dougal

Just a note that there exist (in the UK at least) gluten-free *bread* flours (containing, not least importantly, xanthan gum to imitate the function of gluten). Trying to make bread with an ordinary "gluten free" flour is a very disheartening experience! One example: http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/...ail/431847.html

For me, a major leap in understanding came with digital scales, weighing flour (don't use volumes , 'cups', for solids with variable packing density), weighing liquid (don't use a measuring jug - its imprecise and so inconsistent), weighing in grammes always, and thus easing thinking in percentage terms (but not, I must admit, always strict "bakers' percentages"). Put all those together and you can cut through most recipes to see what's really going on. A major taste breakthrough was when BBA explained *why* it should be that following Elizabeth David's remarks, about less yeast and longer slower rising, really did give more interesting flavour. Hence my adding a little rye flour (3% of the flour) and giving a cool overnight rise to allow the amylase time to work its magic. While I'd broadly agree with all Jackal10's comments - I will quibble with the expression of a few of the details! - The flour. You can indeed make good bread with most (wheat) flours. However a different flour will produce a different loaf - different in both taste and texture . So as regards "almost any flour will do", I'd suggest that might be rather misleading if one were after either a particular quality in the result, or the achievement of consistency. Certainly a strong flour may actually be a disadvantage to the baguette baker! I gather that iii_bake is in Thailand (from the prawns). I have no idea what flours may be available there. However it may be worth remarking that stoneground flours (with lots of tasty wheatgerm oils) would have an even shorter storage life at tropical temperatures. - Kneading. Agreed, don't think of it as developing gluten. But do think of it as mixing, and distributing (or redistributing) the yeast and microbubbles (whether of air or CO2, the tiny bubbles that will spring in the oven). - "Steam". Steam is actually visible because it is water vapour condensing out to a fog as it cools. What does the work on the dough is the vapour, not the visible stuff. Misunderstanding that point leads to some people being misguided into putting ice cubes in the oven - lots of cooling so lots of visible "steam" - but actually less water vapour in the air and a colder oven! Personally, I leave a shallow tray of boiling water in my oven for more like 10 minutes - but I think this *must* depend both on one's oven *and* what you are trying to achieve (rather different for a baguette and a pain de campagne) - so I'd just say boost the humidity in the oven at the beginning is useful, but IMHO it'd be wrong to be absolutist about detailed timing. - Sugar. Some people must like sweet bread, but I personally don't. The other thing that sugar will do is give more CO2 more quickly (as when 'starting' yeast). So with added sugar, you could get to the same dough volume faster - BUT - you won't have changed the rate of fermentation of the flour much, so in the shorter rising time, you will have fermented the flour less and so developed less flavour in the bread. So while Jackal10 might say sugar slows fermentation, I'd say it gives you less flour fermentation for the same amount of rising (because the rising will actually happen faster). The important thing is to develop an understanding (whether conscious or 'by feel') that works for you individually. Gather whatever ideas work for you - but do recognise that different people can have quite different, but often equally workable, understandings! Which very often just turn out to be different ways of looking at the same thing...

Umm. Have you, by any chance, spotted the sharpening masterclass? http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=26036 Worth a look.

The Meyer is reputedly as hardy as Lemons get. But avoid repotting (lemons are a bit sensitive about that - and I understand that it reduces the crop till the new pot is full of roots), overwatering (especially I believe in winter), and cold winter draughts, while making sure it gets as much light as possible. Offend it and it'll drop its leaves in winter, not I think automatically killing it, but certainly making it even more delicate... They are rather easy to kill but, if you get it absolutely right, even a small tree can provide quite a lot of fruit - judging by some other people's that I've seen...

