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tekobo

KK Bread Making Tips and Tricks

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As we are discussing bread. Here is my basic extra tangy sourdough recipe. Use at your own risk lol

Sourdough

  • 200 g Sourdough starter
  • 325 g Water,  (90°F to 110°F) (start with 275 g)
  • 525 g Flour (425 White and 25 Whole Wheat to start)
  • 11 g Sugar
  • 12 g Salt
  • 50 g yellow cornmeal, for coating the paper
  • Stir together all of the ingredients except the cornmeal and salt in a large bowl. starting with 450 grams of the flour and 275 grams water. Let the shaggy mess rest for 20 minutes covered. Then add remaining 75 grams of flour 50 grams of water and salt. Let rest an hour then stretch and fold. Stretch and fold two hours after that and another 2 hours after that. Then refrigerate overnight in a sealed container

The next morning let the dough come up to room temp for two hours and stretch and fold one more time. Then place loaf in a floured Banneton bowl, covered for 2 to 4 hours. It should become nice and puffy. Gently poke your index finger into the top of the loaf, if the indentation remains, your bread is ready to bake.

  • Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 450°F
  • Put parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and cut to shape for dutch oven with tabs for handles. Put the cornmeal on the paper and gently roll the loaf on to the sheet and score the loaf however you like. Immediately put it in the oven.
  • Put loaf in oven and turn temp down to 435. Bake the bread for 30 minutes and remove lid, then cook an additional 20 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it on the bottom. The interior temperature of the bread should register about 205°F on a digital thermometer.
  • Turn the oven off, crack the door open, and allow the bread to remain inside for 10 additional minutes; this helps the crust crisp. Remove the bread from the oven and cool it on a rack. And wipe any additional cornmeal off the bottom.
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Posted (edited)
   On 3/11/2024 at 6:15 AM,  tekobo said: 

Ha!  Liar, liar, pants on fire @Pequod.  I learned a lot from you and am missing your bread and pizza game.  What have you been cooking?  Please share!  I am in Italy at the moment.  Made great wholewheat spaghetti yesterday but my focaccia dough failed overnight.  Thinking it must be temperature related (too cold).  Not sure I can justify a bread proofer here so will see if the warming bowl in my mixer will help.  

You need a bread proofer. Or you're a hack. 😏 You mill your own flour, right? RIGHT???

 

The above, rude exchange with @Pequod reminded me of this thread.  Just spent a lovely 15 minutes or so re-reading all the old posts.  Really must get back on the bread making horse.  And yes, I do own a Brod and Taylor bread proofer in my home in the UK (thanks to @P and the KK shopping channel) but cannot bring myself to spring for another for the place in Italy.  Will try the warming bowl in my Kenwood Chef when I am next there.  I have visions of turning into @Syzygies, duplicating kit for his two homes before finally consolidating into one and having to find homes for it all!

I really must try @C6Bill's recipe - you seem to get such reliable results.  And I still have not got onto @Syzygies's spelt loaf.  All in good time.  

Edited by tekobo
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8 hours ago, C6Bill said:

Sometimes i'll just leave it out on the counter for 6 hours while i go for a walk and it will be just fine. You don't need fancy tool to get good results. 

Yeah, I know.  I had a friend come round who made beautiful bread in the most casual way possible.   I have got comfortable with my loaf tin breads but still have something to prove (tee hee) when it comes to sourdough. 

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Screenshot2024-03-20at8_26_06PM.thumb.png.8f6746ce78df387da60a0c1d27165386.png

Screenshot2024-03-20at8_26_23PM.thumb.png.b29306998cb0aae23e10b7e4d317dae3.png

I recently redid my spreadsheets to match current practice. First is "worksheet", second goes on wall while I work. It doesn't really matter if you're consistent and don't care about comparing notes with others, but I account for board flour, shrinkage, to nail actual hydration as if this were a chemistry lab experiment. I've seen other accomplished bakers who ignore the starter hydration, for example. Their effective hydration is a local fantasy.

We grind some of our flour. We've been buying white from Acme Bread, famed in Bay area. They have Guisto's make this for them, but likely a different blend than one can buy elsewhere.

I learned to accelerate the hydrolyse for each step by 60 seconds in a vacuum sealer chamber. This makes an obvious difference for pasta dough, and I believe a difference here too.

I rediscovered "bassinage" where one kneads the dough at a comfortable hydration, then adds water at the end using Chad Robertson bowl folds. I like to knead a long rope, fold it over and twist, knead again to a long rope... My theory here is that one does better with a kneading technique that doesn't cause the bran to cut through the developing gluten.

We use the KK in summer to avoid heating the house, and a convection oven in winter.

I used to worry about filling the oven with ample steam. We now swear by the Challenger Bread Pan.

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Thank you @Syzygies! When I tagged you in my message above I hoped that it would trigger a response from you.  There is no way I am going to attempt to reproduce your spreadsheet.  Is there anyway you could post it somewhere it could be downloaded, if you are willing to share?  

On a much less complex level, do you have an up to date version of your spelt bread recipe that you can share for use and further tweaking as necessary?

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On 3/21/2024 at 1:25 AM, tekobo said:

Thank you @Syzygies! When I tagged you in my message above I hoped that it would trigger a response from you.  There is no way I am going to attempt to reproduce your spreadsheet.  Is there anyway you could post it somewhere it could be downloaded, if you are willing to share?  

On a much less complex level, do you have an up to date version of your spelt bread recipe that you can share for use and further tweaking as necessary?

I never made a spelt recipe? Here is my most recently revised Numbers spreadsheet.

Sourdough Bread.numbers

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4 hours ago, Syzygies said:

I never made a spelt recipe? Here is my most recently revised Numbers spreadsheet.

Sourdough Bread.numbers 1.23 MB · 1 download

Thanks a lot for the spreadsheet @Syzygies.   There is some cachet in having your bread maths done by an uber mathematician!

I think I called it spelt and you called it farro.  Tomato, tomato?  Maybe not.  It is this recipe.  Just wanted to know if you had refined it any further.

 

 

 

 

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On 3/23/2024 at 12:31 PM, tekobo said:

Are you still baking bread, making pizza?  Any new (or old) techniques or discoveries to share?

Yep, still making bread and pizza. Always sourdough. New/old discoveries…Challenger Bread Pan not allowed as an answer…hmmm…

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