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Since I went all out and did Kenji's "McRib" down to the homemade buns, I found myself with a bunch of instant yeast and no idea what to do with it. So I decided to try no-knead bread... Babby's first bread adventures! That's not that much dough, should fit the bowl.  ohh, that's rising quickly. still fits!  
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May 25, 2017 18:15
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Babby's no knead adventure turned out pretty okay, considering it was basically 10-15 minutes active time including washing the dishes. I used Kenji's recipe, which has a 3 day cold fermentation time that is apparently essential for flavour in no knead bread...  What bothered me is how much every handling step ends up massively deflating the dough. And since it's so soft, I ended up being unable to properly scoop the loaf up smoothly, snagging it on the side of the dutch oven when dropping it in. So I had a slightly misshapen loaf.  It was pretty drat delicious though. I think I might try rising the loaf on parchment paper next time, and just drop the entire parchment paper into the dutch oven. What's a fun next step I could explore? I actually kind of like kneading, at least based on my limited pasta and flour tortilla experience. 
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May 29, 2017 16:39
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How do I get that good of a rise for the loaf itself? I tried again, and while the dough rose nicely in the bowl, it just slumped over when I turned it out of the bowl and didn't nearly rise as much vertically afterwards. I only folded it over itself once and tucked the "seam" underneath before rising -- should I be forming more of a ball even if that deflates a lot of air?
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Jun 4, 2017 22:10
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large hands posted:i make a pretty tight ball (quite a few fold and pinches) and just let it rise a couple hours covered on a cutting board before dropping it seam side up into the hot pot. I'm using apf but I'm in Canada and i think our flour is quite different from American. Also  , so I don't think that's it. Formed more of a ball this time, but it still ended up slumping and rising horizontally. Guess that's just the path of yeast resistance? 
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Jun 11, 2017 17:26
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New York Times No Knead Bread In weight units: 430 grams flour 1 gram yeast 8 grams salt 345 grams water How the poo poo am I supposed to "shape dough into a ball"? Look at this liquid unruly mass of lovely goop:  Based on large hands's posts, I figured this recipe might give better results than Kenji's, but this is loving worse. Should I adjust hydration? e: gently caress this poo poo, the more I worked with this crap, the more I wanted to chuck it out the window, so I tossed it.  e2: vvvvvvv It's just too liquid for that. I could fold it, but then it'd slouch right back. Jan fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jun 19, 2017 |
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Jun 19, 2017 00:17
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Murgos posted:Like, lot's and lots of flour. Like, really look at the picture in Kenji's article he's got at least 1/2 a cup going there, maybe more. Also the shaping motion is more or less just using the sides of your hands to pull the dough towards your body and then turning it and pulling it towards you again. So basically... kneading? And yes, I did use Kenji's recipe first, and while it was still pretty liquid, I definitely had better results. I'm just wondering what I should be adjusting to have it rise more vertically. I guess I should read a book about the actual chemistry of bread.
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Jun 21, 2017 03:09
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Chicolini posted:All your bread so far has looked so good, especially for someone who's only been baking since May. Welp, thanks! Isn't that supposed to be the upside of no knead, it's so effortless you can get great results as a complete newbie? (Except for the NYT attempt. )But yeah, thanks all for the input, that confirms that I was roughly on the right track my first attempts using Kenji's proportions. I did manage to fold and pinch those, whereas the last one did lack the elasticity to really do any of that -- "pinching" was really just melding more goop together. Kenji's weight measurements land at 70%, whereas the weight measurements I got from the NYT comment recipe come in at 80%... Plus it's was very hot and humid when I made it, so I think that's probably a bad combo.
