devlin

Jack's already responded pretty thoroughly to you above, but I did want to stress again that Wood's Classic Sourdoughs was probably the best resource for me in figuring out, pretty simply, how to cultivate and maintain and refresh a sourdough culture. I like Hamelman very much (I mean, what's not to like? he's a fabulous resource), but for me, Wood was simpler to follow for a truly novice baker.

Dammit, and your preferment looked the best to date. I'm liking your growing desire to stroke the dough, though, , and I'm thinking the giggling in the background shows promise in other directions as well. Bread can lead one to such interesting situations.... Anyway, back to the topic. I'm gonna have to work through this thread again. I was convinced in the beginning that the sourdough starter wasn't fully active, and I'm still not convinced that might not be the case. I was about to agree with Tepee's suggestion too that perhaps you simply weren't letting the dough proof long enough. But now I'm not sure. What's the temperature at your place? Okay, I have to admit a certain perverse satisfaction at seeing somebody struggling at least as much as I did when I first started baking bread. With friends like us, G, ya hardly need enemies.

I'm with Jack. And even beyond "minimal" kneading. I don't knead at all. And I shape very minimally as well. I coax more than shape. Very gently. Very sparingly. I was intrigued by a few pages in Alan Scott's book in which he describes a small bakery run by just a married couple somewhere on the East coast who use the folding technique. They both have pedigree credentials in the way of culinary education. Scott didn't really go much further than mention that it appeared to be the best way to handle dough from his observation and his experience with their very exceptional bread, and I was frustrated, wondering whether I'd have to try to finagle an apprenticeship with them or travel overseas to learn it the way the husband of the pair had. I started to use the technique Carol Field describes for one of her breads, and then found another description of the method in Maggie Glezer's book. And then when I was lucky enough to get to Scott's bread oven conference last year, I watched a couple of folks (his daughter and the resident baker) folding large batches of dough in tubs in precisely that way. No machines, no kneading. It actually does have a sort of meditative quality to it, at least for me. And maybe something like playing in mud, which I loved doing when I was a kid. We'll have you doing yoga next.

And has anybody asked yet? HOW DOES IT TASTE???

I think that if you keep at it, you'll get where you're looking to go. Somebody should write a book. The Zen of Bread Baking, eh? You're doing great. Better than you think.

My experience (I've been learning in a very concentrated, self-taught way, talking to people who know what they're doing, reading as much as I can get my hands on and baking and experimenting all the while for going on 5 years now) has indicated to me that the less you actually work a dough, the more beautiful the crumb, and the better it will behave for you.... That, of course, comes with dozens of caveats that you figure out as you learn. I don't use any mixers or processors for my breads. I use the turn and fold method, and I work with big bins of the stuff at a time, making 20 loaves of one formula at a time. And I work with very wet doughs. And a sourdough culture that is like manna. I'm in love with my sourdough culture and my breads just keep getting better. Yeah, it is sort of labor-intensive, but only every couple of hours in short spaces of time. And I really don't know right now that to do it the quick and easy way will get you exactly what you're looking for. Maybe I'm wrong about that. In my gut, I don't think so. One of the reasons we've all been eating such degraded breads for so many years was that desire for the quick and easy process. Hence commercial yeast. Hence quick, warm rises. Hence tight crumb and weak crust and an inferior, flavorless product once you factor out the butter or jam. Personally, I'm watching you work through a process here very quickly and actually getting very good results in a short period of time. Nope, it's not perfect. But to expect perfection right off the bat isn't reasonable. Beautiful, gorgeous, flavorful bread is as much art as science. It takes a lot of time to get there. It takes a lot of failed bread. It takes a lot of desire to keep trying after every failure. Frankly? Your first failures look way better than my first failures did.

Lori, I'm late with a response to your question, and Jack's already provided feedback for this, but I wanted to affirm that yes, or rather no, you don't keep the sourdough culture in a proofing box 24 hours a day. Keep it in the refrigerator, take out whatever amount you need for refreshing to get to the required amount of starter in whatever recipe you're working with, and then proof for however long it takes (for me, that usually means about 4 hours, something like that). I know it all sounds hopelessly vague. If you're really interested in following through, though, I would strongly suggest you invest in a text that provides a good blueprint for that, and then you practice. Of the several I have on hand (including Hamelman, Silverton, Reinhart, Glezer and a couple others I can't think of right offhand), Wood has been the easiest and most reliable for me as I've been learning. I don't use his recipes/formulas. Just his reference material on how to work with sourdough cultures. And for that, the book's been invaluable. Together with being able to read folks' experiences here.

