Pequod

My first loaf of Desem. 100% freshly milled Red Fife. I loosely followed the formula for “Daily Desem” in Tara Jensen’s Flour Power book. Biggest change is hydration. Her formula is about 75% total hydration, but I found that to be almost unworkably low, so kept going until I liked the feel of the dough. I estimate I ended up around 82-85% hydration. The other major change was to sift and scald the bran, which I find helps soften the bran and encourage better gluten formation in freshly-milled loaves. Still cooling. Maybe a crumb shot later.

My gallery is here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/jpridder86/

I’m preparing to ship this telescope to a remote observatory in New Mexico. It’s a Takahashi Banana (AKA Epsilon E-160ED) all tricked out for astrophotography. Just waiting on a new rotating focuser (to better frame my shots) to arrive. Once that’s installed and everything tuned up, off it goes and I fly out to install it. Once deployed I’ll be driving it from my home in Virginia, but it’s mostly automated.

One of my images taken with this scope in central VA (Bortle 4 skies). Once it’s in Bortle 1/2 New Mexico (and with better seeing) I’ll be hoovering photons at a ferocious rate. This is the “Ghost of Cassiopeia,” a nebula in…wait for it…Cassiopeia.

16 hours ago, David Chang said:

this looks like levito madre. low hydration starter?

Desem has low hydration but is not sourdough. Sourdough has lots of bacteria—lactobacilli—and some yeast. The bacteria makes it sour. Desem is more natural yeast than bacteria and requires freshly milled flour and a cool environment to establish. It is generally used for 100% fresh-milled whole-grain breads.
 How to Make Desem (Belgian style sourdough starter) – Breadtopia

My desem starter is gaining strength and smelling fruity and floral as it’s supposed to. Should be able to do a 100% fresh milled desem bread this weekend.

Desem starter showing signs of life after one week.

Today’s loaves: 70% Cairnspring Sequoia + 15% fresh milled red fife + 10% fresh milled spelt + 5% fresh milled rye. 80% hydration.

17 hours ago, tekobo said:

Slap and fold is a satisfying technique when you get it right.  Having your dough finally change from a wet claggy mess to a beautiful, living extension of your arm is a great thing to do.  That said, it does take a lot of effort.  How do I know that is a bad thing?  A few years ago, one or two days after an op on my throat, I decided to have a vigorous slap and fold session.  Let's just say it was not a good result for my surgery wound! It was then that @Pequod turned me on to the stretch and fold method and I have not turned back since.

 

Just to confuse things, I typically use both slap and fold AND stretch and fold, but at different times in the process. I use slap and fold as the last step of mixing to build the initial structure, and then I’ll use stretch and folds at 30 minute intervals after that to continue to build structure. How many stretch and folds I do depends on the dough and how much structure building I need. Slack doughs — high hydration or lots of spelt — will get more stretch and folds. A new wrinkle…after an hour or so of stretch and folds I’ll use a gentler folding technique so as not to degas the dough. Specifically, I do coil folds, especially if it is a high hydration dough. Lots of youtube videos on coil folding, so won’t bother to paste one here. But it’s a very gentle technique that’s very effective at building structure.

@C6Bill — just noticed you’re in Boston. I’m currently up in Woburn for work. I shoulda stopped by for a slice of your bread! 😬

44 minutes ago, Syzygies said:

Cairnspring Mills

This quote intrigued me enough to queue up Cairnspring Mills for a try...

I've used Cairnspring Mills, which I'm plowing through right now. I use Sequoia for my 11-12% flour and Trailblazer for T85. Both are fantastic.

If I had to live with only one "white" flour, it would probably be Trailblazer. But I'm interested in trying the Carolina Ground T85 for comparison. Shipping is a bit cheaper for Carolina Ground since it is regional.

9 hours ago, Syzygies said:

Of these, I want to work through every recipe I can from Southern Ground. Shown is North Carolina Sourdough, to try the '85' flour from her mill. Technically this was a pitch that turned into a passed ball, for so many reasons, but it tastes so good that we want to make it again right away, to see if we can figure it out.

My new aspiration is to figure out Richard Bertinet's slap and fold technique for kneading bread. I need more gluten structure with less effort. It's harder than it looks, which is evident in the videos where someone else picks up the same dough, and can't skit across it like a waterbug.

I'm interested to hear the results of these experiments. I'm planning an order of Carolina Ground flours, but first, I need to work down some existing stock. I plan to start my desem this weekend, milling some of my hard red wheat stock. Hopefully, I'll join the desem fun in about two weeks.

Oh, and yes to slap and fold. It does take effort, but the gluten structure builds quickly. I had been doing Rubaud method with high hydration doughs, but slap and fold is faster and hurts my hand much less.

@tekobo - Proof of sourdough crumpets!

Interesting. Is that 73% hydration with 100% extraction flour? That seems very low for whole, unsifted flour.

