BH wrote:

I am going to try some sourdough pita this afternoon or tomorrow
morning. I plan to start with a basic 4 recipe for that, too, just to
get my bearings. Then, based on the results, I may add milk or
shortening to get the texture similar to the pita loaves I have been
making using commercial yeast. Or, I may just go back to the yeast
recipe. It's so easy and quick and produces great bread. I generally
use half AP white and half stone ground WW for those and make small
batches so it can be eaten while still fresh.

Thanks for the report and the photos. I always enjoy seeing what you
are doing.


Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com

You are welcome.

I would like to see and hear about the pita results. I haven't made any
yet because all the corner stores around here have the stuff dirt cheap.

My 'market' has been asking for some though.

Mike
Some bread photos: http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com

I, also, maintain two starters, Carl's and one I got from a friend.
I've never tried to be very scientific about it, but I have noticed
that Carl's does "grow" much faster than the other.

I was certainly not doing anything very scientific. I happen
to have had two identical, small, plastic graduates. I just
weighed out the same amount of starter, flour, and water to
each, and then could easily (and quite accurately) see the
speed of volume increase.

I understand. It has consistently been very obvious to me, too, that
one - it just happens to be Carl's in my case - just grows much faster
than the other.


For the crust to brown properly, it needs to have sugar in
the dough.

If the critters have eaten too much of the sugar, there will
be little left to brown. That is what causes that
"yellowish" color we sometimes see.

As I remember, one or two of my goofs would have been greatly
complimented by describing them as "yellowish". They were just plain
ugly grey! Fortunately that hasn't happened in a while.

I hope that you are having fun with all this...

Great fun, thanks! And I owe a lot to you and the other experienced
folks in this group.

Burney




Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com

On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:26:05 -0800, BH
wrote:

As I remember, one or two of my goofs would have been greatly
complimented by describing them as "yellowish". They were just plain
ugly grey!

Hi Burney,

So call 'em "yellowish" and preserve some measure of
dignity!

That's what I do. g

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:08:00 -0500, Kenneth
wrote:
Sounds like a plan. Thanks!

All the best to you, too.

Burney


On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:26:05 -0800, BH
wrote:

As I remember, one or two of my goofs would have been greatly
complimented by describing them as "yellowish". They were just plain
ugly grey!

Hi Burney,

So call 'em "yellowish" and preserve some measure of
dignity!

That's what I do. g

All the best,




Burney dot Huff at Mindspring dot com

On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:21:04 GMT, "Mikey S."
wrote:


Yellowish would be an excellent description of what I am calling a 'pale'
loaf, I believe we are talking about the same look here.
Here is a yellowish loaf
http://photo.mike721.com/albums/baki...4_01.sized.jpg
and here is what I call a 'rich, dark crust'
http://photo.mike721.com/albums/baki...0345.sized.jpg

Note..the yellow loaf is from a while ago, my techniques have gotten better
since then in a number of ways, but the color is exactly what I am
describing

Howdy,

That first picture may not be the color I was describing...

That particular loaf just look a bit under "done."

With the sugar-depleted-loaf-too-sour-so-the-crust-is-yellow
color I have occasionally had, no amount of increase in
time, or temperature makes much of a difference.

Also, in your picture, it appears that the loaf is well
risen. But, when I have had the problem, the loaves are
typically wider, and flatter.

All the best,
--
Kenneth

If you email... Please remove the "SPAMLESS."

I'm not sure either why it does it but I can say it's consistent, I have
done quite a bit of testing over the last 2 years and every loaf I bake with
the 'Carl's' starter , has a rather pale crust, whether I intentionally
under ferment it, over ferment it, or (usually) try to get it just right.
The loaves I make using 'Mikey's NJ' starter always get a nice rich brown
crust. The Mikey's caramelize a lot faster in the oven, showing color way
sooner than the ones made with 'Carl's'.

I'm not saying the bread made with 'Carl's isn't good, they are still very
good bread and taste great, but I can never get a rich dark crust on them,
trying to overbake them the bottom would blacken before the crust overall
was dark enough for my tastes, while the 'Mikey's' ones are turning dark way
early in the bake and the concern if anything would be to make sure the
center is at 204F or more before the crust is too dark.

I always assumed that two factors could be causing this effect;
1)That there is some different bacteria mix in my starter that uses up less
of the sugars released from the flour, and this extra sugar in the dough
causes the darker crust.
2) I speculated too that the longer time the starter takes to develop the
loaf might mean that the enzymes have more time to release more sugars from
the starches in the flour too.