We may all end up driving you crazy here. For couches I use a light canvas I buy from bolts of the stuff at Wal Mart, cut to desired length, and then liberally floured with bread flour. My doughs are VERY wet. Even using them the first time, not a problem. But I flour them very liberally, and then rub the flour into the nap. Works for me. Alternatively, you could try parchment paper for now, making sure you sprinkle with something like corn meal or rice flour or semolina or something to minimize the effect a wet dough would have simply sitting by itself on parchment paper. The knobs are just somebody's own idea of a nice touch. They'd probably have a little crunch to them, but otherwise, I've never actually seen that before myself. Maybe it's regional? Peculiar to the baker or the bakery? Dunno.

Lori, for me, the most consistently reliable way to replicate the temperature for this sort of thing has been a cheap, pastic cooler with one of those clip-on lamps attached to the lip of the thing and with a 40 watt bulb, and covering the cooler with both the lid (which of course won't fit tight on the cooler because the lamp's clamp won't allow it) and a towel. It's essentially the method suggested by Ed Wood in his Classic Sourdoughs, and it's a good resource for managing sourdoughs.

I'm wondering whether your starter was fully active before you started your preferment. It's difficult to tell from the pic, but I'd say it looks a little weak. Maybe you might want to reactive your starter before you proceed to a preferment. I use a little more flour to water as well and proof in a box (a plastic cooler) with a 40 watt bulb for a few hours at a temp of 85 degrees. I think I mentioned this before and Jackal wondered whether my culture survived that process. Or maybe I misunderstood. But I started it four years ago and it's a gorgeous thing. I agree, though, that sourdough is, as Jackal noted, way more forgiving than commercial yeast which surprised me once I got used to using it. Apart from producing the best breads I've ever had, it's actually easier in many ways, once you get used to the process. And once past the hurdle of figuring out how to activate and feed and use, a sourdough is, ironically, turning out to be simpler in pretty significant ways. At least that's so for me. You wouldn't have been able to convince me of that even a couple of years ago. I still consider myself a novice. And I wish I'd had this forum to consult when I started!

No, no need to apologize or to explain. Baker's percentage are actually what I've been gravitating to, and I've already got all the resources everybody's mentioned (Hamelman, Reinhart, etc.), and again I should have been more precise about what I was asking for, which was beyond the baker's percentages really, and a simpler question which was what I outlined above and which you have now very obligingly come back to answer. Anyway, here's sort of what happened and why I was frazzled and cranky and out of sorts. My bakery is out of my garage, and it's been under construction off and on for about a year and a half (together with the oven). We've done it ourselves, hiring someone only to build the oven. And then other events came along to interrupt, like Katrina. I'm a volunteer for United Animal Nations and went down to one of the animal shelter outposts in Louisiana to help care for about 300 dogs during that. And then another emergency out of Arkansas happened with even more dogs, a horrifying place where some of the Katrina dogs ended up, some of them dying from neglect after all they'd been through, 450 dogs from everywhere, and then the holidays happened fast on the heels of that, and so the bakery's only just being finished. I've been working concentratedly for the past four years on learning artisan bread baking, but the oven is still a learning process, as is the process of the larger batches. And my husband keeps pushing me to get stuff out, even when the bakery's not really totally user friendly yet, although nearly, and I have to keep resisting because I'm not together enough yet. And then he told a colleague I might be able to cater breads and cakes and cookies for her wedding rehearsal dinner this past Friday. He told her on Tuesday. And when I called her back I felt obliged and compelled or whatever to do it because it was a good opportunity and because she already knew some of what I did and loved it. So I got all the cakes and cookies prepared in two days while working on the bread and firing up the oven in stages over a couple of days to get it ready after sitting cold for about a month. And I made sure to have two breads going just in case. Thank god. Because my most reliable bread, typically, the one everybody loves in particular, the one I'd promised, the one that I use the instant yeast for and is fermented over three days, started falling apart the morning of the bake, which it's never done. And I'd done a larger batch about a month before, just not this big, although close enough. The other one, a really lovely garlic sourdough, turned out beautifully, but I had to trash the other. Because I had the garlic, I was able to still give them bread, but I was in a panic the day of the bake, the day I was supposed to get the bread to the dinner, because my one batch totally fell apart on me. The evening was still a success, and in fact the customer insisted on writing a check for more than I billed them because they said there was no way they were going to let me charge them so little for what I'd done. I unloaded everything on the table to exclamations of delight, and the bride, who unbeknownst to me, had already had some of my stuff, was confident from the start. And then I took my husband out for a drink and then went home to read the book I'd gotten from Amazon that afternoon, "Don't Try This at Home: Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs." The first chapter beings, "The lobster's off," going on to reiterate a total fiasco where the prize dish for a crowd of something like 3000 people goes bad before they start and the scrambling to make it work somehow anyway and the lesson there, the necessity to have a Plan B. And I had to laugh. Obviously I'm not anywhere near that level or the scale of disaster. But still, it felt disastrous enough to me. But then I realized, you know, I managed to pull it off anyway and everybody was thrilled with the stuff. And I still have my best bread to spring on them later.