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Jun 21, 2017 14:44
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Mikey Purp posted:To promote gluten development, make sure that you are thoroughly stretching and folding the dough at regular intervals while it ferments. I typically do 6 s&f at 30 minute intervals during a 3-4 hour bulk ferment, but the dough should dictate how many you need. You should notice the change in dough texture as the ferment progresses. When it starts to feel more cohesive and jiggly and doesn't leave pieces behind in the bowl as much, you're on the right track. If you can, track the volume of dough...when it has reached about 1.5x to 2x original volume it should be ready for shaping. I had the same problem as Qubee for my first sourdough, and although I'm hoping to get FWSY for Christmas to help me figure it out, I was wondering what I did wrong. I'm assuming my starter was healthy as it smelled super... lactobacilley? and bubbled up to nearly a double in volume whenever I'd feed it and when mixed it for the leaven. However, when time came for the bulk ferment and stretch + folding, it didn't seem like it was progressing at all. In order to know what to expect, I was following the picture slide show this recipe. Although it definitely shows the dough getting more cohesive as you describe, that didn't happen to me at all. Frankly, I think my attempt was a series of mistakes and/or attempts to follow different recipes to salvage, but there's only so many ways to bake bread so I'd like to figure out where it went wrong. #1: I segued the leaven from a different recipe, which mentioned sampling 4 oz of 100% hydration starter and adding 2oz flour, 1oz water. That seems like a lot of starter? #2: I didn't want to bake two loaves, so I followed the proportions of Kenji's no knead bread for one loaf: 300g flour, 210g water. That's 70% hydration, which actually seems on the low side for sourdough? #3: I left this to rest overnight before stretch & folding. This might've been overproofed? #4: After 5 folds, it was still super clumpy, didn't really pass a smooth windowpane test, and smelled a bit boozy, so I figured maybe I had too much starter. I added another 300g/210g to double the recipe, but rested that only 30 minutes before stretch & folding. #5: Same problem, after 6 folds, it didn't turn smooth at all and smelled boozy. At this point, I was ready to throw it all out in frustration, but I figured I should go ahead and bake it anyway to see the results and learn what to expect with sourdough. So, for "science", I decided to experiment and actively knead half of the dough to see if that helped it gain that smooth texture. (Spoilers: It didn't, and I learned kneading 70% hydration dough is a nightmare.) #6: I shaped both the unkneaded and kneaded dough into a rough boule by folding & tucking 4 times, tossed those in (non-proofing) bowls to rise for an hour at 90F (oven with light on). The result was actually not too bad, and tasted nice (if very undersalted) for something that smelled overly boozy. I'm thinking the smell is actually quite normal (it _is_ sourdough) and the mistake might've been the overproofing in #3, but if that's the case, shouldn't doubling the flour/water and starting from scratch helped with that? In any event, I didn't take any pictures as documentation and I'm back home for the holidays so further experiments in sourdough will have to wait... Starting with seeing if I even manage to revive my starter after 3 weeks in the fridge.
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Dec 24, 2018 16:43
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After the holiday break, I revived my starter and tried sourdough again:  At first I was worried because it went super flaccid again as soon as I turned it out, but it rose pretty well inside the oven. I used this version of the Tartine sourdough. I didn't have whole wheat on hand so I just did the same proportions with AP flour. Although it handled better while turning, it still was a pain in the rear end to shape and flattened like a pancake. All the writeups out there say to just fold it some more and rest it again if this happens, but that only seems to make it worse for me... The dough just turns wetter, flatter and stickier with more rest time. Is it because I'm not using bread flour? I'll be getting whole wheat flour and trying the actual Tartine proportions next time.
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Jan 20, 2019 22:29
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Is there any reason to be a brand purist when it comes to flour? I've been using AP King Arthur for everything, but I'm starting to think I need whole wheat to up my sourdough game. My local grocery store is whole foods and they only stock their house 365 brand whole wheat, so it'd make my life a lot easier if I could just use that one.
