wholegrain-science

Excavation - the act of creating by removing somethingCleaning rocks

2011-06-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

Cleaning rocks for the rock drain behind the house

Clean rocks

Picking up rocks

Cleaning scrap styrofoam for recycling as "rock"

Styrofoam recycled as "rock" between the back basement wall and the false wall keeping out the dirt [soil, clay]

Yet more rock, goes onto the styrofoam, a layer cake

The cut for the concrete water tank going under the porch

Stabilizing another cut using the wild strawberries

The wild strawberries are sending out runners right now.

Moving rock to the hole in the front porch to pour it into place

Like a duck swimming - all the real work going on underneath spreading the rock

Cheating - using the digger to fill my wheelbarrow

Not cheating, at the other end filling buckets manually for placement above the styrofoam and the ventilation pipes

More rock - for the road and underneath the water tank slab

Precarious - getting the rock down there now the cut has been made.

Backfilling soil under the front porch

End of the day

High fiber - part wholewheat with barley flakes

2009-02-13T11:52:00.001-08:00

Basic "accelerated" sourdough (liquid levain plus yeast)
72% water,
Harvest King flour 80%,
stone ground wholewheat 20% (milled immediately before make-up),
10% sustagrain high betaglucan barley flakes soaked in 120% water for an hour.

Improved mix (3 min slow 4 min fast) Hobart 20 qt mixer. Bulk 120 minutes with 2 folds. shaped into big batards (750 g), tried a new (for me) shaping method from Ciril Hitz, more like the pre-shaping technique for the cylinder for baguettes,
90 min final (it was warmer and the dough was fast),
Bake 22 min 232 C (450 F).

Very nice, crumb was moderately open but very moist and tender.

more pain au levain

2008-09-15T11:22:00.001-07:00

Pain au levain from Jeff Hamelman's book. 75% harvest King 25% Bob's Red Mill dark rye. 100 % sourdough risen; a mix of my leftover liquid and stiff levains. Nice ears

Training day

2008-09-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

Time to train my staff in some handcrafting techniques: Not bad at all -- Pain au levain, semolina bread and sesame semolina, sourdough rye with carraway, and miches.

The breadbasket we shared afterwards

Baguettes a la levain

2008-08-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

Baguettes made with liquid [100% hydration] levain instead of the poolish. Same formulation, flour, and process as below, except for the noted change. This one included the 45 min fold during bulk fermentation.

Nailed the crust; of course understanding the oven's limitations from yesterday helped there.
20 sec steam prior to loading, then 10 sec, then 2 more sec 1 min later. Opened oven vent with 10 min to go, vented 1 min with oven open door at the end.

Beautiful creamy crumb if still a little tight. Can't wait to get my new lame blades as the razor blades I am using do not seem sharp enough to give a good even cut in the dough.

A little better...

2008-08-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

A little better today - Same formulation, flour, and process as yesterday except with the baguettes I folded the dough once in bulk and then worked the pre-shapes a little harder. More opening of the cuts today, good ! Could've been better if the oven did not literally "run out of steam". Tried saturating the oven with steam before the loaves went in, 30 sec, then when I went to hit them with about 10 sec worth after they hit the oven, the steam generators were not hot enough. All the water went down the drain and not into the oven as steam. I suppose it is good to find the limitations of the equipment, but why today?

I am still having trouble getting an open crumb structure, maybe I am working the dough too much, mixing a little too much, although at 4 min on speed 2 I could hardly pull any sort of gluten window... Maybe it is a flour issue, maybe it's a technique issue. I will get some of my "control" General Mills' Harvest King flour today and repeat the exercise on Friday using that flour to see if I can reproduce the open texture I got at SFBI in July.
-

Poolish baguette dough / Shepherd's Grain low-gluten

2008-08-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

Batards got good ears but not the baguettes, same proofing same dough, same oven, same time etc etc. Were the baguettes not shaped tight enough at the final shaping, skins too dry [then so were the batard skins], not enough steam. But the result had great flavor, aroma, and texture. Crust was crunchy but not so hard it would cut your gums.

Beautiful batard - tasted as good as it looked.
Venting the oven
Today will try my proof box with the humidifier on but without the temperature control to run as close as possible to room temperature. Same formulation and process; stay tuned to see if the baguettes get better.

