Bread.

[PseudoChef]

After I work the remaining flour in (you may or may not need some more, but the key is to have as hydrous a dough as possible), I form the dough into a mound.

I use a dough scraper to cut this into 3 pieces lengthwise. (***Note, I've scaled back Reinhart's 6 baguettes to form 3 in the past with excellent results. However, this time, I ended up with more dough than usual it seemed. 4 baguettes would have been better, but they'll still be delicious**)

After cutting, I immediately transfer to my baguette pan, as I don't want the loaves to lose shape:

At this point, preheat your oven as hot as it will get, usually 550degF. Allow this to preheat for 45 minutes to an hour while the dough proofs one final time. Even if your oven light goes off, still wait for 30-45 minutes.

 

[PseudoChef]

Here the oven is preheated and I'm ready to steam. Reinhart tells you to place a pan in the oven so that you can dump water in, but I have scorched pans in the past doing this. Now I just dump a bowl-ful of ice in as I put the baguettes in. Also notice the spray bottle for oven-steaming. I've also lamed the bread using a regular bread knife:

Into the oven, spraying every 30 seconds or so the first 3-4 minutes.

Turn the heat down to about 425degF and bake 9 minutes. Rotate the pan, and bake about 9-10 minutes more.

Voila!

 

[Orfy]

That looks tasty.....

How about some garlic butter or cheese.

 

[talleymonster]

Damn! You guys are killing me! I just dug through my cupboards and it looks like I have all of the necessary ingredients to whip up a loaf! I'm DOING IT!

 

[talleymonster]

WOW, orfy! I think you might have turned me onto another hobby!

I just started reading through the beginner lesson on The Fresh Loaf.

It seems like it is much like brewing beer: There are 4 main ingredients. Water, Flour, Yeast and Salt. Then you can add other ingredients to impart diffferent flavors and textures, kind of like "Adjuncts" in beer.

My loaf is rising right now!

 

[Melana]

I'd suggest gong the sourdough route to really reap the savings. Yeasties are so easy to play with (after my initial worry about getting them going!) once you get the hang of it.

 

[talleymonster]

Here's my bread! It's Good!

 

[Melana]

Here's my bread! It's Good!

Looks great! Did you add the obligatory spent grain to it?

 

[talleymonster]

Looks great! Did you add the obligatory spent grain to it?

No, I didn't have any spent grain to add! I added ground flax seed though.

 

[talleymonster]

Right now I'm making two more loaves.

A cinnamon bread
and
A Flying Dog Scottish Porter beer bread.

 

[beenjammin]

is it worth trying to use beer yeast in bread as opposed to bakers yeast? would it impart any beery flavours? or are they just too different?

 

[Orfy]

Look up the barm cake on the Wiki.

 

[Melana]

We had sourdough rolls for dinner last night with the addition of flaked wheat from my latest hefe. mmmmmmmmmmmm good!

 

[ScubaSteve]

Awww, sheeeeeeeeee(iiii)t! I can't even tell you guys how stoked I am about this! I haven't been so pumped since I discovered homebrewing. I drove EVERYWHERE looking for a baguette pan...to no avail. So, what do we do when we can't find/afford something? We make it!!!! I made a ghetto baguette pan (pics to follow, so I can show you the finished bread and all) and plan to use it on Thxgiving.:rockin: (FWIW, I'll prolly still get a pan online )

 

[Brakeman_Brewing]

Im pretty sure this thread has inspired me to start baking bread.

I was a cook and assistant pitmaster for years, but I never dabbled in the world of baking.

Good work guys!

 

[Ryanh1801]

damn you orfy , There is only one thing i like better than beer and that is Bread.
<<< First homemade bread is in the oven.

 

[Ryanh1801]

Bread turned out great.
one pound wheat flour
5 ounces skim milk
2 tablespoons Flax seed
about 1/4 cup honey
12 ounces water or until the right consistency.

 

[zoebisch01]

I haven't been so pumped since I discovered homebrewing. I drove EVERYWHERE looking for a baguette pan...to no avail.

