Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 09:12:13 GMT -------------- BEGIN bread-bakers.v109.n012 -------------- 001 - "Allen Cohn" Subject: RE: Looking for crusty & chewy rolls Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:20:34 -0700 One vital key to the result you want is not the recipe...but rather the oven. To get that great crust you want, one needs an oven that provides a lot of initial steam and then vents the moisture out at the last few minutes. The bakeries supplying the restaurants use wonderful deck ovens that have steaming and venting mechanisms built in. Home ovens (especially most gas ovens) have a harder time creating and holding steam in. Most bread baking books describe a variety of methods to do so with a home oven. Finally, the standard rule of thumb is that in order to get the chewy open crumb you desire you need to use a very wet dough (70% hydration or more). And use less kneading/mixing and more folds to preserve the irregular internal structure. Hope this helps. Allen SHB San Francisco --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v109.n012.2 --------------- From: "Allen Cohn" Subject: RE: starter Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:30:51 -0700 Yes, it's not "necessary" to feed your starter regularly...but to create the very best results you should. If one really wants to perfect a recipe and procedure for a particular bread, then you should measure and optimize every variable: amount of each ingredient, temperature of dough, temperature of oven, mixing speeds and times, folds, fermentation time, proofing time, etc. The more you measure and control, the more consistent your results will be. (And, as you can imagine, consistency is vital in a professional bakery. Following this same logic, if you're trying to optimize your sourdough bread then you want your starter to be in the same condition each time you use it. That means you'll refresh it with precise amounts of water and flour, control the temperature, and ferment it for precise amounts of time before use in the bread. I'm not thrilled about "wasting" flour by throwing out the unneeded starter... But I bough some Gold Medal flour on special for $2/5 lbs. bag. I use 6 oz. of flour each time I refresh the starter. $2 *6 oz/80 oz = $0.15 for each refreshment cycle. So it's not that extravagant a waste. Allen SHB San Francisco --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v109.n012.3 --------------- From: "Sandy Krause" Subject: RE: Looking for crusty & chewy rolls Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 04:33:08 -0400 If you are talking about the rolls from Bertuccis, ours will sell you their dough. It still doesn't come out as good. I guess it is something that can't be dublicated without their brick oven.... Sandy --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v109.n012.4 --------------- From: dmrogers218@comcast.net Subject: Re: My Old Starter Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 12:16:19 +0000 (UTC) I also had some old starter in my fridge. After reading of Jim's success I brought mine out of hiding and fed it. Over a week has passed with me removing some and refeeding everyday. Nothing has happened so I guess mine had gone beyond the recovery point. Too bad ;- deb in North Georgia Southern Belles ring louder --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v109.n012.5 --------------- From: Annamaria Basile Subject: RE: DC wheat berries Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:27:42 -0400 For the person looking for wheat berries-- try the Takoma Park Silver Spring Food Co-Op -- two locations one in Takoma Park one in Silver Spring. Good luck. --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v109.n012.6 --------------- From: "Lynn" Subject: I need some advice about Bread in 5 Minutes Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:04:48 -0500 Dear List, I'd like to know how wet is the Master Recipe supposed to be? When I tried making the bread for the first time I think I put too little flour in because it was so wet it couldn't be handled easily. I also would like to know just how much corn meal you should put on the peel. I had a heck of time trying to move from peel to baking stone. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Lynn --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v109.n012.7 --------------- From: Jeff Dwork Subject: Corn Tortillas Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:58:26 -0700 There's another reason you can't make good corn tortillas at home - you're using dried masa mix. High-end tortilla makers start with dried whole-kernel corn. The corn is cooked in vats to make masa which is used immediately to make tortillas. The machines in the little mom-and-pop tortillerias work the same way. One machine the size of a VW can process 300 lbs of corn per day. _Translation Nation, Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-speaking United States_ by Hector Tobar, ISBN 1-57322-305-0, page 160. Very interesting book. Jeff --------------- END bread-bakers.v109.n012 --------------- Copyright (c) 1996-2009 Regina Dwork and Jeffrey Dwork All Rights Reserved