Prague Powder #1 and #2, ask your butcher to sell you some ← In his book Michael Ruhlman refers to 6.25% Sodium Nitr*i*te bulked out with ordinary salt (Sodium Chloride) as being "pink salt" (Page 38 1st edn). This is the standard composition of Prague Powder No 1. The funny percentage comes from imperial measures. It was 1 oz of Nitrite made up to a pound with salt, so 1/16th (6.25%) Nitrite. Prague Powder No 2 (or DC Curing Salt No 2 or Instacure No 2) isn't itself actually Nitr*a*te (as said at the bottom of Page 177), rather it contains some SodiumNitrate. The amount of Nitrate is 0.64oz per lb of No2 (and that is in addition to the same amount of Nitrite as in No 1). NitrAte (as found in No 2) is 'needed' for things to be eaten raw, but is disapproved in the USA for bacon on grounds of nitrosamine formation. Also, NitrAte requires bacterial action to cure - leading to a reputation for "unreliability" and inconsistency. Its also worth remarking that these powders should be produced such that all the crystals of the different components are the same size - so that the mix doesn't "segregate" giving different compositions at the top and bottom of the container... At sausagemaking.org Franco does sell No 1 and No 2 -- BUT (strangely IMHO) you'll find them both tucked away under "Curing Products/Cures for Salami" http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/Cures.html He also sells Potassium Nitrate (as "Saltpetre") - but for domestic quantities unless you have scales accurate to a small fraction of a gramme, go with the ready mixed, part diluted with salt, cures - as used in the book. For one reason, you don't need the extreme weighing accuracy.

I believe that it varies with the type of wood. Its basically the temperature required for whatever components of the wood to start reacting with atmospheric oxygen. The figure I quoted was my round number simplification of the low end of the range quoted on Wikipedia, even that being way above conventional oven temperatures - and representing a low smoulder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_%28cooking%29 You need external energy input to kick off the reaction, but thereafter, as the fuel burns it releases heat energy, so the external input required to sustain the reaction is going to be less than what's needed to get it going. Depends on how big, damp, well-oxygenated, etc your fire might be as to how much (if any) external input might be needed to sustain the smoulder - at the right sort of temperature to optimise the aroma, rather than flaring up as a fire, or going out! All that said, IMHO it wouldn't be easy to control a smoker on the basis of the actual combustion temperature.

Two things, Al. Firstly, these boxes seem to be a distinct branch of smoking. They are not a direct replacement for something like a Bradley, where the stuff is cooked in smoke for hours (in US english: "BBQ"). Nor for true cold smoking (smoke at 70F, ideally less, for between perhaps 12 hours and many days). They need their own technique. Secondly, the wood chips themselves need to be heated to something like 600F to smoulder - and then the smoke cools to whatever smoking temperature you hope for. Wood will not give off smoke (just a bit of steam maybe) in a 200F oven. You need to get it *much* hotter to get it burning. Putting chips in the bottom of the metal box and heating over a flame gets you the *local* high temperature, while the rest of the metalwork is absorbing heat and trying to lose it to the air. So, from a cold start, it takes several minutes to get hot throughout - which is why, IF you are quick, you can smoke cheese without it melting! But its a matter of ten minutes or so - ONLY! The idea is to give it as small a total amount of heat as possible, but at a temperature locally high enough to get the wood smouldering. So, sadly 'smoking' in a cool oven for hours just isn't going to work the way you'd hope.

Or season, apply butter, wrap in clingfilm and microwave for a minute or two (normal microwave rules apply!)

Worth noting though that HFW is extremely heavy on the salt in his printed curing recipes. Its as though he was salting for preserving in unrefrigerated storage. ISTR that one of his brines actually called for more salt than water can hold in solution at 20C. Just a warning that its something one should watch out for and cross-check.

Thanks for that.

Is this something like what you did? ← Exactly ← rmillman - now having a fair idea of what you did to make the device... could you tell us - please - a bit more about what you made using it ? And a maybe a little about how you successfully used the thing... ? Please? And consider it understood that it was only suitable for small quantity use. I'm wondering not so much about single portions of cheese under glass, (or smoke foams), but rather about its possible use for (cold smoking) domestic quantities of ham, bacon, fish...