My assistant did some regular test baking as well. The "better" flours for hand-shaped breads [front 2 loaves] got lower volumes than the hi-gluten types [2 rearward loaves].
Rear Left; Grainprocessor's Titan --- Right; Shepherd's Grain High-gluten
Front Left; Shepherd's Grain Low-gluten --- Right ---General Mills' Harvest King [supermarket version]

San Francisco Baking Institute; photo journal

2008-08-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to David A. for the pictures.

Loading the oven
Slashing the baguettes
Finished products proudly displayed
Judging the results
Taste time
Country breads out of the ovenEgg washing a sweet bread
Fast hands making last second adjustments
Miches unloaded
Same ingredients different processes - different results
Round and round...
Steaming fun
Proofing time
The end of the day

Barley Struggles

2008-08-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Trying out some product development with ConAgra waxy hull-less whole grain flour, a.k.a. the sponge...

Lots of great soluble fiber in this whole-grain flour, beta-glucans that is, same as in oats.

Had trouble with the baguettes, not enough lift. Doughs were tight. Need to be braver about adding extra water... Maybe some bracketing and being happy to throw out the failures. Personally I do not think the barley flavor mixes well with an acidic sourdough. I used a stiff, acetic levain to replace the strength I lost by diluting the bread flour with the Wx barley flour

Had trouble with the batards using the "Vermont sourdough with wholewheat" barely variant. Added 4% extra water but the dough dried out so much in the bulk fermentation that the seams wouldn't seal and some blew out in the oven.

The "80% barley sourdough", well went with the 4% extra water, so far off the mark that I threw it out. Could've maybe used 10 -15% more water !!!

Finally got brave enough with the water [extra 5% for a 10% admixture of waxy barley flour in the bread flour]. Used the Shepherd's Grain low gluten flour as the base with a pre-fermented dough [Page 296 in Advanced Bread and Pastry; Michel Suas]. This dough was nice and gassy, shaped well into strands, and lifted well in the oven.

100% rye

2008-08-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

100 % rye with a dark rye flour because I could not source medium rye. The formulation and procedure is what I learned at the San Francisco Baking Institute - Baking and Pastry Arts School for Professionals and Enthusiasts. Upped the water to 1015 g to compensate for the added water absorbing capacity of the dark rye flour.

Still, a nice outcome. Can't wait to get some cheese.

Shepherd's Grain flours

2008-08-13T11:30:00.000-07:00

Tried 2 new flours today; Shepherd's Grain high- and low-gluten. Shepherd's Grain are, in their words, "an alliance of progressive family farms dedicated to practicing sustainable agriculture".

http://www.shepherdsgrain.com/

These folks are regional if not exactly local. A BBGA member told me she really liked the hi-gluten version for her sourdough business. Because we do variety development on hard-grained breadmaking wheats for Oregon and the Pacific Northwest [in addition to our soft-white wheat variety development], I thought it might be prudent to see what commercial hard-wheat flours from the region were like.

To do this I made Jeffrey Hamelman's Vermont sourdough with whole wheat, of course it was my PNW and Oregon version. It is all levain risen, no commercial yeast. Mixed to a shaggy lump, 25 minute autolyse, 2 hr bulk with one fold, pre-shaped to boules, shaped to boules and blunt batards, final fermentation 12 hours at 10 deg C, 1 hour at roon temperature, baked 25 min @ 460 deg F with steam, vented 8 minutes. I forgot to turn the oven down a little after 10 minutes or so into the bake and got a little too dark a crust, but it was crispy !.
It turned out just fine, but the high-gluten [behind] did not have ears that opened up as nicely as the low-gluten version. The low-gluten flour also had a little stiff levain in the formulation to top up the liquid levain when I ran out of liquid levain, so the stiff levain seemed to build a little more strength.
Crumby [pardon the pun] picture of the interiors, both fairly nice and open, the high-gluten [left] had a much much chewier texture, maybe too chewy. Unfortunately I gave away the prettier ones before remembering to take the picture, so the low-gluten one was the mishapen one the stuck to the stone during the oven-spring.

These are mixograms of the high [upper] and low-gluten SG flours at 63% and 61% hydration respectively. The low-gluten could have used maybe 2% less water again. The low-gluten version takes a little less water for optimum handling and would take less time to get to the intensive mix stage; its peak happened earlier than for the high-gluten version.

SG high gluten 63% water
SG low-gluten 61% waterSG Low-gluten at 1.5% less waterGeneral Mills' Harvest King at 58.5% water.This is the machine that made the graphs - a mixograph; a recording dough mixer.

Walnut & raisin sourdough and rye sourdough

2008-08-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

Baking away merrily.