Yes, thanks, I am way serious. We built a woodfired oven from Alan Scott a year ago and I'm planning a business around it. I've made somewhat larger batches( 6 xs) preliminarily as practice and so far haven't had this problem, which is why I wondered too whether it might have been a difference between the instant yeasts I was using. I'd been using one instant yeast and not had a problem, and then couldn't find it at my usual place and ordered another which was different, increased the batch size from 6 xs to 8 xs, and the dough using the new batch of instant yeast fell apart in my hands. I use a scale already (not a digital) for everything else, and it always seemed to me, as you note, that since bakers were baking massive batches of bread before digital scales were invented, then the scale I have should work. But then I had this annoying experience with this batch and I freaked out. But a digital scale would surely make it easier, and I've been meaning to get one for a long time. So thanks for that recommendation. I'll look that up. And I apologize for being scattered and unclear. This was a rough weekend for me and I'm just sort of climbing out of it. Thanks for the responses everybody.

Okay, I guess I wasn't very clear. I already really do understand the conversions from teaspoons to ounces and to grams. I've already made the conversions from fresh and active dry yeast to instant yeast. My question, though (which is why I noted earlier that simply noting I need to use Baker's percentages wouldn't help), was not those conversions, but whether it was then a simple matter of multiplying that initial conversion for one batch by the number of the larger batch. For example. I've already got the converted # for the instant yeast for the formula for one batch. I now want to make 20 times that. Do I simply multiply the grams for one batch by 20? Because that's what I did, and the whole batch died.

Yes, okay, that was helpful. I already knew the .33 issue, but since I don't have a digital scale, it isn't helpful to me. So what that really means is I have to get a digital scale. Everything else I do by weight because flour and starter and starter and water are easy to scale. Yeast isn't. So thanks folks. I'll have to whine once more to my husband for one more piece of equipment. I was sort of hoping I could put that off for a month or so, but oh hell. I need it. You're wonderful. And helpful. Thanks.

I'm converting bread formulas to bigger batches, so far up to ten times the original. With the sourdoughs, no problem. But with commercial yeast, big problems. While every book and resource has very handy sections on how to convert from teaspoons to weight and the like, and how much yeast of all varieties (cake, active dry and instant) are required per cup or unit of measure of flour, I can't find anything that says whether making multiple batches of a particular bread simply requires one to simply multiply the original yeast requirement straightforwardly by the bigger batch. For example, if the original formula calls for 3/4 teaspoons of instant yeast, will a batch 8 times that simply mean you use 6 teaspoons of instant yeast? That just seems excessive to me. And does it matter what sort of instant yeast you use? One author says all instant yeasts are alike, despite claims to the contrary, so I'm not sure, because other sources disagree. I've used SAF Perfect Rise Yeast (which is according to its package a fast-rising, active dry yeast) for a couple of years now, but my local source stopped carrying it and so I bought some SAF Instant, thinking it was the same. They are packaged differently. I made a multiple batch (8 times the original formula) with the new SAF Instant and simply multiplied the yeast called for by 8. It fell apart in my hands during the final mix and was a total disaster. Can somebody help me out with this? It seemed an excessive amount of yeast to me, but I've not been able to find any help in any text or resource I've looked at. Please don't tell me to simply use baker's percentages. I'm not good with numbers as a rule, so this is particularly difficult for me and I'm feeling like a total doofus. Or maybe someone knows a resource I've missed? Thanks.