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Jan 27, 2019 01:12
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Tekopo posted:I just put it on a baking tray: is it better to place it inside a recipient for baking? Unless you have a professional baking oven, a highly convective container like a dutch oven is the best way to get the high humidity and radiant heat you want to get a good, golden loaf. There's lots of literature on that subject out there, but here's a good side by side comparison: https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2017/02/21/bread-baking-dutch-oven/ Seriously, this is the best improvement you can make for your home bread baking. 
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Feb 15, 2019 20:48
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Got myself some bannetons, followed FWSY's directions for the Tartine sourdough... I always worry because no matter how good the dough handles and how the proofing feels with the finger dent test, it ends up flopping into a pancake whenever I turn it out. Doesn't help that the brand new bannetons aren't well seasoned yet so it ended up sticking to it. Didn't matter, best results so far.     We're out of butter but I don't give a poo poo, half of that loaf is gone already.
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Feb 16, 2019 22:26
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Are you taking a small sample of your starter for a fresh feeding before using it in a recipe, or just using it as is? What hydration ratio are you using?
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Feb 17, 2019 18:00
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Bagheera posted:Yes. I mix 45 grams of starter with 45 grams of wheat flour, 45 grams of white, and 90 grams of water. I let that sit, covered, for 6 hours at 75 degrees. It gets kind of spongy (like a poolish?), but it doesn't get too much larger. If you're concerned about your starter specifically, the best change I've had is adopting Ken Forkish's levain proportions to the letter. Initially I thought it was a waste to discard 3/4 of the starter every time, but I went from having a boozy, liquid starter to a very bubbly culture that can easily double in volume and hold that way for a long time. At 1 recipe/2 loaves per weekend, FWSY's proportions are still more starter than I care to have, so I usually do: 50g starter out of the fridge 25g whole wheat 100g AP 100g water then, the next morning, add: 50g whole wheat 200g AP 200g water As soon as I get home in the evening (usually 8-10 hours later), I start the rest of the process, pretty much in the same numbers you describe: 30 minute autolyse, 4 hour bulk fermentation (though I space out the folds until the 3 hour mark), overnight proofing. For getting an airy, bubbly crumb, I'm still just beginning this sourdough adventure so my sample size is small, but I've had exactly that when using the FWSY's hybrid dough. Original content: I've been trying to reproduce my hometown's Montreal style bagels, without much success. I took a break for that to try sourdough bread and since I had too much starter, I decided to experiment mixing both! All the top recipes out there give fluffy New York trash bagel results, and I wanted something more dense and complex flavoured... which sounds right up sourdough's alley. I started from the recipe I usually experimented with and factored in sourdough:  30 minute autolyse for the flour and water, mixed in the (active dry) yeast with a bit of warm water separately to activate it. Added the egg, sugar, salt, maple syrup but no matter how much I mixed, folded or kneaded, it just wouldn't incorporate smoothly. I'd get some goopy strands of flour mix bathing in an egg solution. Adding 40g flour allowed me to knead into something more like a stiff bagel dough. After kneading, I left half of the dough at room temperature for a 2 hour bulk ferment, and the other half overnight for a retarded 12 hour bulk ferment. Both batches were baked in the same way: Boiled for ~2-3 minutes in a honey + water mix, then dipped in sesame seeds, and in the 425F oven for ~8 minutes on each side. No proofing period, I want that poo poo to be dense. And as it turns out, boiling does a fine job of puffing the bagels up into the desired shape. I didn't take in-progress pictures as this is still a work in progress, but I'm pretty pleased with the results:  The bagels are definitely not sweet enough, though. The overnight batch definitely had a more complex taste and a hint of sweetness from the slowed sourdough ferment, and while it tastes good on its own, it's not a Montreal bagel yet. And writing this up made me realise, I can't remember actually mixing in the sugar.  I'll have to try again with the added 40g flour, and actually making sure I dump in the sugar this time.
