Shelby

Yes, definitely try again. Thank you! It tastes deeper....more "wheaty". More like bread. If that makes sense.

I've had what I consider a success. I used Hard White Spring Berries this time. I ran them through the mill once on the lowest setting I could get and was happy with the texture. I forgot to take a picture (sigh--I don't know where my head is sometimes). I used a recipe from King Arthur Flour for Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread . I followed the recipe exactly as written except I used Bob's Red Mill Vital Gluten in place of the enhancer. And I used the stretch and fold method when I kneaded it. Oh, and I let it rest for at least an hour instead of the 20 minutes it called for after mixing the ingredients. The geeky part of me is amazed at the difference between the dough in the beginning and after the rest. Also the difference in how it feels using the stretch and fold method. And. Guess what? IT ROSE ABOVE THE LIP OF THE PAN YES! Ok, ok, it didn't billow up like a balloon or anything, but still. It worked. This bread makes good toast and will make good sandwiches. You and definitely taste the sour, but it's not over powering. I'd like it a little more sour, in fact. I've also started another batch of the pineapple juice starter --wanted to see if I could do it again. @rotuts how is yours?

You need to be getting royalties

I got a surprise from my mom a couple days ago--she's been seeing all of your wonderful creations from this book and she decided I needed to have it I am getting ready to peruse it right now.

I'm sorry to report that Lake Shelby is here for the third time this summer. Said by our farmer right before planting our corn for the third time: "It can't flood three times in one summer" Oh yes, indeed, it can.

Norm, we discovered Boar's Head pepperoni a while ago and we really like it. You have to slice it yourself. The flavor is excellent. Not too greasy. If you have a Boar's Head section in your grocery store, you should find it there.

Everything I've read online and in the instruction book regarding this Komo mill does not say anything about starting on a higher grind and then going smaller. The flour is definitely warm as it comes out of the mill. @Barrytm I'm glad you reported about using a coarser grind and it not changing the rise. I'm definitely going to experiment further Thanks again for all the help from everyone. I'm so glad to get it!

Oh! Do I feel stupid! I never thought about doing that. Thank you.

Thanks, Teo. That's supposed to be the "beauty" of this recipe--the blade is supposed to make quick work of the dough and make it very gluteny in a short time. ( I know, gluteny isn't a word lol). I'll try to get a finer grind on the flour. I think I'm milling it at the lowest setting I can before the stones in the mill hit each other........ And, yes, the window test--I've read about that and I was able to make a "window" in this dough, but maybe not like it should be. I'm not defeated and I'll move on to a different recipe soon. I just wanted to master this one Again, I really thank you and everyone else for their time and in-sight.

I tried to make the Serious Eats whole wheat bread again yesterday. Once again, during the process in the Cuisinart I knew that the dough was way too liquidy. I didn't add extra flour, but I did omit the 55 grams of water in step #3. Even doing that, it was still not as firm as I thought it should be. However, it was better than the first time I tried. I forgot to take pictures until after the cuisinart step. Here it is before the first rise: And after: Once again, there was no way I could shape it into a loaf--I poured it in the pan again. After a good three hours it once again only rose to the top of the pan. After baking The flavor and texture of this bread is so good that I can't give up on it. Maybe the third time will be the charm? Next time I will add a bit more flour and still omit the water. (don't mind the date on my weather station behind the bread--I can't figure out how to set it correctly lol)

Thank you! Nothing super special. Halved or quartered them. Tossed with melted butter, salt, pepper, garlic and the juice of a lemon. Roasted in the CSO at 400 F for 20-30 mins. I, too, want some tamale pie.

Roasted chicken quarters with new potatoes and collard greens from the garden. Potatoes and greens were the stars of the show.

Had Ronnie's daughter over yesterday afternoon. Had a nice visit

I used my starter last night! We wanted pizza so I decided to experiment Here is the starter before I dipped some out: I used equal parts starter and AP flour--I felt like all wheat wasn't the way to go , a tablespoon of olive oil and some salt. I didn't need any additional water. Dough before rising: I confess, I started dinner late. The dough should have risen a lot more, but I ran out of time. It tasted amazing. Deeper than my regular dough and had the sour flavor I wanted. Even though I used AP flour, the wheat was prominent from the starter. We like thin crust Now, I need to feed my starter because I have less than a cup left.