I would love to hear other opinions though

--
Mikey S.
"BH" wrote in message
...

Will someone help me understand why / how a starter can affect the
color and taste of the crust?

Yellowish would be an excellent description of what I am calling a 'pale'
loaf, I believe we are talking about the same look here.
Here is a yellowish loaf
http://photo.mike721.com/albums/baki...4_01.sized.jpg
and here is what I call a 'rich, dark crust'
http://photo.mike721.com/albums/baki...0345.sized.jpg

Note..the yellow loaf is from a while ago, my techniques have gotten better
since then in a number of ways, but the color is exactly what I am
describing
--
Mikey S.
"Kenneth" wrote in message
...

So call 'em "yellowish" and preserve some measure of
dignity!

Well, the last couple loaves were so nice tasting, my market asked for
more so I used the same mix and method as below in a 24 hour grow up,
but made thinner loaves so I got 4, 18" loaves out of the recipe instead
of two like last time. My oven is only 18" wide...

I also made my cuts a lot more on the steep diagonal something like
viince uses in his video demo. I used his method there and it worked
well instead of the cross scissor cuts the original recipe called for.

These 'French Sticks' are 100% sourdough, no commercial yeast. The
original recipe I am following was a commercial yeast only one. I might
do a batch with a commercial 'mix' of SD starter and bakers yeast in the
future just to see what the crumb comes out like, but these are wicked.

The crust is really chewy and the sour came on really nice. The crumb
is airy and soft. No monster holes, just nice ones like I was aiming
for. We like our bread to hold melting butter around here...

There are three photos of this latest experiment on the featured album
on my photo site: http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com

Mike

Mike Romain wrote:
I made some 'no knead' French sticks this weekend out of a batch I had
grown for English muffins. I started off Friday morning feeding my cold
starter up for a 8 hour 'wake up' grow period with a sour or long
ferment time at 72F planned, then fed it milk and AP flour for an
overnight grow at the same 72F.
some snips

It was really nice
and sour smelling so I went for a 'no knead' French Bread instead of the
muffins.

I had about 4 cups of sponge made with one cup milk at the double point,
added one cup warm water with 1 tbsp butter melted in it and 1 tbsp
sugar to that. I then made a well shape in a large bowl of 3 cups flour
and 2 tsp sugar and 2 tsp salt and poured the liquid in. I stirred it
up to a really soft dough, adding just enough flour to take the serious
sticky off as I am stirring, (just enough flour so the dough ball pulls
away from the sides as it is stirred) then let it set covered with a
damp cloth in a pre-warmed oven for 2 hours. I was ready to leave it
longer if needed to start rising, but it had just about doubled already.
It did stick to the cloth and bowl a bit, but not to bad.

At that point I punched it down and put it out on the dusted with flour
counter, cut it in half and made rectangles by stretching it and
pressing it light.

I brushed it with a mix of egg white
and water near the end of the baking. I let these rise for about an
hour and a bit or until the were not quite doubled in volume.

I warmed the oven to 400, put a pan of boiling water on the bottom shelf
and baked for 15 minutes before lowering to 350 for another 30 minutes.

My act of punching it down and pressing it into the rectangle makes the
crumb airy, but no big monster holes. I think the milk, water and
butter mix make a softer crumb than plain water. I personally prefer
bread that has the big holes punched out of it, so does my wife, so that
is what I aimed for on these loaves.

It turned out really nice! A thick, really chewy crust with a nice airy
soft crumb. Wicked as garlic bread and for steak sandwiches.

There are two photos of these loaves in my photo album site's featured
album of 'Today's Photo'. http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com

What have you folks baked lately?

Mike

What have you folks baked lately?



Neat Mike, your pics give me something to aspire to.

Was goofing around tonight, fed my starter up to make rolls tomorrow,
and didn't want to throw the excess away... and there is the end
result:

http://picasaweb.google.com/stbuzby/StarterLoaf

It was about a cup of flour, which is the smallest batch of bread I've
ever tried to make. Wouldn't exactly call it a loaf - as it crept out
across the pan rather than rising up - but it'll be about perfect for
a couple sandwiches tomorrow.

Stacey

"Stacey" wrote in message ...

http://picasaweb.google.com/stbuzby/StarterLoaf

... Wouldn't exactly call it a loaf - as it crept out
across the pan rather than rising up - but it'll be about perfect for
a couple sandwiches tomorrow.