Walnut & raisin sourdough; learned the formula and technique at the San Francisco Baking Institute [SFBI].

Rye sourdough 50% dark rye [couldn't get medium], 50% hi-gluten bread flour with added malt.
Caraway seeds and a mixed levain of bread flour levain and my new rye levain.

Final proofing begins in the bake lab.
Out of the oven; they smell as good as they look. Based on Page 212 of Advanced Bread and Pastry by Michel Suas.

On the other side, my research assistant has been getting conventional pup loaf test-baking nailed down so we can provide data to our wheat breeding program this harvest season. These are not artisan-type breads; intensive mix PLUS a longish 2 hour bulk ferment, added sugar and shortening, and lots of mechanical punching and molding.

We have been talking about getting repeatable "hearth bread" test method going based on the technique from www.wheatflourbook.org [a very nice resource] but with some tweaks inspired by my trip to SFBI to make it "good" bread [e.g. dump the sugar and fat], and some others to make it wholly repeatable.
Nonetheless; she is doing a great job with them, and the volume differences are indicative enough of the general baking potential of the flours that we can use the data to make selections in our wheat variety development work.

Sesame Semolina

2008-07-31T17:37:00.000-07:00

One of my favorites from last week.

50% bread flour, 50% durum semolina
67% water
2% salt
0.2% instant yeast
6% butter
30% liquid [100% hydration] levain.

Most excellent tasting bread.

Beautiful creamy yellow crumb [one of my grad students couldn't wait and cut it hot, but you can get the picture] and openish crumb structure. This one was molded by my assistant, her very first go - good work.

San Francisco Baking Institute

2008-07-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just spent 2 weeks at the San Francisco Baking Institute http://www.sfbi.com - getting the lowdown on hand-crafted breads.

An excellent 2 weeks, Artisan I, then Artisan II, back-to-back. Bit of a stamina test but ably led by the energy and tremendous skills of our instructor Steven Isaac. Both weeks had crews of about 16 students that were all a delight to work with. The whole place is dedicated to great bread and SFBI has very good facilities and instructors to get novices or experts to their next levels in baking.

Pre-class coffee was enlivened by whatever pastries the professional 18 week class had made the day before. Lunches were great; ranging from fresh wheat-germ baguettes with mozzarella, tomato, and fresh basil, to soups, fresh hand-made pizzas, and the best ever sandwich rye bread, among others. Just a great experience all round.

This is the first time I've tried to adapt my newly learned skills to my own bakery with its specific limitations, but not bad none-the-less. Certainly more attractive loaves than I've been able to make in the past. Still some problems with the steam in my oven... blah blah... but the crust was nice and thin and crispy if a little dull from insufficient steam. Not too bad internal crumb structure, despite the seam blowouts that happened because my "people" were baking pan bread for the breeding program today and just had sheet pans and not hearthstones in the oven.

The pictures tell some of the story [minus aroma and taste], good enough as straight-dough emergency bread to have with my own mozzarella, tomato, and fresh basil tonight.

These are cereal scientist-style standard test-bake pan breads baked by my able assistant; the 'real' work going on in the lab today.

Field day fun

2008-05-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Production line baking in the lab...
Hand shaping 16 2lb [1 kg] sandwich loaves per batch
Using the wrong [left] and the right [right and above] flour for the job... To make a point about the inadequacies of low protein flour [left] for breadmaking.
Barley herb bread [a quick bread] 50% of the flour is a waxy wholegrain hull-less barley flour with lots of soluble beta-glucan fiber
Barley blueberry muffins... 2/3 of the flour is the same waxy wholegrain barley.
Out to the field day with the "good-dough, bad-dough" show. Wheat products in a wheat field... makin' dough while the... well at least it was not raining.

Use your loaf !
Engaging the audience
Feeding them always helps.Same deal 400 meters away for the barley products; barley foods in a barley field

Ikke "naesten det aegte"

2008-05-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

Nu brødet er "det gode". Let farvede brød til venstre er lavet fra 100 % byg, på samme måde som rugbrødet.

2008-05-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

Baking Science student sourdoughs all in a row.

Baker's corner in the bake-lab -- all my sourdoughs -- L to R]; rye meal, barley flour, wholewheat flour, white flour

"Næsten den ægte"

2008-05-18T19:58:00.000-07:00

Endelig: Næsten den ægte dansk rugbrød. Mange tak til Judby.dk for hannes “Færøsk surdejs-rugbrød" opskrift. Enkel, men smagsfuldt, og, som Aurion.dk siger, “Brød med sjæl og krumme”.

