 500F on a baking steel for 10 min with a hotel tray full of lava rocks on the side with boiling water poured on before closing the oven door followed by 15m@450f and removing the hotel tray of rocks. Then also leave the bread in the oven for two minutes after it was done with the heat off, bread on a higher empty rack, and the door cracked open to generate a strong connection to really dry off and crisp up the outside. This also reduces the cracking you might hear when removing it straight away.
Though if you've never tried baking using the cold oven method it's worth a try. Basically don't preheat anything, place dough into a covered cold Dutch oven, place into a cold oven, and then bake at 500F for 50 mins. Remove lid, inspect, and bake uncovered till your desired color. I still do the last step as above with removing the Dutch oven, placing loaf on a high rack in the turned off oven, and leave the door cracked for 2ish mins.
