by gregtpayne | Oct 12, 2018 | Bread
We made white sourdough last night and today we’re making wheat bread with 300 grams wheat flour and 500 grams white flour (ok, not whole whole wheat). Yesterday we went back to our pyrex loaf pan (small one) and again today (big one better). Yesterday we baked the second half in the bread machine and tonight we’ll bake a round in addition to a pyrex loaf. We did a very long second proof. I’m thinking 5-6 hrs upstairs in the heat. We are definitely not catching it on the rise. We’ll have to play with a 2nd punchdown (3 proofs to coax out the sourness. Oh we’re also thinking of trying a new recipe with 400 grams starter, 750 grams flour and 400 grams of water. Last night we baked the loaf for 31 minutes and it barely made 195 degrees. That seemed to cut it close as the inside seemed just barely done. Maybe we’ll make 35 with the wheat. Yikes we didn’t make it 30 and it started to burn on top. We pulled it and it read 297 so I think we’re ok but we’re going to reduce our oven to 400 degrees. I don’t know if it’s our oven or what but they are baking too fast.
We also want to try some tricks Barbara read about like throwing ice into the hot pan instead of boiling water. Something about spraying a mist of water inside (on the walls?) to create more steam. I think we’ll try a new recipe called the Three Four Hundreds. 400 grams starter, 400 grams water and 750 grams of flour. We’ll stick with 2 tsp of salt and 2 tbsp of sugar and bake it all at … you guessed it, 400 degrees. So we now have our first 400 degree, cloched boule in the oven for 15 minutes with the cover and …. yikes, well we baked it for an hour because it wasn’t browning. Maybe 400 is too low. OK, back to 425 I guess. Barbara liked the round. She likes the crust and the wheat. Me, not so much. Maybe do the loaves at 400 and the rounds at 425. Ugh.
by gregtpayne | Oct 8, 2018 | Kombucha
This is our new favorite. Our Passion Fruit buch turned out so good we made a full batch of it tonight. Our liliko’i plant is dropping fruit now and there are a ton of purple ones on the vine so we should have plenty through the fall and into winter. LIke last time we used 1/4 cup of de-seeded passion fruit puree and a full tablespoon of sugar (it’s been hot so the buch was strong). We used 1/2 tbsp for the plain. We did a 6 day 2nd fermentation last time so we’ll probably do the same this time.
by gregtpayne | Oct 4, 2018 | Sourdough
Here are some scoring patterns. Our signature is a big ‘B’!
We used our House recipe…
- Water: 430 ml/g (Irish guy uses 460g)
- Starter: 320 g
- Flour: 800 g
- Salt: 10 g
- Sugar: 2 tbsp
- Olives, sliced 1-2 cups (optional) (add last 5 minutes of kneading)
- Rest: 10:00
- Knead: 20:00
- Shape: OFF
- Rise 1: 3:00
- Rise 2,3: OFF
- Bake: OFF
- Keep Warm: OFF
After 3 hrs 35 min. we’ll remove it from the machine, punch it down, cut it in half, put 1/2 back in the machine, proof that for 3-6 hrs (longer seems to make it more sour) and bake for 55 minutes. The other half we’ll make into an artisan boule (round) and bake in the cloche for 35 minutes (first 20 with the cover on, 15 off) at 425-450 F depending on how hot your oven runs. We set our at 425 F but I think it’s closer to 450 F. Don’t forget to score your loaves before baking. We’re going to try scoring our bread machine loaves from now on as they haven’t been rising as well as we’d like. We’re also trying 8 hours of proofing (5 hour 2nd rise) to increase sourness and rising.
Notes: You can use white or wheat flour (or pretty much any flour) or a combination. We’re finding we like white sourdough. You can also skip the sugar as sourdough is really just flour, salt and water. You can add some olive oil (2 tbsp), use brown sugar instead of white and many more tweaks. We put a cup of olives in our batch today.
by gregtpayne | Oct 3, 2018 | Bread
Well we’ve had some epic fails lately. Yesterday I went back to the Irish guy’s recipe which made the dough way too watery. The bread machine loaf hadn’t even risen after 7 hours of proofing when it started baking. It actually came out tasting good, very spongy and sour, but it was very dense and flat and the top was as white as white flour. The round sunk so much it looked more like flatbread. So today I started looking for a new recipe and found this on BBC’s site…
How to make sourdough bread
Ingredients
- 500g/1lb 2oz strong unbleached white bread flour, plus extra for flouring
- 300g/10½oz sourdough starter
- 250ml/9fl oz water
- 10g/¼oz brown sugar
- 10g/¼oz salt
- flavourless oil, for greasing
Method
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Mix together the flour, sourdough starter and water in a bowl. Add the sugar and salt. Turn out on to a clean kitchen surface and knead for 10 minutes or until the ‘windowpane effect’ is achieved (where the dough can be stretched until it is so thin that it becomes transparent).
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Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and let it prove for 2½-3 hours. You won’t notice as much of a rise in the dough as you would with a normal, yeasted bread and it will take a lot longer.
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Turn out the dough onto a clean kitchen surface and knock back. Portion the dough into two and shape into two ball-shaped loaves. Flour generously, and place each loaf seam side up in a bowl, lined with a couche cloth or a heavily-floured tea towel – without the cloth, your loaf will stick in the bowl and you won’t be able to turn it out. Leave to prove for a further 2½ hours.
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Preheat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas 8. Put a few ice cubes or cold water into a baking tin and place in the bottom of the oven to create steam. Turn the loaves out onto a baking tray or hot baking stone. Using a thin sharp knife score two or three times on the top of the loaf and place in the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a good crust has formed and the loaves sound hollow when tapped on the base.
by gregtpayne | Sep 28, 2018 | Bread
I think avoided burning them today by pulling the bread machine loaf after 55 minutes and the cloche boule after 35 minutes (25 with cover). I took the temp of our oven and it’s running hot, at least 440 F when set to 425. That’s OK though, we’ll continue to cook with our oven set to 425 F. I took the internal temperature of both loaves and it read about 206 for both so 55 and 35 minutes for 1/2 wheat, no added ingredients may be about right. One thing I did notice was holes in the tops of both loaves. I suspect this may be due to using much less water than the recipe calls for, trying to achieve a harder consistency, like I’ve seen in videos. However I’ll go back up to 430 g/ml of water next time which is still 30 ml less than the recipe. So here’s what we’ll do next time…
For two loaves kneaded in bread machine:
- White Flour: 400 g
- Wheat Flour: 400 g
- Water: 430 g/ml (down from 460 in recipe)
- Salt: 10 g
- Starter: 320 g
- Rest: 10:00
- Knead: 25:00
- Shape: OFF
- Rise 1: 3:00
- Rise 2,3: OFF
- Bake: OFF
- Keep Warm: OFF
When done, remove dough, punch it down, cut in half and proof another 3-4 hours in bread machine, pan or shaping basket. Bake for 55 minutes in bread machine or 35-40 minutes in cloche (covered first 20) in 425 F oven.
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