Jeg synes at man kan købe ikke dette slags brød I USAen.

In Aussie "Næsten den ægte" means "fair-dinkum"...

2008-05-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

Same flour, same ingredients, same process -- except; left - a yeast preferment [poolish]; right - a sourdough preferment -- very different breads in external appearance, crumb structure and chewiness, and flavour.
Production line baking at work; some undisclosed experimental breads as sandwich breads. had a little problem with the scaling for the breads at the back in the second jpg; a problem with the baker, not a problem with the flour .Nice crumb for hand molded.

Same day; a nice part-wholewheat sourdough batard; very flavorful, thin crust, and chewy crumb

Sourdough delights

2008-04-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

First 'real' sourdough breads with my recently invigorated King Arthur starter.

Same dough different shapes thats all.

This boule was done in the la cloche clay bakerThe sandwich loaf in a silicon pan, used another as a lid

2008-04-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

Some baking over the last couple of weeks.

Class fermentations, see the no-salt dough has already overtaken the salted normal dough even though it was mixed after.
Class breads
Teff Injera fermenting [innoculated with spit [good source of amylase and Lactobacilli]]Dosa batter fermenting nicely [Rice and black gram beans]Bread made with 33% wholegrain spelt four 67% hi-gluten white, made as a overnight sponge 100% with brewer's yeast from the bottom of a keg. Ate bread and drank beer made with the same yeast. Interesting experience!

Really nice chewy crumb with big holes
My first Debra Wink/Peter Reinhart "pineapple juice solution" sourdough bubbling fiercly at the end of phase 1

The inevitable aftermath

straight-dough with waxy wholewheat [25%]

2008-04-02T17:41:00.000-07:00

Baker's corner in the lab

The ovenmy new library

Straight dough method

75% "Titan" hi-gluten HRS
25% stone-ground either waxy HRW or normal HWS
72% water @ 40 deg C
1% instant yeast
2% salt
150 g sourdough

2 kg doughs [plus 1440 water] 8 mins in Hobart 20 quart mixer with dough hook.
45/45/45 bulk fermentation with folds at each step
45 min final proof in banettons
bake in steam 500 F down to 425 F during baking
[6 min of fan off and steam pan, rest with "pulsed air"]

Test bread, nowhere near as good as a poolish bread, nor even close to the best, the overnight pain a l'ancienne method, but still very nice.

A nice bold dough ready to go [25% waxy wheat]
same.. in the oven
waxy wheat blend bread finished
waxy wheat blend bread crumb structure

Crust starting to crack
Controls with 25% "normal starch" stone-ground Oregon HWS

"Pain a l'pugliese"

2008-04-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

Made another round of pain a l'ancienne, this time shaped as "pugliese" including 2 folds of the doughs starting from after it first doubled and warmed up after the overnight in the refigerator. The dough, even at 80% water, came together to be moderately handleable especially after the second round of folding.

"Pain a l'pugliese"
Made "quick" 2 hr fermentation using the same flour, yeast, and salt at 70% water to show to the class the striking flavor differences that can be generated simply altering the fermentation protocol with plain old commercial yeast. The boules though hit the spot big time with the crust, which crackled and cracked beautifully when cooling. I got the steam better in the oven: turned off the fan fort he first 6 minutes, started the oven at 500 F and let it drift down to 425 F, added lava rocks to my cast iron griddle plate for more surface area to volume ratio [read the idea in one of my books; not mine] to generate more-more-more steam, as well as spraying the walls every 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Seemed to do the trick.

Had to wait a few minutes for the oven to heat back up, the conventional straight dough boules got a bit excitable... but they still worked
Boules cooling before the cracking
Boule crumb
Anyway; the class were able to detect differences in flavor, texture, crumb structure, and crust [color, flavor, texture] although not all preferred the pain a l'ancienne batards.

Poolish boules

2008-03-28T16:00:00.001-07:00

Upper: poolish after 18 hours, bubbly with creases
Below: after mixing
Below: after first folding
Below: after 2nd folding
bench resting after preliminary shaping

Into the bannetons for proofing [all RT]
The finished products: the crumb was yellowish and chewy. Crust not quite as crisp as I'd like but thin and flavourful. Interior has big holes and lots of character

Did it by the book as much as possible
My version

Pain a l'ancienne

2008-03-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

Pain a l'ancienne; Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" version.