Use milk instead of some of the water for added pappiness. A stronger flour would give you more lift. (And possibly more rise time would help too - do it to the dough's timetable, not by the clock!) Normally, you would want a crispish crust. But probably not for burger rolls. So *don't* cool them on a rack (to dry the crust), instead retain the buns' steam - let them cool in some sort of enclosure (bag? spare biscuit/cookie tin?) or at least with a damp cloth over them. And a hotter oven (and shorter bake) should give you a thinner crust. Likely plenty of humidity in the oven would do no harm either... Experiment and enjoy!

The dog that didn't bark there is the mixing stage. In his book "Charcuterie" Michael Ruhlman calls it "paddling" to achieve a "bind" - gentle chilled mixing with a tiny quantity of additional cold liquid to make a slightly sticky forcemeat paste, as an important stage before stuffing. (IMHO this can be described as forming an emulsion of sorts, even though its not for what would be called an "emulsified sausage".) The Charcuterie thread is massive, but if you search *within* the thread (bottom left of each page) you'll find various references such as this one: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1169389 'Bind' would be a good search term! (3 pages of results!) Mixing/paddling will make the sausage less "crumbly", less "loose" and more cohesive - and somehow seemingly retaining more juiciness on cooking. Cohesiveness is a matter of personal preference, but I think *the* way of increasing it is to increase the amount of (machine or hand) mixing or 'paddling" - rather than relying on the mincing process to somehow achieve this. The result of overheating during mincing/grinding, by way of contrast, is usually described as "grittiness" - and pretty universally disliked.

Whifflechef, there's a real risk on here of trying "to teach Granny to suck eggs". Hence this advice is offered... with some temerity! I'd go further than Jackal10, and say that most sausage texture issues seem to be down to temperature. As he points out, meat minces ("grinds") more easily and 'cleanly' if its really cold. And it's texture can be spoiled if it gets too warm. Hence attention to mincer blade sharpness, plate flatness, sinew removal, etc all importantly help to reduce the heating during mincing - especially with a small mincer, like mine. IMHO 'quenching' the mince in a cold bowl shouldn't be necessary, and can't undo any damage that might have been caused by overheating as the meat goes through the grinder. However, you do need to have the mince back to chill temperature before mixing it to sausage forcemeat with a tiny quantity of (yes, cold) liquid. It needs to be quite cold for the fats to seemingly form the emulsion - and I'm not talking about an 'emulsified sausage' - that sticky paste after mixing has to hold the fat when the sausage cooks. The way it is mixed *does* seem to make a difference. Do it nice and cold and you shouldn't need emulsifiers or binders - or our British banger's "rusk". It helps (well, it certainly doesn't harm) the texture to let the sausage stabilise for a few (12, 24?) hours before cooking. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't apply in this case, but its not a good idea to try and mince (or even second pass re-mince), and mix and stuff in one process - by putting a stuffer horn onto the end of the mincer, still fitted with its blade and screen. I'm sure there are folk somewhere who can make this work, but it seems to me to take away any control that one would hope to have over the mixing - and its temperature! I hope you'll report back on your progress - *especially* if it turns out that you discover a completely different cause and solution!

Perhaps the manufacturer's UK office might be able to suggest a source local to you? DEMARLE Ltd 21 Dartmouth Street WESTMINSTER, LONDON SW1H9BP tel: 020.7304.7092 fax: 020.7304.7093 email: consultants@demarle.ltd.uk from http://www.demarle.fr/default.aspx?tabid=229 There are plenty of other brands of silicone baking sheet, but if you are after the glass fibre reinforcement, you probably want Silpat ...