Venison stroganoff Thai pork lettuce wraps and sweet and sour tofu

I did that and it works great....I just want to try having a starter. And, I think I do. I did the 4th and final step of the pineapple juice method yesterday afternoon. This morning it looks like this: It's bubbly. Like pancake batter only a tad thinner. Does this look right? It smells sour/good. If this is right, here is where I need help. What now? The instructions don't go any further. I've read a bit on the internet and this link looks like good information. If I follow those instructions, I keep my starter in the fridge and feed it at least once a week maybe twice? I feed it equal weights of flour and water? How do I know how much to discard? Or do I have to discard? I would discard only to make sure that my starter isn't a massive amount, right? Maybe this should be located in the absurdly simple cooking questions lol. Edited to add one more question: Do you have to bring this to room temperature to use it?

Good to know. That hadn't occurred to me.

i wondered that too. I washed the containers but there must have been some kind of bad guy in the one that I missed.

Keep going. I think mine is going to work. I'll post a picture in a few hours and you can tell me what you think.

White bass last night

No, my self made starter blew up, blew out of the jar and then died on me lol. I shall try again. Yes, I think that sandwich bread would make good croutons--but not this time because we are enjoying the toast too much So, some good news and some bad news: My wheat starter is active! Very bubbly when I took the lid off this morning. So, I'm moving on to step 3 of the pineapple juice method Wheat: Bad news: My rye starter molded! What the heck???? Same conditions as the wheat version,so I don't know what happened. You can see the white fuzzy mold on the right side of the container here: So, I'm throwing that out. Sigh. At least the wheat one is doing good.

Made Ronnie's favorite last night. Chicken fried venison.

I won't lie. I WANT company here. I'm so far over my head. It's a learning curve. It's not fast and easy. I took the day off today and probably will tomorrow--gives us time to eat my experiments lol. BUT the bread tastes amazing. Better than homemade and not making your own flour. It's that good.

@rotuts I couldn't be more excited that you got a mill!

@Barrytm Thank you so much for all of the great advice. I definitely am jumping into the deep end of the pool......the good thing is that I don't know what I don't know lol. I have a wonderful scale and I definitely understand why weighing is better than measuring by cup amounts so I'll stick to recipes that go by weight for sure. I'm keeping notes, too. Plus, I am going to document it all here. And yes, I've yet to see anything but a perfect loaf of bread in all my looking around the internet. I'm definitely of the mind that it doesn't have to look perfect as long as it tastes good. First, I'll get the bad news out of the way. This happened: And then the next day it was extremely watery and did NOT smell good at all. So, it's back to square one. I'm going to start another today and use bottled water instead of my tap/well water and see if that makes a difference. My two pineapple guys are doing wonderful, though. I'm supposed to feed them today so I'll do that in a bit. Annnnnd, on to the bread. While I'm waiting for a starter to work, I decided to go ahead and bake using yeast and vital wheat gluten. I baked two different loaves yesterday. Just for fun I wanted to try making the No Knead Instant Pot bread using 100% Hard Red Winter Wheat berries (I've only used that kind so far in order to better be able to keep track of results). I've made this several times using AP flour and we like it. I followed the recipe exactly as written, using whey, except I added 2 T. of Vital Wheat Gluten. Here it is after the 3 hours in the IP Here it is after resting for the 30 mins before baking It looks and feels very much like the dough I've made using AP flour so I felt like this wasn't going to be a complete failure. Out of the oven This is a rustic bread and using the 100% made it even more so. We really liked the flavor. It's like bread, only better Next time I feel like I should add a bit more liquid/whey and reduce the baking time by 5 minutes. It didn't rise quite as much as it does using the AP flour so maybe those changes will help. The second loaf is a recipe I stumbled upon from Serious Eats for 100% whole wheat bread and it uses the cuisinart to mix the dough. It's a sandwich bread that you bake in a loaf pan. My feelings from the beginning were that the dough needed more flour, but I stuck to the recipe because I didn't trust myself. I still don't know if that was what was wrong (I weighed all the ingredients and followed the recipe exactly like it's written) but it didn't rise. Here is the dough after the autolyse and a run in the cuisinart After this, you let it double in size, which it did (forgot to take a picture) and then you're supposed to shape it and put it in a loaf pan. There was no shaping, more like pouring. Then you're supposed to let it rise until it's 2 1/2 inches above the pan in the center. That didn't happen. It sat there for 3 hours and barely got to the top of the lip. I was sure this would be a complete failure, but I went ahead and baked it in the Steam Girl (cuisinart steam oven) --figured the bread setting might help a bit. After baking: It looks like banana bread lol. Was very difficult to get out of the pan, even though I greased it. I have to say--I'm impressed. Even though it doesn't look pretty, this bread is good, ya'll. It's not heavy--you can see the holes. The flavor is so good. Again, it's like bread, only better. It made excellent toast this morning. So, all-in-all, I'm pleased. Yes, I have a lot of learning and experimenting to do, but, on my first two tries, I didn't make bread door-stops.