Made a chilled dough with 80% water, retarded overnight, took about 4 hours to double today at RT, then "shaped" the very wet doughs and followed the recipe and gave no real final proof -- not my instincts to do this -- and the surface did look under-proofed. I think next time I will make the ciabatta variant and give the "shaped" doughs a further bench rise before baking.

Other than that; spectacular; chewy yellowish kinda sweetish crumb [not like added sugar or "evaporated cane juice" (mostly sugar) sweetened] but very subtle, and a crispy flavorful crust, just the ants pants and really easy to make [I'm sure it's much easier the second time around]. Could have baked a touch cooler too.

Next day -- Barley batards

2008-03-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Similar recipe -- plus 2% extra dry gluten -- double bulk ferment; may have been too much as there wasn't much lift in the proofer. Still got some additional oven-spring today. Tried the "new" steam arrangement; ala Brother Juniper's, bought a garden sprayer an spritzed the doughs on entering the oven and at 2, 4, 6, and 16 minutes of baking.

These were smaller loaves, scaled at 700 g and baked 20 min @ 200 deg C and 10 min at 150 deg C. They look and smell great, can't wait for them to cool. The dough is weird to handle, not very gassy and somewhat plastic; resting seems to give no advantage in moulding. I have great trouble keeping the seam together, even if I wet it first before sealing it. Still, the oven spring filled most of the gaps :-)

OK -- cool enough to cut and eat -- scrumptious, crispy thin crust, great flavor, although there is a hint of bitterness with this much whole-grain barley -- very slight -- just the call with blackberry preserve. Nice crumb structure shows there was some oven lift.

Barley Wheat bread mark 1

2008-03-25T09:42:00.001-07:00

50% hull-less waxy barley stone-ground with only coarse bran sieved out plus 50% "Titan" high-gluten HRS baker's flour. 170 g rye sour and 0.25% SAF instant yeast. Rose nicely but slowly, did double in bulk fermentation and again in proofer. Not much oven lift but some. Very dense bread, very flavorful, with uniquely soft moist crumb from the waxy starch in the barley. Crust is a bit over baked even with early steam [205C for 45 min left center only ~ 65 deg C -- needed a further 30 min @ 150 deg C for the center to cook --just cause it was so dense and a fairly big loaf -- scaled at ~ 1250 g]
My rye sour after a week -- 6 feeds and the weekend in the fridge -- the top inch or so has no bubbles 'cause it has collapsed from the highest point it rose to overnight. It smells great.

Last week's breads

2008-03-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's bread -- half wholewheat
Fermenting nicely
Ready to punch -- a beautiful dough -- about 3500 g
proofed in a banneton with rice flour lining
nice chewy crumb, pretty even for hand molded
Wednesday's Bread
Woops - - forgot it a little too long -- used a "biga" from the day previous's pita bread dough
Not too bad, good crackling musical crust
Crumb had dark and light patches maybe a little too yeasty [the biga had a lot of yeast but it was retarded overnight]. But really nice and chewy and even OK 4 or 5 days later [toasted]

Naesten den aegte dansk surdejs rugbrød -- getting there -- a bit small, a scaling issue. This is a Faerøsk recipe and was really simple but still took 3 days to make. Have not got the oven down yet, the crust is still a bit too baked, but certainly baked right through [150 deg C for 1 hr then 175 deg C for 1.5 hrs and then leave bread in the cooling oven 2 hrs] I think i should have kept the lids on the pullman tins for the last section. Still tastes great and wonderful chocolaty aromas

2008-03-17T17:42:00.001-07:00

Monday bread - very nice chewy crumb

70 percent water

2008-03-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

Formula

-Flour:

1300 g HWW "Gary" white flour

700 g FRESHLY MILLED atta flour from the hard-white cultivar Winsome

500 g HWW "Bauermeister" white flour

flour temp 19 deg C

-- TOTAL 2500 g / 100%

-Water 44 deg C

1750 g – 70% -- wet sticky mess -- was handleable with dusting after fermentation and floor time

-Saf instant yeast added directly to flour 20 g / 0.7%
-Salt 30 g / ~12%

Process

Mixed 10 minutes on speed 2 in 20 quart hobart. folded and rounded on bench

Fermented 60 minutes @ 30 deg C

Divided into ~750 g pieces

Proofed 60 minutes @ 25 deg C

Baked 30 minutes for baguettes free in oven, 40 for bread in la cloche with last 10 min without the bell.