Aww man, I could have saved you some time and effort (assuming you have a stone or two). You actually don't need the pan, but what you do need is a Couche. To make one at home, all you do is rub flour into a lint free towel. Like tons of it. Then you lay that down on the counter. Now you can just use the backsplash of your counter as the far 'side' of the Couche. You start with the end of the towel 'up' the backsplash, and lay down your first loaf. Then you pinch up the towel so that it comes up the side of the loaf. The other side of the 'pinch' is the seperation between the next loaf. Repeat until you run out of towels and then just set a board at least the length of the loaf on the outside edge, parallel to the backsplash.

When the loaves have doubled, you have your oven really hot, especially the stone. You take a Peel ( a simple thin smooth board heavily floured works fine, or an open sided sheet pan) and rest it next to the loaf, and then gently roll the loaf onto it. Make a few long almost vertical slashes with a double edged razor blade (go deep, almost 1/2") and gently slide it onto the stone.

Actually the idea of using heavily floured towels in contact with the dough was a leap of faith for me at first. When I first used this method, I thought for sure that it would stick, but it works great. I rise my Peasant loaves in wicker baskets lined with towels.

 

[ryser2k]

I made the pain l'ancienne and foccacia bread from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.... unfortunately I ate both of them before I thought to take any pictures!

But I will say that I absolutely love the book... and I'll probably be cranking out another recipe this weekend. For now at least, bread baking has replace homebrewing for me... similar hobbies but a quicker payoff for my ADD personality

 

[Funkenjaeger]

It's got to be the yeast/fermentation connection... Like many others, I am very interested in this now, thanks Orfy for the idea.

Baked a loaf 2 nights ago, from the recipe in 'lesson 2' on thefreshloaf.com - it was pretty simple, and has been great for sandwiches. Can't wait to try some fancier breads.

 

[BigNick73]

is it worth trying to use beer yeast in bread as opposed to bakers yeast? would it impart any beery flavours? or are they just too different?

yeah u can do it they did it on one of the basic brewing pod casts, said it tasted like bread, and the beer made with bakers yeast tasted like beer.

You can make bread with beer just mix beer with flour, salt, sugar and baking powder and bake, there's quite a few recipes for this via google, apparently different types of beer impart different flavors, only ever had it made with budweiser myself.

 

[beenjammin]

yeah u can do it they did it on one of the basic brewing pod casts, said it tasted like bread, and the beer made with bakers yeast tasted like beer.

You can make bread with beer just mix beer with flour, salt, sugar and baking powder and bake, there's quite a few recipes for this via google, apparently different types of beer impart different flavors, only ever had it made with budweiser myself.

tried it a few days ago...theres probably a simpler and faster way to do than i did but here's what i did anyways.

I put about half of my 675 ml bottle of an extremely malty brown ale, with the yeast slurry, in a bowl with a bit of sugar and white flour. i let it sit overnight to wake up and get active (probably wasn't necessary). the next morning it was bubbling nicely so i made the dough with 2 cups whole wheat and one cup unbleached white flower, with a bit of salt and lots of rosemary. it took the better part of the day and an entire night to complete two risings so the morning of the 3rd day i molded it and baked around 350...it probably wasn't necessary but i wanted to see what it would be like without using bakers yeast. (didn't check out the podcasts, but i will now)...it came out very malty, and honestly tasted better than the beer...which was a bit too malty for me...so the process and outcome, imo was definately worth it even if i couldn't condense the time involved.

 

[TerapinChef]

Here are my thoughts on the subject...

1) I knew somebody was going to try to make a baguette screen! I just knew it! Never actually used it but this looks reasonable:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004R91J/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

2) While not so much for the beginning baker, once you feel you have the hang of it this is one of the finest artisan bread books I have ever seen :
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679409076/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

3) No one has discussed the building of a starter! Also, for those of you who are serious brewers, I don't recommend using anything but beer yeast. You don't really want a bunch of rogue yeasties proliferating in your kitchen like those little guys in the Good Eats beer episode. A starter is not terribly hard to maintain (if you can culture yeast from your beer chances are your 4 year old can make and maintain a starter) and lend so much character to your bread. This is how your bread can truly become yours....and stay that way. I know people who have starters that are literally older than I am. Some bakers keep them for 20 years.

