Pequod Posted October 23, 2016 Report Share Posted October 23, 2016 (edited) 66% Hydration overnight pre-ferment loaf using around 7-8 grams of my starter. Just bread flour in this one. What my daughter asked for. Great oven spring -- busted it's own seam outside of my scoring: That's about the color I'm looking for. Let's pull it. Cooling: Came out great! That's the crumb I was hoping for: I need to bake more bread. Edited October 23, 2016 by HalfSmoke 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted October 23, 2016 Report Share Posted October 23, 2016 HalfSmoke, that is a lovely loaf of bread. It won't last long. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequod Posted October 23, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2016 3 minutes ago, MacKenzie said: HalfSmoke, that is a lovely loaf of bread. It won't last long. No, it didn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosco Posted October 23, 2016 Report Share Posted October 23, 2016 looks awesome. I just took my starter out of the fridge for a little TLC last week. I have a loaf coming in the next week or so. Can't wait to get back to baking bread. Hockey season and two boys that play competitive keeps me so busy around this time of year. I really have no time to just hang out and enjoy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve M Posted October 23, 2016 Report Share Posted October 23, 2016 Nice looking loaf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckreef Posted October 24, 2016 Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 I need to start loafing around. Great looking bread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skreef Posted October 24, 2016 Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 Wow! Looks like a piece of a Tree. . I l'll have to do some more bread oneday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequod Posted October 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 (edited) 59 minutes ago, skreef said: Wow! Looks like a piece of a Tree. . I l'll have to do some more bread oneday. That's exactly what I was going for! A piece of a tree. Edited October 24, 2016 by HalfSmoke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pearson Posted October 24, 2016 Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 I love bread! That bread looks delicious. How do you make starter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyfish Posted October 24, 2016 Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 You can eat store bought bread after seeing that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequod Posted October 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 7 hours ago, Bruce Pearson said: I love bread! That bread looks delicious. How do you make starter? Bruce, a starter is the first step to great bread. It is a commitment to caring and feeding. Here's what Breadhead posted over at Amazing Ribs to get me going: In a cereal bowl put in 50 grams of bread flour and 50 grams of Whole Wheat flour. Add 100 grams of water. Stir it with a spoon. When you're done stirring wet your thumb and index finger of the hand the spoon is not in with water. Put the dough stuck to the spoon back in the bowl. Seal the bowl with plastic wrap. Leave it out on your kitchen counter. In 3 or 4 days your starter will start producing bubbles to the point it will look like your old starter did when it was active. It's faking you out though. It's not ready to use yet. Dump out 100 grams and feed it 25 grams of bread flour, 25 grams of WW flour and 50 grams of water. Stir it up, cover it up with plastic wrap and leave it on your counter top. At this point it will go dormant and the inexperienced person will think their attempt at making a sourdough starter has failed. What is happening is the 2 different types of bacteria in your culture have quit doing what they are supposed to do because they are battling each other for position inside the culture. They quit eating and digesting flour and water so... There will be no more bubbles during this part of the process and you will think this starter has failed. It's important from the first time you dumped and fed your starter you do the exact same dump and feed every 24 hours from that day on, even though there is no, zero, zilch activity in your starter. After about 6 or 7 days of being dormant you will wake up one morning, look at your new starter and it will be fully bloomed. You will smile and think, woohoo, I did it! But, it's probably still not ready to make dough with just yet, close though. Dump and feed it 2 more days just like before. This is how you test your starter to determine if it is ready to levin dough with. Fill up a water glass with water. Get a teaspoon and wet it with water. Scoop a teaspoon of your starter out of the cereal bowl and dump it in the water glass... If it floats it ready to use to make pizza dough or a loaf of sourdough bread with. If it sinks, it's not active enough to use yet. I'm keeping the size of this culture very small during this process because you're going to dump out and waste to much flour if we did this on a bigger scale. After the culture becomes strong, healthy and happy, if you want to make it larger just feed it a bigger quantity of flour and water, 100, 200 or 300 grams of flour and water and in less than 24 hours that quantity of starter will pass the float test. Always feed your starter equal amounts of flour and water... That means your starter will be a 100% hydration starter. Bakers like 100% starters because it makes it easy for them to mix with their other ingredients knowing that the starter is exactly 50% flour and 50% water. That way they can scale a dough recipe up or down without using a calculator. The starter you will have at this point will not be very tangy, it will be very mild. There is a way to manipulate your starter so it will become very tangy. Let me know if you want to do that and I'll walk you through it. It's that easy and it's almost fail proof... Give it a try. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Ora Posted October 24, 2016 Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 Nice loaf love fresh breadOutback Kamado Bar and Grill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stile88 Posted October 24, 2016 Report Share Posted October 24, 2016 Nice looking loaf of bread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuley Posted October 25, 2016 Report Share Posted October 25, 2016 That looks fantastic.Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Pearson Posted October 25, 2016 Report Share Posted October 25, 2016 WOW thanks for the information. You guys are some serious chefs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequod Posted October 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2016 5 hours ago, Bruce Pearson said: WOW thanks for the information. You guys are some serious chefs. Much easier than it looks, but there is some technique involved for "serious" sourdough which produces truly "artisan" (a bit of an overused term) results. The shortcut is to look up Jim Lahey's no knead bread recipe. Great results with much less work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tony b Posted October 25, 2016 Report Share Posted October 25, 2016 6 hours ago, HalfSmoke said: The shortcut is to look up Jim Lahey's no knead bread recipe. Great results with much less work. Definitely. Lahey's method is the only bread that I'll even attempt to do. Super easy and quick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequod Posted October 30, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2016 This time a 70% Hydration pre-ferment loaf. Cranked the temp up 500. I liked the crust on this one a bit better. Still no added Steam enhancers. Just straight up on the baking stone. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacKenzie Posted October 30, 2016 Report Share Posted October 30, 2016 Stunning loaf, what more can I say except i wish it was mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pequod Posted October 30, 2016 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2016 Thanks! I'm experimenting a bit (obviously) to find the sweet spot. Love that with the baking stone I see the same, even browning on the top and bottom. Never saw that with my other Kamado. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