Preheated oven to 220 deg C, turned down to 200 deg C when doughs loaded in oven.

Nice bread; good crumb, bit more open structure, nice crusts but not baked hot enough early to be crispy.

The stone mill in "action"

Dough half mixed

Dough nearly mixed

Ready for oven after 60 min proofing

Bread baked without a cover but with steam

Bread baked with the la cloche cover for the first 30 of 40 min baking

Fermentation factors

2008-03-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

Fermentation factors

-Plain flour [no added malt or amylase] - Palamino and Bauermeister 1000 g
-10g / 1% salt
-15 g / 1.5% Saf instant yeast [maybe more yeast? for classroom demo]
-600 g / 60% water 44 deg C

-mixed 6 min in the 20 quart Hobart [not completedly developed]
-kept under damp towel
-take 300 g dough pieces
- add 5 g of

-nothing [control]
-glucose
-malted barley flour [MBF]
-xylose
-maltose

Mix again in 200 g pin mixer 1 min, fully develops doughs and incorporates additives

Dropped dough pieces into pre-greased 12 cm diameter * 33 cm tall containers – closed but not sealed.

Hold at room temperature 20 deg C – measure height. [keep warmer for class demo]

Punched at 2 h

At about 100 min fermentation L to R: Control, glucose, malted barley flour, xylose, maltose. The MBF, xyl, and maltose are clearly faster in the early part of the fermentation. Glucose lags, and of course the no-added sugar control is slowest.

After 135 min: the MBF treatment has collapsed a little; Much the same order a bit later, but all the other "stuff" -- enzymes [likely proteases] -- in the MBF are causing a bit of collapse in that one
After punching: At about 100 min fermentation L to R: Control, glucose, malted barley flour, xylose, maltose
150 min after punching: L to R: Control, glucose, malted barley flour, xylose, maltose. After punching, remember these have been fermenting with a LOT of yeast for 4 1/2 hours total. The maltose and glucose treatments are clearly best. Seems it tookt he yeast some time to switch to using glucose but now full steam ahead. Into proofer: L to R Maltose, xylose [rear], MBF, glucose [rear], control

Out of proofer -- the doughs are a bit rough, they after have been ver y mishandled. But it is REALLY clear the power of the MBF to keep pumping out more sugars for fermentation, as it is now biggest by far.Out of the oven: same order as above; the control is clearly paler, the maltose the biggest [MBF dough lost its trapped gas because of poor dough structure]. But the extra browning of the residual 5-carbon xylose in the xylose sample is really really evident - wow - these were all baked together -ergo- at the same temperature.

Injera round 2

2008-03-04T06:49:00.000-08:00

Finished the Injera fermentations – Thanks to Senayit Yetneberk for the recipe and flow diagram (Yetneberk et al 2004 Cereal Chemistry 81: 314-321)

took 40 g teff dough from Saturday and cooked with 100 ml of water, boiled until starch well cooked.

After cooking added 50 ml cold water to get temp of ~ 35 deg C for cooked paste.

Mixed cooked paste into remaining teff dough.

Fermented further 3 to 4 hours.

Cooked on very hot griddle 2 min covered.

The injera has a very strong taste from the teff, and I couldn’t really detect much difference between the “starters” for the fermentation. But sure did get bubbles. Might try half teff, maybe half whole-wheat or wheat-atta next time to moderate the very strong taste.

1- secret sourdough starter
2-0.1 g Goldrush SanFrancisco sourdough starter
3-nothing to see if it ferments naturally.

http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/highlights/2007/12/Ethiopia_BF-Niger/

La Cloche round 3

2008-03-04T06:40:00.001-08:00

Formula

-Flour:

1200 g Montana High gluten + malt flour,

600 g atta flour from the hard-white cultivar Winsome

400 g 12.3% protein whote flour from the hard-white cultivar Palamino

flour temp 19 deg C

-- TOTAL 2000 g / 100%

-Water 43 deg C [hottest I could get] 1300 g – 65% -- nice dough, still coulda been wetter !!!

-Saf instant yeast added directly to flour 20 g / 1%[part 1 of trying to slow down the fermentation even more]
-Salt 30 g / 15%

Process

Mixed 10 minutes on speed 2 in 20 quart hobart. Kneaded and shaped on bench 1 minute.

Fermented 120 minutes @ 25 deg C – punched / folded @ 75 min. Did not run out of lift in the oven this time either.

