- Location
- London
Congrats Jim on getting Mrs A to agree!
Gosh,View attachment 16954 View attachment 16955 My standard loaf now-
400g Manatoba white
9g salt
80g starter (38 Rye/42 mineral water)
290g water.
Starter fed overnight, added to dough mid morning, 3 stretch and folds over next hour or two. Left to rise in kitchen till 10pm. Pre-shape and shape into banneton and popped into fridge overnight. Out of the fridge for an hour as oven heats. Slash and into Le Creuset at 240C for 20 minutes then lid off and 35 minutes at 200C. Just about cooled for a late lunch of leek and potato soup with bread and lashings of Lescures. Pretty much perfect for me and even Mrs A. agreed!
I forgot to report on our sourdough. Well I can report that two very useful discus arrived. Useful if you're practicing for the Olympic Games that is, might be our only chance of travel to Japan this year.“Her indoors” decided to make a sour Dough loaf this morning. Mixed it, said I had to knead as her hand hurt, then went out. Having watched it rise twice, who is actually making it?
Will report back
some interesting things here, a study of 500 sourdough starters from across the world :
"Lots of bakers felt sure that specific factors were responsible for variation between types of sourdough," McKenney says. "But what we found is that, while there could be tremendous variation between the microbial ecosystems of different sourdoughs, we could not find any single variable that was responsible for much of that variation."
Yep and the fact that it was only in about 30% of starters concords with the idea that some people report making loaves that are actively sour and yet others don’t seem to have that sourness. I don’t usually have much sourness in mine for instance (though it’s probably there but being drowned out by all that brown flour).I agree, i always presumed that was where the 'sour' came from![]()
I think it depends on the rye, Mark, it tends not to have that effect for me at that level though it can do.Fascinating to see the effect of even a small amount of rye added to the mix. In this case 50g in a flour weight of 700g. Much denser bread with smaller bubbles (except for the two big ones which I put in just to disturb Ray).
View attachment 17094
Maybe. But it was the only variable changed (other than a slight uplift in hydration to balance a bit more ”brown” in the mix).I think it depends on the rye, Mark, it tends not to have that effect for me at that level though it can do.
Yes I have been recently. More experience of using normal oven. What would you like to know Mark?Ooh. Quick question. Anybody using a steam oven for their loaves?