Anyone here baking bread?

Ransom said:

Dr. Hess said:

I buy them at the thrift stores for $5-10.  Most look unused.

They are the classic Christmas/wedding/what-have-you gift that is as likely to get used as a January 1st gym membership.

Very true. My wife and I wore ours out, but we're weird.

In reply to ProDarwin :

Yes and yes

I agree about rectangles, they make a better "loaf shape" but you do have to mind the corners. Mine was 15 bucks at a Salvation Army store, brand new in the box with all the paprework.  I have found, with regards to salt, that minor changes at a time still come out fine if you stick with a basic recipe. 

Explain this starter thing to me please?

And i am a huge fan of sourdoughs, any suggestions on where to find good info or share wisdom here?

Instructions for making your own, from the ever-useful King Arthur flour website.

Or, you can buy this set that comes complete with a sourdough crock and some starter. It's the same starter I'm using, although as you keep it alive, it adapts to the wild yeast that are in the flour you're feeding it and the conditions of your home.

Yesterday's result. The dangers of thinking you have the process wired and not reading directions; I forgot to drop the oven from 500 to 450 when I put the loaves in the pots. Not bad, but they'd have benefitted from baking a little longer while still maybe being slightly lighter. I'm guessing that not baking as much of the moisture out with the faster bake is why although they sound baked through, the crusts de-crisped during the post-bake rest.

In reply to Ransom :

I think that lower temperatures and longer bake times allow the crumb to lose moisture more effectively.

I've had that problem with my banana bread. Too high a temperature resulted in bread that wasn't cooked all the way through.

A couple of points to mention that I've left out of my original posts.

One of them is to do all your measurements with a scale. Measuring by volume is just too inaccurate.

The other one is to use accurate measurements of the temperatures. The temperature of my oven is only roughly correlated with the setting.

I have an accurate oven thermometer to tell me what the actual temperature is. I also check the core temperature of the bread before I pull it out, the internal temperature should be about 200° F.

Floating Doc said:

One of them is to do all your measurements with a scale. Measuring by volume is just too inaccurate.

The other one is to use accurate measurements of the temperatures. The temperature of my oven is only roughly correlated with the setting.

The weight thing is absolutely crucial. Volume measurements are all over the place.

Temperature checking, too; I don't know why, but I'm also getting MUCH better results with an electric oven than my previous gas one (used to get scorched loaf bottoms a lot), despite the temperatures being checked and quite similar. It may be something else about the oven, like better insulation or something so that the temperature stays more even and you get less radiant heat pointed at the bottoms of the pots since it doesn't have to cycle on as much...

Has anyone made bread while running their ovens convection fan? Any noticeable differences in texture or bake time?

Another cold-weather baker here; the house gets a bit warm if I run the oven too much in summer, although I often bake muffins in the summer for a good quick breakfast. I've been using a Kitchenaid as a short cut instead of kneeding the bread by hand. Usually been making French bread or the occasional beer bread, pizza dough, or foccacia. So far, I haven't tried anything with sourdough.

My wife is really into bread making.   She went to a class @ King Arthur Flour done by Peter Reinhart on sourdough cooking.  The class was specifically pizza crusts, but he talked about and covers all forms of sourdough from regular breads to waffles and pancakes.   We use probably the same starter that Floating Doc used.    And yes, King Arthur Flour's flour does seem to yield better bread than generic types, we haven't found a good source of independent wheat yet, though.

It's delicious.  I highly recommend you get your spouses into it if you don't have time :)  She's got all the cast iron crocks for cooking it and various baskets for different types.  It's a fun hobby.

For bread machine recommendations, after wearing out two free/cheap bread machines, we've invested in the "Zojirushi Home Bakery Virtuoso Breadmaker," which is not cheap @ $250ish.  But we have a lot of people and it was one of the few to do a big enough loaf for everyone.   Yes, it really is as easy as "dump ingredients in and have delicious bread when you get home from work."  We've been quite happy with it, but we've probably only put 100 or so loaves through it at this point since it was a recent acquisition.

My mom made bread about three times a week for probably 5-10 years while growing up. About a year ago, my cousin gave us a breadmaker - our aunt had given it to her. Surprisingly, our aunt had actually used it a lot but upgraded to a bigger one. My cousin never really used it, so it got handed off to me. I used it probably 4 or 5 times last winter, but last winter was not a normal winter for us in terms of anything.

This thread inspired me to pull it out of the basement. Last night I made this recipe: https://juliasalbum.com/how-to-make-basic-white-bread-less-dense-in-a-bread-machine-recipe/. Set it on a delay, I woke up to warm bread this morning. It is a decent white bread - which was realistically all that I could make with what I had at hand. I'll make grilled cheese with it for lunch . 

I need to get a scale, and then I also need to get a sourdough starter. I think my cousin (different than referenced above) has one and offered some to my wife a few months ago, I'll follow up on that. I love me some souredough bread.

I started making bread recently. Loving it!

I make a mean yogurt bread. No yeast, ferments in yogurt and is super healthy.

If anyone wants any GF recipes, let me know. 

Has anyone started a sourdough starter? I failed at my first attempt.

Wow, you guys weren't kidding about Goodwill.  I stopped by today and there were 3 breadmakers on the shelf.  I picked up the one that appeared to be in the best condition for $12.

Doing my test loaf right now.

Can someone explain to me what a bread 'starter' is?  Is it just basically something that the yeast has started to react with that you can feed and keep taking from to start new loaves so you don't need to keep buying yeast?