Glad to see this post, nice to see PseudoChef isn't really so "Pseudo":rockin:

 

[PseudoChef]

Here are my thoughts on the subject...

1) I knew somebody was going to try to make a baguette screen! I just knew it! Never actually used it but this looks reasonable:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004R91J/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

2) While not so much for the beginning baker, once you feel you have the hang of it this is one of the finest artisan bread books I have ever seen :
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679409076/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

3) No one has discussed the building of a starter! Also, for those of you who are serious brewers, I don't recommend using anything but beer yeast. You don't really want a bunch of rogue yeasties proliferating in your kitchen like those little guys in the Good Eats beer episode. A starter is not terribly hard to maintain (if you can culture yeast from your beer chances are your 4 year old can make and maintain a starter) and lend so much character to your bread. This is how your bread can truly become yours....and stay that way. I know people who have starters that are literally older than I am. Some bakers keep them for 20 years.

Glad to see this post, nice to see PseudoChef isn't really so "Pseudo":rockin:

Haha, thanks.

I have tried to make a starter multiple times with various methods, but it just seems to me Nashville doesn't have delicious wild-yeasties. I can do one that tastes like sourdough, but doesn't have leavening power, and one that tastes like poop and leavens. Go figure. I know I could just add regular yeast to the good one, but I wanted to do it all with wild.

Once I get off my arse, I'm gonna try again with Reinhart's raisin method. Hopefully that will work out.

 

[TerapinChef]

I'm entirely speculating on this topic, but I"m pretty sure that if you get your starter going with a known yeast strain, it should take over quickly enough that any other yeasts that get into it would lend marginal flavors at best, as long as you keep your starter well fed and fairly active (using and replenishing it at least twice a week should be sufficient if I remember my 5 am bread baking class...)

 

[javedian]

For those of you with a busy work / home life that can't always plan ahead, here is a recipe for quick yeast bread I got out of the local supermarket quarterly recipe flyer. Works good, although not quite as good texture as double risen or starter based bread. However, I can get home from work and have hot fresh bread on the table about 1.5-2 hours later. Using Kitchen Aid stand mixer with bread hood makes it almost effortless.
Preheat oven to 250*F
1.25 c warm water
1 Tbsp. instant yeast
1 tsp. salt
1-2 Tbsb honey, sugar, molasses or whatever sugar substance you like
2.5-3 cups flour (I usually use 1 to 1.5 cups whole wheat or rye)

Briefly mix until combine, let rest 5-10 minutes. Knead for 5-10 minutes.
Turn off oven. Shape dough into loaf. Pour a little oil in loaf pan, put in bread and turn to coat. Place in oven.

Let rise until doubled 20-30 min.
Turn on oven to 400*F, cook 15 minutes
Reduce oven to 350*F, cook 20-30 minutes until done

This is good for adding other stuff. I have used various additions including some leftover mashed sweet potatos, oat bran, bulghur (cracked wheat) rehydrated in water in microwave for few min, quick oats. Spent grain would be great. Don't use more that 50% whole wheat, or it takes longer to rise and stays real dense - guess that takes the traditional baking methods.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

So has landhoney tried a soured bread yet?

could be interesting...

 

[BakerStreetBeers]

Orfy, if you like heartier breads consider making some spent grain bread (Link is to one recipe on this site, there are others.) I only made this once -- I actually think it may have been with grains from your Mild Mannered Ale -- and it was quite delicious.

 

[Oakwoodforge]

Check out my Neighbor's website - Eric is SERIOUS about bread and a heck of a good neighbor too ...

http://www.breadtopia.com/

Man do I love my Neighborhood


Jens

 

[Melana]

WOW that's one cool web page. Boy i like your neighbors!