The doughs 45 min after being punched

Divided into 4 largish dough pieces ~825 g each.
Moulded and folded gently into round.
Rested 15 min. under a damp towel at room temp [note 3x increased floor time]

Molded into a round and placed, seam up, in oiled and wheat-bran lined rattan proofing baskets.
Covered with damp towel and proofed 60 min @ 25 deg C and in a cabinet controlled to 85% RH.

Turned 2 dough pieces out onto sole of preheated [450 deg F; 228 deg C] La Cloche stoneware domed clay baker.

Two other dough pieces were left free in the oven; no clay dome, but with Julia's steam generator once again.

Preheated oven to 220 deg C then decreased temperature to 190 deg C as soon as doughs loaded. Baked La cloche 25 min lidded and 15 min unlidded. All loaves baked 40 min total.

Final crumb temperatures 98 deg C.

Crust was SOFT, obviously temperature was too low for crispy crust. This is especially noticeable in la cloche. BUT the crust was really nice. But it was like the bread the baker at Sunrise bakery in philomath makes with a very mice softness to the crust.

For crispy crusts - Next time try – 250 deg C preheat and turn oven doen to 200 deg C for baking.

Really nice bread with the added flavor of the fresh stone ground atta flour. Longer fermentation with even less yeast also helped. And so I think did the slower & cooler baking.

La Cloche round 2 and Julia Child's steam generator

2008-03-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

Formula

-Flour -- (Ran out of Montana High gluten - used General Mills baker's flour with unspecified amount fungal amylase @ 19 deg C) 1000 g
-Water 41 deg C [hottest I could get] 580 g -- messed this up a bit today -- dough was too dry after fermenting; seams wouldn't hold together. Gotta be brave enough to get sloppy with the doughs.
-Saf instant yeast added directly to flour 7 g [part 1 of trying to slow down the fermentation]
-Salt 15 g

Process

Mixed 12 minutes on speed 2 in 20 quart hobart. Kneaded and shaped on bench 1 minute.

Fermented 120 minutes @ 25 deg C this was better than the last time; but still the doughs tripled -- should've been punched at 75 min. Did not run out of lift in the oven this time.

Divided into 2 largish dough pieces ~750 g each.
Moulded vigorously into round [I want bread i can spread stuff on -- so small holes]].
Rested 5 min.
Molded into a round and placed, seam up, in oiled and wheat-bran lined rattan proofing baskets.
Covered with damp towel and proofed 60 min @ 25 deg C and in a cabinet controlled to 85% RH.

Turned dough pieces out onto sole of preheated [450 deg F; 228 deg C] La Cloche stoneware domed clay baker. Two other dough pieces were left in the oven; no clay dome, but with Julia's steam generator a heavy cast iron griddle plate in the bottom of the oven - preheated - and onto which I poured boiling water just before loading the loaves. This is shot of the 1st generation steam generator, I actually used a bigger griddle so there was more surface area for evaporation.

Baked @ 450 deg F; 228 deg C for a total of 30 min and 4o0 deg F; 200 deg C for 10 min for a total of 40 min. For the la cloache bread 30 with lid on, 10 with lid off. Final crumb temperature 98 deg C.

Crust crackled and cracked nicely on cooling for both baking methods although the uncovered breads were much darker. Should've turned down the temperature after 10 minutes.

Did get better oven spring this time. have not seen the crumb nor tasted it yet.
Day 2: Got to eat the bread now, glad of the longer fermentation and the tighter molding before proofing -- nice dense and chewy crumb.

Started the Injera fermentations - 100 g Teff flour to 90 ml water, mix well by hand.

Added
1- secret sourdough starter
2-0.1 g Goldrush SanFrancisco sourdough starter
3-nothing to see if it ferments naturally.

La Cloche bread version 1

2008-02-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

Formula

Flour
(Montana High gluten plus premixed and unspecified amount of malt flour 20 deg C) 1000 g
Water 41 deg C [hottest I could get] 600 g -- boy can this [white] flour suck up the water, the dough felt good, certainly not too sticky to handle, could've even taken a bit more [62% ?] !!! --
Saf instant yeast added directly to flour 10 g
Salt 15 g

Process

Mixed 8 minutes on speed 2 in 20 quart hobart, could've used 2 min more. Kneaded and shaped on bench 1 minute.

Fermented 90 minutes @ 29 deg C this was a bit fast [but could be useful for classroom demonstrations], could cut down yeast or drop temperature to 25 deg C It showed up in the flavor profile, nice bread but a bit lacking in yeasty flavors. The dough surely more than doubled and could be why it ran out of "steam" in the oven and did not have a lot of oven spring.