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Feb 17, 2019 22:38
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Infinite Karma posted:I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure it's just because you keep adding to it and it would be unmanageable in size very quickly. If that was the case, it wouldn't have you chucking 80% of it every time. I haven't experimented to confirm, but from a layperson's understanding of biology, I believe starting from a smaller "seed" when feeding and adding a lot of nutrient (flour) makes for a much more active levain culture. You essentially have a small amount of yeast and give it large amounts of nutrient, so it'll multiply a lot faster and give you more "fresh" yeast than if you didn't remove a lot of it. That definitely seems to match my experience as I started by just adding a small amount of flour + water every day without throwing anything out and would get a small (~50% volume) and brief rise. Since switching to the discard + feed approach, I get more like a 200% rise where the peak lasts a few hours. That also makes it easier to take a levain sample right as the culture is most active.
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Mar 1, 2019 22:36
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I maimed a finger tendon a month ago so I've been on a kneading break. But I came back to what I'd say is my best sourdough loaf so far.    My starter seems to have been growing more sour and the previous loaf was way too acidic and I hated it, so I used the double fed recipe from FWSY. It turned it out pretty okay. Jan fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Apr 21, 2019 |
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Apr 21, 2019 02:26
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Pham Nuwen posted:That looks wonderful, especially the crust. I've been baking my sourdough in the dutch oven at 450 for 30 minutes, lid on for the first 10 minutes. The crust seems to come out really pale even though the interior is at 200 degrees. The crust also seems to fracture and throw shards all over the place when I go to cut it. What might I be loving up? I couldn't say, I haven't experimented a lot with different variables! Might be lid-on duration, this particular one was 475F with lid on for 30 minutes. The recipes in FWSY have a little temperature variation (450-500) but he pretty much prescribes 30 minutes for all of them, followed by 15-30 minutes lid off until being dark brown.
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Apr 21, 2019 23:31
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nwin posted:This is great and seems to be exactly what I’m looking for. I’m not entirely sold on the ‘sweet’ part but it seems like they mean it’s just less sour that other breads. I’m fine with sour but am willing to give this a shot.). It's not sweet as in "American sweet". There's no sugar added in the recipe, you won't really get very sweet bread without resorting to an enriched dough. As you say, it's just because it's not as sour as sourdough can sometimes be. Sourness entirely depends on your culture, when you last fed it before using, etc. so you can have some perfectly acceptable bread with a single feeding. Using double feeding is just a method to hedge your bets and make sure you don't get an insanely tart loaf. I personally like to use it because I don't bake that often, so I'll usually be reviving my levain from a 2-4 week rest period in the fridge, after which it tends to be on the overly sour side.
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Aug 19, 2019 17:08
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nwin posted:If I’m going to use my starter in a recipe , and my starter is kept in the fridge, how soon before using should I take it out? In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish's levain recipes pretty much always start from "8 hours after your last feeding", and involve another feeding. This sounded wasteful, but from my experience, the end result will actually be too sour if you don't do that. I get that it's supposed to be sourdough, but levain revived from the fridge is not complex or interesting tasting at all. So normally, I take it out the day before, feed it, and then feed it again when I'm ready to start the actual recipe.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:15
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Bloody posted:hi breadgoons I have a dumb question: how do I store this delicious bread? I've been making a lot of sandwich loaves and we go through them quickly. We've been using plastic bags, but it feels very wasteful. I feel like I read a thing somewhere about how breadboxes don't actually do anything at all? Is that true? The short of it is, freeze it. Especially if you're toasting it--a freshly thawed and then reheated or toasted slice of bread will taste just as fresh as if it were out of the oven. I do this for bagels and it's like night and day. Serious Eats compared different storage methods and freezing is the clear winner.
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Oct 18, 2019 21:19
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Bloody posted:ya but I'd still have to freeze it in something and freshness has been a non-issue so far. like realistically we're talking about storage for tens of hours rather than days Reuse the freezer bag? 