And now I've read that again, I can't believe I said "safety deposit...."

I'm curious as to what yo' mama's recipe is for....a cake or cookie? Or artisan bread? Or other baked good? ← My mama's recipe is a cake, an apple cake, and beyond that I refuse to say anything more.

Just to support some of the thoughts here, and to add to the big vote of appreciation for Wendy who blows me away, I generally share recipes. In fact I think I've always said yes to requests for recipes with one exception, and I'm thinking I'll have to put that one in a safety deposit box with instructions that it be bequeathed to some lucky baker when I die (and now that I think of it, Wendy's a good candidate). I'm one of those folks who does the research and the legwork before I ask questions, and I appreciate that people will share techniques and methods. And that's one of the distinctions here. So much of the issue is technique and methods (and fabulous ingredients). I make a fattigmanns I've finally managed to tweak to my liking and I get absolutely rave reviews for them. My mother made them. It's mostly her recipe (or the one she got from her mother and lord knows where she got it), but I've changed it here and there, and I like mine more. I've also gotten really proficient at making them, and they're finicky and supremely labor- intensive. I also make an almond cake/tart affair that I got from Martha Stewart Living and it's unbelievable. People always ask about it, and I'm happy to tell them where I got it, and I've actually written up my own revised tutorial for people on how to make it because frankly the published instructions are a pain in the neck to follow. Once people read the recipes (this one and the fattigmanns), they usually stop there. They're very complicated to produce. And then there's the issue of standard cakes and desserts. Anybody can go to any baking website or baking book and find a version, so if someone wants a thing like that, well sure, I'm happy to oblige. On the other hand, that recipe of my mother's that I'm thinking of putting in a safety deposit box? I've googled and searched and read book after book til I'm blue in the face and have never seen anything even remotely like it. Unfortunately, I didn't ask her while she was alive where the heck it came from. It was just always there, and I took it completely for granted growing up. If somebody asks me for it, I just say it was my mother's recipe and it's a family thing, and I'd be happy to make them one. I'm also just launching my own artisan breads business with a handful of cakes and cookies on the side, so it's an issue. A pretty nice restaurant in Chicago provides recipes for a couple of their desserts if people ask. But only the two.

Is a toaster really better than an oven for toasting bread? Apart from being generally easier? I mean, does even a very expensive toaster produce better toast than an oven? For me, just to register my vote (although I've never had an expensive toaster), I prefer bread toasted in an oven.

Well I'm going to try at least one batch this weekend, and won't have an actual pullman pan, so we'll see how it goes. I was a little floored to learn how much the pans cost, but Andiesenji, those are more reasonable than many I've been able to find online. Before I looked them up, I was assuming I could buy a whole lot of them in one fell swoop to take advantage of the residual heat of the brick oven after the first couple of loads. But that's way more bucks than I'm able to fork over all at once. Thanks for the help folks.

So I'm readying myself to make pumpernickel, but I don't have pullman pans. Is there something else I can substitute for the pullman covers on, say, a standard loaf pan? At the same time, can somebody give me a good lead on some inexpensive pullman pans?

Gorgeous. And simple. The problem: hazelnut paste? Where might one get it? I can't even get hazelnuts where I live.

Thanks Folks! That's just what I needed. Jackal, I was surprised by the addition of raw rather than cooked potatoes. How does it affect the final product? Different from cooked? No difference? I've decided to take the process through a three-day process only because I realized I won't have time to bake today. So depending on how it goes, I'll report back later with pics.

Yup, thanks Bill. I already knew that, but I was worried in particular about the potato issue. Maybe it doesn't matter? Would they work better added the next day? Or are they okay for a 12 proof in the fridge?

I've been meaning to post these pics and to comment on this sourdough for some time now, but anyway. I like this formula, and I used it for a roasted garlic baguette and a rosemary olive oil as well which were both very wonderful. Here're a couple of photos for the straight sourdough (I need a sharper knife for slashing). I'm going to be using this a lot. and sliced.... Thanks Jackal! edit to note I used bread flour for this, not soft flour as Jackal has. I'm going to play around with the flours at some point....