DanielBerman

I have another semi-Sourdough related question. Is it okay to let the bread rise in the same KitchenAid metal bowl you kneaded the dough in? I have heard that metal is not the best place to do such rising, however, some recipes make no mention of changing bowls. ← Main issue with metal (as I understand it) is that the sourdough can be corrosive to the bowl...

Abra: Wood-burning oven. Here it is moments before baking the above pizza: ← You lucky thing Bill.... Was in France over Christmas and called in to the local artisan baker, running 2 wood burning ovens on Christmas Day Morning - what a treat, just to watch. He then pulled, from the back of the oven he had just pulled the Pain de Campagne from, and with a great flourish, the Goose for their dinner! Friends have just renovated their enormous bread oven in that part of freance and have promised to fire it up for me (a 5 day process) the next time we visit. Dan

The best risotto I've had showed what is for me the perfect balance. It was a simple prawn risotto in Dublin's Mackeral restaurant. The prawns were fresh, and just cooked so they burst in the mouth - and the rice has exactly the same action - a firm but succulent... That's the yardstick for perfectly cooked risotto for me.

With lean breads, a nice airy texture usually comes from having a high hydration level (look at the great wet dough pictures above) - and by being careful not to degas the the dough too much after the bulk ferment. The wet dough is better able to give you the nice clear bubbles I associate with good foccacia If you dont punch down the dough after the bulk ferment (and if its good and wet you wont really be able to) some of the bubbles that have developed during the ferment are retained and can give you a nice open texture There is a very good recipe in The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. Enjoy...

thanks glenn - I'm looking for some record of where I got them - when i dig it up I'll let you know. I love baking with them - money well spent. dan

Thanks dan Every time I bake it gives me a thrill... BTW - I baked your currant and cassis loaf last week - it was delicious.

Well, as usual, my baking run lasted late into the night - and i got more excited about the bread than about the photography... But here goes... The dough got a good 12 hours in the fridge - and came out relaxed, but with very little fermentation (pain a l'ancienne anyone...) It made a good windowpane, and was left to rise for about 6 hours.... giving a lovely soft, wet-ish dough - but still quite manageable. It needed a pastry cutter dipped in water to separate it into two parts - one for a long banneton, one for a round one. Making sure not to degas too much, I made a rough batard and a boule, and put them into well floured bannetons (actually maybe not well enough as the batard stuck coming out...) This photo is horrible - think I must have been quite distracted! They proved nicely, nearly doubleing within about two hours. I flipped them out and slashed them They were baked on an oven stone, at 470F initially (as hot as I can get my oven), with a small cup of water thrown into a hot pan underneath. Reduced to about 400 after 10 mins - about 35 mins overall - I took them out when the internal temp was 205F Boule Batard - Cut Very pleased with these - the texture is nice and open, but still substantial. There's a lovely thick crust, which tastes really toasty, and a pleasant but not overpowering sourdough tang. As the flour mix was 10% rye there is a nice hint of the rye, and the bread feels a little less refined. Best of all, my almost-three-year-old son come back from creche yesterday and asked for some of Daddy's bread for his treat!

Thanks! My starter jar is always gloopy - it didn't feel honest to clean it up Lighting is clearly going to a problem - we have little natural light in our kitchen, none direct - which actually makes quite a nice environment during the day - so long as you have a tripod. But at night... the photos need a lot of 'white balancing' - if your camera takes 'RAW' format pics you can do all that yourself (and maybe cut out the need for changes of bulbs - but I need to be more consistent - the dough below seems to change colour! anyway, on to the bread... After about 8 hours, the starter has started to bubble - not wildly, but enough. I pour out the starter - weighed out to 200g - it gives me a chance to see how fluid the starter is, which gives me a feeling as to whether i will need more or less water. Adding flour (450g strong white & 50g rye) and 1 tsp of salt, i mix them up to a rough dough Then, using Dan's approach, i give a series of short kneads - 10-15 seconds - spaced 10 mins, then 30, then 1 hr... After 10 mins After 1 hour & 4 mini-kneads Now its going into the fridge for a (probably longer than ideal) retardation - because bed is calling... Its tacky but not sticky, and slumps nicely in the bowl. Hopefully it will be hydrated enough to give a nice open texture...

