Making bread

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runningweird said:
also, check out the best bread book ever: artisan bread in 5 minutes a day.
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Thanks for the heads up. I woke up this morning having never made bread (nor wanting), read this post, and now have a container of Boule dough rising.

Is it true that it turns into a sourdough as it sits in the fridge? I love sourdough but can't find any good stuff around here.

EDIT*** I just had to flip a few more pages. Found my own answer to this question. Also, do you ever make loaves? I have been griping to my wife that we haven't had any good sandwich bread lately. I am assuming that you just put into a loaf pan but I don't know how to change the baking instructions accordingly.
 
you could go all wild and stuff, let your dough outside and let it sour naturally. sourdough is really just letting yeast go past its normal routine time wise. you have to wait, it takes time. lookup sourdough mother or sourdough sponge.

happy baking.

you cannot make sourdough bread in one day, unless its a hybrid.

french bread is where its at, put the loaf in the oven with a container of water and you get a beautiful outside crust.
 
I don't have a stone. I do have a cast iron griddle. Will that be a good substitute or is that going to conduct too much heat?

I am excited to bake this stuff. The thought of fresh bread is mouthwatering.
 
I've used a cast iron griddle (small one-burner size from Ikea) with that dough and it has turned out nearly identical to when I used a stone. In fact, when our oven blew up and we went without a full-sized oven for a while, we were still able to make bread in the toaster oven using the griddle.

Also, you can use the same dough to make loaves but you'll want to cook it at about 375 for at least 75 minutes - usually longer than that. It is very hard to overcook such a wet dough.
 
jschweiss said:
I've used a cast iron griddle (small one-burner size from Ikea) with that dough and it has turned out nearly identical to when I used a stone. In fact, when our oven blew up and we went without a full-sized oven for a while, we were still able to make bread in the toaster oven using the griddle.

Also, you can use the same dough to make loaves but you'll want to cook it at about 375 for at least 75 minutes - usually longer than that. It is very hard to overcook such a wet dough.
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Music to my ears! I figure that will be a huge help in achieving decent results.

Just toss the loaf pan on the rack? This thread is a great find because the last time we were at the store I didn't want to buy any bread because the selection was so bad.

Waiting for the dough to fall now. Been about 3 hours and the dough has tripled in size. I cant wait to throw the first loaf in.
 
First loaf done. It was pretty good - a little plain. Great crust on the bottom but it was a little burnt in a few spots. I am assuming that preheating the griddle for 40 mins was too much and moving the cast iron griddle in closer to when I put the bread in will fix that (it had a burning smell the moment it hit the griddle).

I cant wait for it to sour up a little. It doesn't need to get full sour dough - just enough for some character.
 
Thanks again for the recipe. Had a big day so I'm just finishing, but here they are! It smells so good in our house!

ForumRunner_20110403_225604.jpg
 
Made mini-loaves tonight for meatball sandwiches. Best meatball sandwiches ever!!!

Made a second batch of dough. Possibly for french toast this weekend with my parents.

I may be doing a whole lot more bread baking in the future!
 
runningweird said:
sourdough is really just letting yeast go past its normal routine time wise. you have to wait, it takes time. lookup sourdough mother or sourdough sponge.
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i don't mean to be nitpicky, but sourdough isn't just letting yeast go past it's normal routine.

"sourdough" refers to a symbiotic culture of wild yeast and lacic acid producing bacteria (lactobacillus). essentially, you create a sourdough starter by allowing the yeast that occurs naturally on grains of wheat (and/or rye) to break down the sugars in the grain and start to develop a population large enough to leaven bread (a sourdough with dry yeast added really isn't a sourdough). it can be done by adding coarse rye flour and water until it becomes bubbly and then gradually diluting it with bread flour until it doubles in size within 8 hrs (google somewhere to find real instructions). once you have a sourdough starter, you want to perpetuate it so you can use it, more or less, for the rest of your life. every time you start a new loaf, you save a portion of the sourdough, feed it with fresh water and flour and, for home bakers purposes, put it in the fridge until you are ready to freshen and use it again. not all sourdoughs are 'sour', different strains of lactobacillus occur around the US and the reason SF sourdough is so sour is the specific strain of lactobacillus that occurs there. there are tricks you can use to make it more sour.

it's always wise, as the OP has done, to start with dry yeast breads, graduate to pre-ferments, then try your hand at sourdough. they require a lot more attention and time. breadmaking is an incredibly rewarding hobby, congrats on your foray into it!
 
android said:
i don't mean to be nitpicky, but sourdough isn't just letting yeast go past it's normal routine.