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Oct 18, 2019 22:56
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Working off of Flour Water Salt Yeast recipes has made me appreciate how much more efficient it is to measure by weight. Enough that nearly all recipes on the Internet still being in cups or volume drives me absolutely insane. 1 cup of King Arthur flour is not the same as 1 cup of Gold's flour, damnit! Anyhow, I tried making Hokkaido milk bread after seeing it mentioned on Twitter and remembering someone in this thread had done it.  It's a fun, simple weeknight bread and it's drat good when it's fresh out of the oven. But it does make me miss the airiness and crispiness of a well done loaf. I also tried making some 50% rye bread to have with salmon gravlax. I wanted something more like Finnish 100% rye sourdough, but didn't have time to get a rye starter going, so instead I used a bit of my levain culture. I probably could've skipped the levain altogether and used only yeast, I don't think it made much of a difference. code:The dough had decent rise over 3 hours bulk fermentation + 1 hour proofing, but no oven spring. I get that rye breads are supposed to be dense, especially the 100% rye Scandinavian style that I would've wanted for gravlax, but I was trying to go for a mix of both worlds and get a good rye taste while still getting good oven rise and shape. Has anyone here worked with rye more to determine how I could've achieved this? Maybe a bit less hydration?
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Oct 26, 2019 21:14
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Can any of y'all vouch for a Jewish rye bread recipe that could be done within a day? Our grocery store doesn't have any, for some reason.
Jan fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Dec 22, 2019 |
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Dec 22, 2019 18:22
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Preferments like poolish (and probably biga too) also use a very small amount of yeast. For a single loaf, I've been using 0.2g (my scale isn't even that precise) in the poolish, and 1.5g for the bulk rise. I only just started trying preferments because I was tired of the long timeframes required for levain. I actually forgot the bulk rise part for my first poolish loaf and while it was a bit overproofed, it was still perfectly serviceable. The last one I did was honestly the best loaf I can say I've ever done. 
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Mar 17, 2020 23:03
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Serendipitaet posted:instant yeast (...) few years back.  You are aware that yeast has a limited lifespan? Doh004 posted:I kinda gave up/forgot to feed it for 2 days straight Don't worry, starter can last for waaaay longer than that. You can literally dry it out for long term storage and then rehydrate + feed it weeks down the road. After a while without feeding, the bacteria in the starter tend to take over and start producing more ethanol, so likely the brown layer you saw was your culture starting to turn into hooch. It'll likely work fine for baking, though if you've only fed it once after starving it so recently, it might be hoochdough more than sourdough. Go through 2-3 feeding cycles after reviving your starter (i.e.: from fridge) to get a more balanced flavour.
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Apr 9, 2020 19:27
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Anne Whateley posted:If you keep it in the freezer, it should last at least a few years, shouldn't it? I was under the impression that freezing yeast kills it, but I should probably have researched that before assuming it, especially considering how impossible it is to kill a starter culture.  Piss Meridian posted:keep in mind that even if 99% of the yeast dies, you should still be able to revive it by making a sponge I've been following Flour Water Salt Yeast's poolish-based breads a lot recently, even if my active yeast is going on a few months past best by date in the fridge, it's still been working well in pre-ferments. I've had some duds as well, but I'm not sure if that was botched shaping, proofing or something else. Maybe this thread will have insight, actually.  For comparison's sake, same recipe, but successful loaf (no crumb shot  ):
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Apr 12, 2020 07:50
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MadFriarAvelyn posted:Based on the above suggestions, the next time I try this I'll: As mentioned, overnight fridge rest is great, if only for flavour complexity more than texture. Regarding shaping, as dumb as it might sound, just roll them thinner before boiling them. I slice & roll rather than doing punchthrough--(like this). But I assume that's what you meant by rope method. Skipping/shortening the rest period makes for a slightly denser bagel. It expands plenty during the boiling process. I don't use egg wash as I've found it darkens the bagel way too quickly. Instead, to make the toppings stick, I just make sure the water is extremely sticky through honey and maltose, but this is definitely Montreal style. 
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Jun 18, 2020 21:34
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