As I started this round of baking, I thought I would use it to play with my new digital camera, and try to capture each step of the sourdough baking process. Of course this is done with a very great debt to Dan Lepard - whose Handmade Loaf got me back onto baking sourdough - and whose fantastic photographs here got me thinking... But first an admission - I am using an already live starter - but if this goes well i may backtrack and create a new one. The starter is one that I have had for about 9 months - i actually got it from sourdo.com - it was their San Fransisco starter - but I'm sure that it is pretty much localised now! It was very active at the start - and has calmed down to a nice manageable level now. It is very resilient - I have a clone which I keep in our holiday home - which gets used about every 3 months or so - and only really takes 12 - 24 hours to revive. The photo this evening is of the starter just having added flour and water. It is taken with a Canon EOS 30D with the EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens. ISO 1600 (so its a bit grainy - need to work that up) - f22, 5 secs - to get as much depth of field as possible. I would love to have feedback (either on the photographs - or the baking). And please post your own sequences too?

No No , you are not a sad case , my husband call my sourdough starters ,the "sour babies", because they are my little babies I have to attend and yes I would to try to revive my sourdough as well,"never give up never surrender". And here I would like to ask the experts, the fact that Glenn sourdough lost strenght could be because his starter was made of grapes?( where they grapes or apples??) Apples I think .I have seen some of the experts here saying that the better starters are from flour and water and nothing else , because the fruit or whatever else you feed it it wont last too long etc?Is that possible ? Thank you , just for info I was actually thinking about this matter not long ago. ← I have rescued starters like this this before. I would have 2 tips - 1. You want to 'wash' the starter - so empty more than half of the starter out, and re-feed to full size, every six hours (if you can) for couple of days. This can help to get rid of any contaminants. 2. Then feed every 12-24 hours to really get the culture active again. Once its really frothing you should be good to go again.

and what a wonderful read this book is! ← Cajungirl, CaliPoutine, Thanks for the pointer - I got my copy of American Pie about two weeks ago and have been baking pizza to beat the band. Its a great read - really gets the juices going (can't recommend reading in bed - too many midnight snacks) and the formulas really hit the spot. I love the tomato sauce too - made with uncooked tinned tomatoes! dan

Michael - Hope the bread turned out well! When I don't have a banneton to hand I just use a bowl lined with a linen tea-towel dusted with flower. Works really well for me. dan

I would like to add that it can be beneficial to a sluggish starter to displace 5% of the bread flour with rye flour for one or two feeding cycles to reinvigorate the activity. In addition, some bakers will start a culture with half rye and half bread flour, and wean the culture of the rye as feedings progress to speed things up. I concur with jackal10, as always, that a culture is best made with flour and water; nothing else is necessary, or desirable for that matter. ← Hmmm - lots of recipes suggest grapes, raisins - or even potato peelings - but they have never workewd for me either. The only thing that did was using some natural yoghurt as suggested by dan lepard. I think that some additional acitdity helps to prevent mold - and I've read somewhere that a little pineapple juice works well - but can't say for sure. My current starter has been going for about a year - has been left in the fridge for months on end in the middle - and now is plit between our flat & a shared holiday house - seems to revive very well... It makes very nice medium sour white bread - and is working nicely at the moment for the BBA Pain Poilaine. dan

Two top tips for me at the moment - 1. BBA as above... some great technical tips - abd my kitchen is currently filled with the wonderful smell of the Pain Poilaine - nutty and rich. 2. Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf - Dan was a professional photograper, and this book is a work of art, and is full of great recipes. His was the technique that finally got me baking really good sourdough! He is a regular here - and his posts occasionally come illustrated, and are always insightful. I'm waiting for Crust & Crumb to be delivered.