"Starter," as in sourdough starter, is a synergistic mix of yeast and lactobacilli, with some food for them (flour and water), that are ready to be put in with your other bread ingredients (more flour and water, some salt) to make your bread.  You use that instead of dry yeast.  You can't really use a bread machine for sourdough, as the rise times will be longer or more unpredictable than using dry yeast.

CyberEric said:

Has anyone started a sourdough starter? I failed at my first attempt.

I did; it took a lot longer than the first book I had suggested, but it did work. Nothing but flour, water, time (and the yeast that were hanging out on the flour and in the room).

ProDarwin, I'd say it's less about not having to buy yeast than the better flavor and better keeping that a sourdough/levain has. I probably spend at least as much or more feeding the levain when it's not in the fridge than I would just buying yeast for each loaf (200g flour, half white, half wheat, every day). It keeps easily in the fridge for weeks at least with no maintenance, then pull it out, feed it for a day or two, bake, and there's a step where you need about a tablespoon to kick off the new bread, and you put the rest back in the fridge.

Well, first loaf complete.  Its not as fluffy as I would like... very dense.  What changes does one usually make to get things 'fluffier'?

But its bread, and its like $0.60 as opposed to $5 at the store.  I have some work to do, but I think this will be fun.

ProDarwin said:

Justjim75 said:

I cheat.  I use my half Cherokee great grandmother's recipe in my bread machine. The results are predictable and the bread is delicious.

That looks amazing.  Learn me bread machines.  Is it as easy as dumping ingredients in and hitting go?  Is it possible to produce bread with a lot lower sodium than found on shelves?

Bread machines made me fat,I switched to beer, now I am fat and drunk, slippery slope

ProDarwin said:

Well, first loaf complete.  Its not as fluffy as I would like... very dense.  What changes does one usually make to get things 'fluffier'?

But its bread, and its like $0.60 as opposed to $5 at the store.  I have some work to do, but I think this will be fun.

Did you follow my recipe?  What yeast did you use?

No, but that is interesting... 

Dr. Hess said:

ProDarwin said:

Well, first loaf complete.  Its not as fluffy as I would like... very dense.  What changes does one usually make to get things 'fluffier'?

But its bread, and its like $0.60 as opposed to $5 at the store.  I have some work to do, but I think this will be fun.

Did you follow my recipe?  What yeast did you use?

No... I just googled basic bread recipie.   I used some Flieishmans 'Active Dry' yeast.

I did some reading and it sounds like it not rising enough is yeast related.  Either water too hot, or something else?

I'll check your recipe and try again

Not using my recipe was your failure point.  You can also use 3 cups white flour instead of 2 white and 1 whole wheat.  If you do that, you may need less water.  You have to experiment to find the proper water amount.  If the top falls in, back out water 1 tablespoon at a time.  If it doesn't rise enough, add water 1 tablespoon at a time.  Some machines are more sensitive than others.  Always measure your ingredients exactly the same way and be particularly attentive to the water measurement.  The 1 lb yeast bags from a food wholesaler are the only way to go.  They sell 2 shrinkwrapped together at Sam's for around five bucks. https://scene7.samsclub.com/is/image/samsclub/0075471502191_A?wid=280&hei=280

The same amount of the same yeast at a grocery store would be orders of magnitude more expensive.

Fun trivia about breadmaking:  When my wife was that King Arthur's Flour  class, one of the bakers at the shop mentioned that before they can publish a recipie, they have to have it tested by a suite of volunteers in their own homes.  Apparently there's enough wild yeast in the air/prep surfaces at the shop that they need to reduce the yeast by up to 25%!

Hess, I just dumped your recipe in the bread machine. It is kneading away as we speak. 

Except I strayed from your recipe in two parts: I used all white (King Arthur) bread flour, and subsequently decreased the water 1/2 oz, and I used Red Star Yeast. Only reason I strayed was I decided I wanted bread, and I didn't have whole wheat flour or Flieschmans yeast. 

Incidentally, do you use Kosher salt or fine salt? I used Kosher because it is what I always use, so I just instinctively reached for it, but I'm curious which one you do. 

EDIT: Also, I need to toss my yeast and start with a new block.

I use a Zojirushi to make sourdough approaching twice a week.  King Arthur flour and what at least started out as their (now much abused) starter.

I start by adding a cup and a half warm water, 2 cups flour and half (no this isn't very exact) of my starter-- roughly a cup.  I then run the machine through it's sourdough starter cycle.

The way timing works out, i may then pull the pan out, drape a towel over it and levae it over night.

The next morning, I add two more heaping cups of flour, 2 teaspoons salt, and a tablespoon of vital wheat gluten-- because we are such badasses we add gluten to our food!

If I'm going to work, I set the timer for the maximum 13 hours and try to be home before the baking cycle starts to slash the top of the loaf.  In one more hour, fresh bread!  If not going to work, I let it just run the normal 3:45 baking cycle.

Bread is good for sandwiches for about 4 days, best at 3 or less.  Great for toast until it's gone.  Also, butter a slice, sprinkle shredded asiago on the butter, fry in skillet.  Yum.

Bread season is upon the Rev household, well just about. I finally ordered starter from King Arthur yesterday, I expect to have it by next weekend. 

When making chicken soup for today, I found a cast iron dutch oven I forgot I bought. I'm now looking for bread recipes I can bake in it.