10 hours ago, Syzygies said:

Alas I noticed. We'll meet there, if not sooner. Oddly, Tara Jensen's web site makes no mention that I can discern as to the location of her upcoming workshop?

Tara relocated to Hamilton, VA about two years ago. This puts her about 2 hours north of me, and just west of Dulles Airport.

Desem also appears in Tara Jensen’s book “Flour Power.” The workshop I’m taking with her next month includes different levains, so I’m expecting some discussion on desem (or I’ll be raising my hand to ask). She did a stint in Asheville, NC, home of Carolina Ground, hence the lineage from Robertson to Scott to Lapidus to Jensen. Asheville also has a biennial Bread Festival: https://www.ashevillebreadfestival.com. Next one is Spring 2025. I’m thinking I need to make that pilgrimage — Asheville is just about 5 hours drive south of me.

13 hours ago, Syzygies said:

In defense of "no pics", my last two loaves of sourdough have radicalized me. They looked like I'd been set back five years, and they tasted the best I've ever made. Now I'm on a Desem bread bender.

I shouldn't have stopped by here today. I recently came across Desem in the "Southern Ground" book and am trying to resist the need to develop a Desem starter. Resistance is futile, it seems.

Southern Ground tells the story of Carolina Ground, which works with farmers to restore historic grains, mill them, and supply the flour to regional bakeries. One of my favorite local bakeries, Albemarle Baking Company, uses their flour. Next month, I'm doing a workshop with Tara Jensen, a renowned baker and Carolina Ground advocate (@bakerhands on Instagram).  

On 4/23/2024 at 2:56 AM, tekobo said:

For reference, some crumpets.  Great when dripping with butter.  

There are no pics, but I made the King Arthur Crumpets with sourdough discard. I'm unsure how authentic they are, but they are very delicious. They are a thick, fluffy pancake—great use of sourdough discard.

Another advantage of using a levain might be keeping the starter consistent if you're accumulating and using the discard for other things, like crumpets!

1 hour ago, Syzygies said:

So for home baking, one loaf at a time, does anyone see an advantage to a separate levain step, rather than simply tweaking one's starter to match the next loaf's levain recipe, then reverting to usual starter on the next feed?

Don’t know if I’d say there’s an advantage to it vs. what you suggest, but making a separate levain from my starter is usually what I do. My starter is 100% hydration and fed a mix of 70/30 white/whole rye, and the levain branches from that to whatever the formula calls for. Maybe a *slight* advantage to this is that the levain timing is very predictable. For example, a 1:2:2 levain at 78 degrees will be ready in about 5 hours.

Sourdough Crumpets @tekobo: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-crumpets-recipe

Going to give these a go.

That's an interesting idea with the Airscape container. I'd thought of doing something similar for pizza dough, which would benefit from long, slow ferments at above-fridge temperatures. I've also considered something like this with a bit more capacity: Amazon.com: Cooluli 20 Liter Mini Fridge with Temperature Control - Black: Home & Kitchen

I don't know anything about that particular model, but it's an example of a portable, adjustable fridge.

@tekobo - see what I did there? I saw @Syzygies container and raised him a fridge!

Those muffins look almost as sad as the ones my wife typically buys. I made these to show her a real muffin. Problem is…I think I just signed myself up to a new weakly (not misspelled) duty. 😳 

Sourdough English Muffins with 10% fresh milled spelt. No idea what these are called in England. Muffins? Crumpets? Little hunks o’ bread? I should look that up.

I agree about the bright display. I thought the dimmer didn't work on mine, but then I realized it was dimmed. It reminds me of the "chicken roaster" episode of Seinfeld.

Here is Maurizio’s guide to using Sourdough Home. I’m following the “bake one day a week” schedule and it works very well: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/feed-your-starter-less-often-thanks-to-the-sourdough-home/

And it is in stock at King Arthur: https://shop.kingarthurbaking.com/items/sourdough-home

18 hours ago, tekobo said:

You are a bad bad boy @PQ!  I have looked this up.  Good reviews.  Expensive in the UK and out of stock in the US.  As I noted to a friend who said he thought it seemed a bit clinical: there are two ends of the spectrum in the sourdough world - nerds and naturals - and both make excellent bread.  I am in neither group sadly.

All of the above is just stalling activity, I know.  If/when I ever get back into making sourdough bread this would be a good tool.  In the meantime I am going to focus on my pizza game this summer.  There are some awesome doughs to use up those grains of yours in this book:  https://amzn.eu/d/03mX8pi   You will just have to brush up on your Italian.  Or use Google translate.  

Don’t think you understand. It’s not a question of whether you’re actively making bread. It’s a question of…do you have this toy, just in case. 😈

Here is today’s loaf of 40% fresh milled white sonora which will be going to my wife’s co-worker. She happens to have prolific chickens, so we’ve been the recipients of excess eggs. Quid pro quo.