Divided into 2 largish dough pieces ~800 g each.
Folded in thirds and molded GENTLY into a round.
Rested 5 min.
Molded into a round and placed, seam up, in oiled and wheat-bran lined rattan proofing basket.
Covered with damp towel and proofed 45 min @ 85 deg F and in a cabinet controlled to 85% RH. Also would liked a longer proof time to make sure final flavor and crust development in oven were optimum. But they grew too big.

Turned dough pieces out onto sole of preheated [400 deg F; 200 deg C] La Cloche stoneware domed clay baker. Forgot to slash the tops. Bit freaked-out with handling the 200 deg C stoneware.

Baked @ 400 deg F; 200 deg C for a total of 40 min. 30 with lid on, 10 with lid off. Final crumb temperature 98 deg C. Crust crackled and cracked nicely on cooling. Great bread except maybe could use more flavor. Interesting crumb structure with effectively no real molding. Didn't get the oven spring i expected, but not slashing the tops didn't help.

A sourdough resource

2008-02-26T11:59:00.001-08:00

http://sourdough.com.au/

http://sourdough.com.au/?q=blog/sourdom/1025

http://www.textbookofbacteriology.net/B.cereus.html

http://www.breadtopia.com/make-your-own-sourdough-starter/

http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/food/la-fo-sourdough30jan30,1,5833083.story

Vejledning i bagning med surdej

http://www.aurion.dk/00019/00036/00165/

Rug grundsurdej

1.dag. Grunddej I
1 dl. Tempereret vand ca. 37ºC
½ g økologisk gær (kan udelades)
80 g fint formalet rugmel
Gæren skal være i økologisk kvalitet da denne har en bedre sammensætning af mælkesyrebakterier og gærceller.
Gæren må gerne have stået i stuetemperatur i 1 ½ døgn, for derved øges mængden af mælkesyrebakterier.

Det hele blandes sammen til en lind grød. Henstår lunt (22-24° C) i et døgn i et glas med let påsat låg.

2.dag. Grunddej II
1 dl tempereret vand ca. 37ºC
Ca. 80 g mel
Vand og mel blandes til en lind grød og iblandes grunddej I; henstår igen i et døgn på et lunt sted. Surdejen er derefter færdig til brug og kan opbevares i køleskab.
Husk altid at tage surdej fra ved fordejen til næste bagning.

Active V Instant yeast

2008-02-22T11:28:00.001-08:00

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2815/active-yeast-vs-instant-yeast

http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/01/12/instant-yeast/

and some science

http://www.lesaffreyeastcorp.com/SoY/index.html

Yeasty beasties

2008-02-22T11:13:00.001-08:00

Thanks to http://www.exploratorium.edu/
cooking/bread/activity-yeast.html

for the idea.

and

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/
science-fair-projects/project_ideas/MicroBio_p011.shtml

for the title

We will explore other permutations [glucose, maltose, very dilute NaCl, flour, flour plus malted barley flour] in class to see what is fastest.

Pink balloon;
water 250 ml ~ 36 deg C
1 packet [15 g] Fleischmann's fresh compressed yeast
10 g sucrose

Green balloon;
same as above plus 6 g NaCl to slow yeast activity

Time zero
Time 45 mins at room temp
Time 90 min at room temp
Clearly the concentration of salt has slowed the rate and amount of gas production in the green balloon.

Pacific Northwest Wheat Quality Council test-baking workshop

2008-02-01T16:12:00.000-08:00

Test baking workshop at the Wheat Marketing Center Portland OR.

It was run by the USDA Agricultural Research Service Western Wheat Quality Lab people who are based in Pullman Washington.

Remember you can see larger versions of the pictures if you click on them.

Mixing in a small scale mixer
The dough ready is well mixed and ready to go, see how nice and smooth it looks
Rubbing hands with a little oil to help in taking the dough out
Into the moulder for the first time
Out of the moulder
Folding before fermenting

Finished products: the small unattractive loaf is not bad baking, it is the wrong type of flour, too weak, can't add enough water because it was made with soft wheat. It small, pale, and not glossy like its counterpart beside it and the little loaf will be stale in a matter of hours if it wasn't "stale" straight out of the oven.

Fermenting a new idea

2008-01-25T16:03:00.000-08:00

Time to get this new idea fermenting...

Trying the blog as an instructional tool beginning with the FST480 Topics in Fermentation class for Spring 2008.