The cheapest/simplest controls (for heat and humidity) are effectively mechanically operated (rather than electronic) electricity switches. These won't be limited so much by the voltage that they can handle as by the current that they can switch. So 110 or 220 no matter. They are not electrically operated. If you are using such things to switch mains electricity inside your enclosure, do consider electrical safety in the neighbourhood of water/dampness. A safety device of the RCD (or "ELCB") type really isn't a luxury. I found a Rittal hygrostat (intended for electronic equipment enclosure dampness prevention) on eBay UK for way less than its new price from RS. Its just a changeover switch that operates at (about) the humidity level set on its dial. However, constantly changing priorities have meant that it hasn't been employed yet... Nevertheless, more-or-less integrated plug-in-and-go controller systems may well need a specific mains voltage. Some such systems are available in Europe. I've noticed that humidity controllers are principally marketed towards the home hydroponics grower, or home reptile keepers. (Reptile keepers would seem to have lower budgets!) There may well be many other markets for such products. Here is one 220v eBay terrarium (reptile) humidity controller. It seems to be usable to control either a humidifier or dehumidifier. This 220v temperature controller (from the same chinese manufacturer) looks pretty much ideal for £35. ATC-800 It seems to be principally employed for stabilising aquarium temperatures. I'd expect that it might be found at other suppliers. However do note that most reptile/fish temperature controllers are only capable of controlling *heaters* and not the coolers we mostly require... The ATC-800 can handle both, at the same time (with a nice cooler compressor start delay) - IMHO it looks ideal for a temperate climate! Fans. A touch of clarification to my previous comment. If you have an enclosure with excessive humidity, and a lower humidity in the atmosphere outside, then an extractor fan (dumping damp air, causing drier air to enter) will lower the humidity. If you can guarantee low external humidity, then an exhaust fan on your enclosure will indeed lower the enclosure's humidity, but its the air change, rather than the air movement, that's doing it. Oftentimes, the dehumidifier control terminal may just be referred to as the 'fan' terminal.

If you are trying to establish ideal conditions, as has been said, a temperature maintained between 50F and 60F with a humidity of 60 to 70% is the quoted standard. If you take those as "acceptable ranges" you shouldn't go far wrong. The brief "incubation" of salami bacteria wants to be done in a different place - much hotter, and a bit wetter. A little bit of very gentle air movement is also advised during the long slow cure. While this is generally said to be to prevent spoilage, my 'take' is that it is to give uniformity of conditions - and thereby prevent spoilage. An ordinary domestic room will tend to have a significant temperature difference between floor and ceiling. In static conditions, I'm sure there would be a humidity gradient too. Thus, while at the control position the temperature and humidity could be within limits, elsewhere in the chamber it might be sufficiently warm or damp to encourage the growth of spoilage organisms. And the particularly damp spots might be expected to be in sheltered crevices in the meat surface. A small, ex-computer fan with some drainpipe as ducting, could help to even out temperature and humidity between top and bottom of the chamber. (Whether cold damp air is taken up, or hot dry air taken down, shouldn't matter - it'll try and get back to where it came from, stirring the whole enclosure.) In the earliest phase of curing, the humidity jumps up with the introduction of the wet meat. But after a while, the problem generally becomes keeping the humidity *up*... Temperature and humidity are interlinked. Take a sealed chamber. Raise its temperature and the % relative humidity falls. Cool it and the humidity rises. Now, in a refrigerator, the chiller panels (cooling elements) get so cold that the humidity of the air alongside reaches 100% and condensation forms - often turning to 'frost'. This is "knocking out" some of the moisture from the air in the fridge - dehumidifying the fridge chamber. However, this can only happen when the fridge compressor runs to bring the fridge back to temperature. So, if you have the fridge somehow set to 55F but located in a 54F environment, There will be no need for it to cool, and so it won't dehumidify! In such a situation, if excess humidity is detected, you could turn on a heater (inside the fridge), which will cause the fridge to run to try to cool the chamber, thereby knocking out moisture and dehumidifying... The "heater" could be as simple as the fridge's lightbulb. (This assumes that the condensation on the elements is drained to the outside of the fridge, or remains locked up as frost.) If you need to increase the humidity under automatic control, one option to achieve the increased humidity might be an ultrasonic home humidifier. These seem to cost about $45 or so in the US (Amazon.) They are fairly large though. Too big for most converted fridges. Perhaps an ultrasonic "fogger" would help for small chambers. There is a low-tech, cheap and approximate technique that might be useful to post a reminder of. The humidity just above a saturated (common salt) brine is close to 75%. (As the solution becomes more dilute, so the humidity rises, up to 100% at zero salt of course!) The easiest way to have a saturated brine that *stays* saturated (even while it takes in moisture) is to have it as "wet salt" rather than basically liquid. The salt content in an unsaturated brine can easily vary - "stratifying" so that the surface is very dilute, and thus only controlling to a very high humidity. Hence the importance of using "wet salt" rather than a conventional brine. But it is NOT a fast controller; it doesn't respond quickly to changes in moisture (like the door opening - probably drying, and a load of wet meat being introduced - causing the humidity to jump.) And its control point is a bit high - so its probably best used fighting back (slowly) against a dehumidifier, like the fridge's cold elements. The "power" of a wet salt control can be increased by increasing its surface area (a bigger pile of wet salt) and increasing the airflow over it - harking back to the use of a small fan... A useful bit of vocabulary is that while a temperature controller is called a thermostat, a humidity controller is often called a "hygrostat" rather than a humistat or humidistat. (But all are useful words for eBay searching!) And a note that most temperature/humidity measurement devices with a remote probe do NOT give readings of humidity from the remote probe. That functionality needs to be *explicitly* looked for in specifications! Nevertheless humidity measurement is much cheaper than automatic humidity control.