"sourdough" refers to a symbiotic culture of wild yeast and lacic acid producing bacteria (lactobacillus). essentially, you create a sourdough starter by allowing the yeast that occurs naturally on grains of wheat (and/or rye) to break down the sugars in the grain and start to develop a population large enough to leaven bread (a sourdough with dry yeast added really isn't a sourdough). it can be done by adding coarse rye flour and water until it becomes bubbly and then gradually diluting it with bread flour until it doubles in size within 8 hrs (google somewhere to find real instructions). once you have a sourdough starter, you want to perpetuate it so you can use it, more or less, for the rest of your life. every time you start a new loaf, you save a portion of the sourdough, feed it with fresh water and flour and, for home bakers purposes, put it in the fridge until you are ready to freshen and use it again. not all sourdoughs are 'sour', different strains of lactobacillus occur around the US and the reason SF sourdough is so sour is the specific strain of lactobacillus that occurs there. there are tricks you can use to make it more sour.

it's always wise, as the OP has done, to start with dry yeast breads, graduate to pre-ferments, then try your hand at sourdough. they require a lot more attention and time. breadmaking is an incredibly rewarding hobby, congrats on your foray into it!
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I do believe I have been served.

In my defense, whenever I made sourdough breads I added regular bread yeast and allowed the dough to sit uncovered on my counter until it reached my desired level of sour. So as android so succinctly stated: it is not in fact the bread yeast creating the sour it is other microorganisms found in the environment or introduced by you as a culture(mother).
 
runningweird said:
I do believe I have been served.

In my defense, whenever I made sourdough breads I added regular bread yeast and allowed the dough to sit uncovered on my counter until it reached my desired level of sour. So as android so succinctly stated: it is not in fact the bread yeast creating the sour it is other microorganisms found in the environment or introduced by you as a culture(mother).
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sorry man, it's just that i've been making bread for a long time and i had to comment on it. but however you can get sour into the bread, go for it! i have never heard of anyone just letting it sit out to get sour... interesting. how long are we talking?
 
I understand that. In the summer i let it sour overnight, in the winter it can take up to two days, usually just with a tea towel over it.

in addition, I forgot to mention that for the recipe I posted earlier we always substitute two more cups of whole wheat flour for white-we like heartier bread.
 
so you mix the entire batch up and then just let it uber-rise on the counter? and then you just punch it down and rise it in a bread pan or into loaf shapes, let it rise again and then bake? essentially just a really long initial fermentation? i'm surprised your dough rises again after that long of a primary rise. just another testament to the toughness of yeast.
 
android said:
so you mix the entire batch up and then just let it uber-rise on the counter? and then you just punch it down and rise it in a bread pan or into loaf shapes, let it rise again and then bake? essentially just a really long initial fermentation? i'm surprised your dough rises again after that long of a primary rise. just another testament to the toughness of yeast.
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That's basically it in a nutshell. It's the long primary of baking (that's probably why I like it.) It's a great bread.
 
I'm liking this bread making... Here's some individual pizza crusts. I still get to play with yeast, but the results come a lot faster :)

ForumRunner_20110412_222845.jpg
 
how long did you let it proof?
you'll be amazed at the way the dough tastes if you let it proof over night. Its so much easier to work with too.

looking good, I can never get mine even close to round, they always look like an amoeba
 
I just let it go an hour like the directions said (it was a recipe my wife found on one of the blogs she reads). Letting it go overnight won't hurt anything?

I also got a sour dough yeast starter from my boss, so I'm pretty excited about that. It says to feed it instant potatoes...is there anything else that will work? We don't have any on hand.

Thanks for all the help on this! I love creating what we eat, and I love that it doesn't contain all kinds of artificial crap.
 
you can feed them regular unbleached all purpose flour, just do a quick google search for what to feed sourdough starter and you'll get a bunch of hits.

no, letting your dough go overnight is not damaging and lets the dough develop flavors and textures.
 
I always cold proof my pizza dough overnight in the fridge. Before I learned to do that, I would have a heck of a time working with the dough.
 
My trick for sour dough has been to let the dough sour for 2 days or so. Then, re-knead with a little sugar or DME water. It has worked great so far, I get the sourness I'm looking for and the bread rises. Now, I just need to get a good way of getting the crust brown. I haven't tried putting water in the oven yet.

My starter rocks and it was fairly easy. I used the pineapple juice method and it took about 2 weeks for it to taste good.
 

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