Or you could make a bunch and chink 'em together to make
yerself a sourdough brick house.

Picasa is good! Hey, Kenneth, and all you other photography
illiterates, here's your chance to get into the business of pasting
your digital photos up on the web: http://picasa.google.com/
It does not let you do anything dumb -- well, except to paste
up dumb photos.

A picture is worth 1000+ words! Communicators take note!

By the way, any digital camera with a megapixel capacity of over
1.0 is good enough for bread photos. Your kids and friends
and neighbors are throwing away such cameras. See this for
an example of what I did with a 0.9 megapixel camera:
http://www.prettycolors.com/bread%5Fculture/iggys.htm

Of course, that is not the Picasa site. But, if you are an average
idiot with a 10 MP digital camera, Picasa will fix your photo,
without you even knowing it is happening, so it will fit onto my
dinky screen.

--
Dicky

Stacey wrote:
What have you folks baked lately?


http://picasaweb.google.com/stbuzby/StarterLoaf

Stacey

Nice. I make a loaf in that shape for hot dog buns, 'Canadian East
Coast style'. The bread gets sliced, but only every second slice goes
all the way through, the middle slice stops short of the bottom crust to
make the hot dog pocket.

All your rising was done on the counter with the 3 hour one I would
guess. Made it airy by the looks of it.

I did the opposite yesterday, I put one in that could have used a bit
more counter time or bigger/longer cuts so it almost exploded with the
oven bounce. The crust did stay attached though.

I went for a real sour tasting loaf and grew my starter up over 48 hours
with 12 hour feeds. It worked well.

There are a couple new photos he http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com

Mike
Some bread photos: http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com

Or you could make a bunch and chink 'em together to make
yerself a sourdough brick house.

Well it had the brick-like shape, but not the consistency; might have
to work on that part a bit.

Might even look around for some of the mini-sized baking pans and try
for a respectable loaf shape - would kill the house idea, but I
suspect we'd have stability issues anyway.....

Nice. *I make a loaf in that shape for hot dog buns, 'Canadian East
Coast style'. *The bread gets sliced, but only every second slice goes
all the way through, the middle slice stops short of the bottom crust to
make the hot dog pocket.

Now that sounds tasty. Have been thinking of a gourmet version of
pigs in a blanket- maybe with bratwurst and a little cheese wrapped in
with it...

All your rising was done on the counter with the 3 hour one I would
guess. *Made it airy by the looks of it.

Yep, you got it- three hours in an 80 degree (or so) room, then into a
cold oven. I thought it might rise more when I put it in to bake,
didn't get much change at all.

I'm doing rolls today, for tomorrow's dinner- and maybe a loaf or two
if I get ambitious later tonight.

Stacey

"Mike Romain" wrote in message g.com...

I went for a real sour tasting loaf and grew my starter up over 48 hours
with 12 hour feeds. It worked well.

Oh, sure, everything you try works well. Well, not so good for me. There
always seems to be a least one defect.

http://mysite.verizon.net/dickya/SiameseSDLoaves.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/dickya/Siamese_cut.jpg

BTW, I was never able to make a decent loaf with a soured starter. Seems
to me that starters need to be active, and by the time they are sour, they are
settled-down and pooped-out. My loaves are pretty doggoned sour from
being allowed to rise for a quite long time. For the loaves linked above,
the rise time was about 12 hours with several reformings during the first three
hours.

But, heck, I guess that nOObies with a lot of dumb luck can get away with
a lot of stuff that would not ever work for me.

--
Dicky

Dick Adams wrote:
"Mike Romain" wrote in message g.com...

I went for a real sour tasting loaf and grew my starter up over 48 hours
with 12 hour feeds. It worked well.

Oh, sure, everything you try works well. Well, not so good for me. There
always seems to be a least one defect.

http://mysite.verizon.net/dickya/SiameseSDLoaves.jpg
http://mysite.verizon.net/dickya/Siamese_cut.jpg

After the long feeds, I always give it a fast wake up feed in a
pre-warmed oven before adding the loaf

Your crumb is much lighter looking though. These sour loaves are fairly
heavy compared to my regular SD.

As far as it working, well, there it is. I have no intent or need to
deceive or to post a misdirection as to my methods. I post both my
'ugly' and nice results.

I will have to try a long rise like that next time just to see what I
get, it looks interesting.

Mike
Some bread photos: http://www.mikeromain.shutterfly.com