Basically just multiply/divide - which is much easier with metric units! Spices and seasonings: as suggested above, hold back a little if there is the possibility of topping up to taste later on. The last thing you want to do is over-season a large batch of anything! Baking: the main thing is the piece size. If you are making a bigger or smaller cake/loaf it will need different oven time and temperature. And if your oven is unusually crowded with lots of items, then watch it carefully as it may perform differently due to different air, and therefore heat, circulation - potentially giving hot and cool spots.

Umm... According to Wikipedia, the US cup is 237ml for culinary use, but 240ml for legal use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_(unit) I'm really intrigued to discover that anyone thinks Britain "switched" pints ... In the early 1800's Britain and the US both formalised and standardised their gallons, and hence pints. Differently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon However, in the original post I'm sorry but I do worry about the authoritative status of any conversion table that claims that there are 999.94 ml in a litre. Or that "a pint's a pound the world around" - the US pint is actually about 83% the size of everyone else's. Similarly the assumption that gallons, quarts and spoons are internationally standardised to US measurements only is equally misinformed. The fundamental problem that is being so energetically (and I fear misguidedly) tackled is the inappropriateness of the use of volume measures for loose solids. This is always going to be dependant on variables relating to the granularity and the settling conditions, giving different packing densities. Volume measurement is always going to be highly approximate for such materials. The answer is simple. Just use grams. Even if you only use them for cooking and nothing else, it makes it all really really easy. Recipes are about communication. Just using grams makes for simple AND accurate communication. Worldwide. And remember that 1 ml of water weighs 1 gram (for all kitchen purposes). If you try it, you'll soon discover that weighing water on a cheap digital scale is very much more accurate than using a level printed on a jug. (Quite apart from Patrick's cups.) Use weight (whether or not you call it mass) for precision! (Actually weight is the gravitational force acting on the mass, and its that force that we are measuring. Rather accurately.) Sadly, where a volume measure is specified for a solid ingredient, it has to be accepted as being a rather loose approximation, and adding an approximate density-based translation isn't going to improve things. Just a by-the-way. Google does unit conversions. (Not ingredient specific volume to weight translations (which assume a density), just unit conversions.) Try putting any of the following into Google's search box: 1 uk tablespoon in ml 1 us tablespoon in ml 3.5 us cups in ml 200g in oz 1 uk gallon in us pints Its kinda useful

