On Wednesday, August 7, 2019 at 12:43:16 PM UTC-7, Shadow wrote:
> Sourdough does not need kneading twice. Once is enough. I do
> it by hand. Knead well once, allow to rise a tiny bit and then shape.
> My mother, who is in her 90's uses her bread maker to knead
> the dough, then pulls the plug, plugs it in after the dough rises and
> chooses "bake". I have no idea what make the machine is or what the
> buttons actually say. It is > 10 years old.
> I sort of "noticed" the way she does it when I was visiting.
> So choose a bread maker that allows you to manually set it. A
> fully "auto" won't let the dough rise enough.
> HTH but probably doesn't....
> []'s


I do the same thing that your mother seems to be doing, in a way. I have an automatic bread maker (the "cheapest" Cuisinart one, I think it's a CBK-100) that I use for mixing and then kneading once. It beeps when it cycles through different stages, so when it's done kneading, it beeps and gives me time to turn it off (otherwise it would start to bake). I then pull out the dough, throw it into the refrigerator overnight, and use a dutch oven to bake it the next day. Works great!

The biggest drawback is it's just so bulky that I can't keep it on the counter top.

I also have an old Kitchenaid stand mixer (bulky, but no where to hide it), but have not been able to get it to knead my sourdough dough -- I think my dough is just too hydrated and the mixer with the dough hook doesn't seem to work well at all (even with a doubled recipe).

So here's a question: how hydrated is just enough hydrated to use the stand mixer for a first (and only) knead?