I think you were lucky to get away as well as you did. Bread yeasts are normally said to be killed by 55 Centigrade (~130F). So 150F was overdoing it a bit. Its normally said that a longer, slower, fermentation gives a "better" flavour. And that this is due to there being more time for enzymes to produce more of the complex sugars (from the raw material of starch) and hence produce a more multi-dimensional taste. Rye is a good additional source of those amylase enzymes... Sourdough brings good bacteria and different yeasts to add to the party. Before I worked through the entire thread, and importantly before I remembered that our teaspoons are bigger than yours... (1 UK standard teaspoon is 1.2 US standard teaspoons) I had a batch mixed. Which may be a bit wet and a bit salty. We will see! I'd offer the following simple suggestion for a 'normalised' basic recipe from the conversions given earlier, plus a slight increase in salt (and which will be used for my next effort) 500g flour 400g water 10g salt 1g instant yeast While there may be minor adjustments for particular flour types, (perhaps 5% extra water when some strong, wholemeal or rye flour is used) using weight (or 'mass') measurements does dramatically improve the accuracy with which a recipe can be communicated. And the units themselves don't have to be translated. Apart from teaspoons, the "cup" seems to vary from 200cc (or is it 180) in Japan, to 237cc (US kitchen) and 240cc (US Legal use) to 250cc in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (Source: Wikipedia.) Oh, and metric units do make scaling recipes really easy, even if, like me, you think in feet, inches, miles, etc. And looking at the quantities above, especially in comparison to the original specification, doesn't 80% hydration, and 2% salt, just leap out at you?

If you can get hold of *any* raw milk (you don't need much at all - just for creating the initial batch of "starter"), here's how to proceed http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Chees...lk_from_scratch

Should have said - my Grillit (and IIRC every other one I've seen) has a smooth enamelled exterior to the base. Which would appear kind and non-scratching to the glass ceramic top. It's certainly sits beautifully flat on the glass. What's the problem?

I've had a Le Creuset "Grillit" (UK) for a while now. And had no problem at all using it on a glass ceramic top (induction). I have a (Le Creuset) pot lifter - its like an oven glove for the handle - that works nicely (as long as you grip it!) Weight is an important consideration for some people, and lifting it with a loose handle cover might be more of a worry - depending on the strength and confidence of the user. After grilling/searing, its easy to to pop the whole loaded pan into a warm oven, for example to 'rest' steak. Which one might be more reluctant to do with a longer, non-metal handle. The LC Grillit has an enamelled exterior and an unglazed interior. The trick is to treat it like a wok and just wash it very gently (don't scrub it), so that you build up a 'patina' on the inside. Oh, and oil the food, not the pan... My big round one takes up a lot of cupboard space. I've wondered if the rectangular (2 trout size?) one might be slightly better.

So, dougal, how do YOU pronounce scone? ← For the teatime (mid-afternoon) treat, I'd say sk-on and although sk-own might grate on the ear, what really matters is enjoying eating the things!

Andiesenji - I'm not sure how many readers of this thread would immediately recognise the reference to the Stone of Scone, otherwise known as the Stone of Destiny on which Scots monarchs are traditionally crowned... http://www.visitscotland.com/aboutscotland.../StoneofDestiny However, in 'the Stone of Scone', the word is actually correctly pronounced "scoon" - and I've never heard that version used to describe any baked goods... British scones can be made, are made, with butter and sugar. There is however an essential element of tartness - which can come from cultured dairy products, like buttermilk (or indeed yoghurt) or, IMHO more commonly, by the use of Cream of Tartar as part of the cocktail of raising agents - though this has not been explicitly mentioned above. And yes, a pie in a dish with a scone topping can be called a Cobbler. Traditional or not, it can be given a simple but nice twist with some herbs in the dough.