I recently had the opportunity to try the No Knead recipe at an
elevation of about 8,000 feet while staying in a condo during my ski
trip out West. I brought along my yeast and cornmeal and picked up
flour at the resort. My goal was to attempt to make fresh bread with
the tools available to me. I found a large plastic tub with lid and a
Revel soup pot/Dutch oven. I expected the dough to rise faster at the
lower pressure found at elevation and planned to let the after
folding rise to be only 1 hour.
Here is how I handled the stickiness issue: after the 18-20 hour
autolyse period - I opened the bowl and sprinkled the surface of the
dough with flour. I brushed the flour over the surface with my hand
to make the top less sticky. Then I added more flour around the edges
and scraped the sides down toward the bottom of the bowl with a
rubber spatula; I even found my hands would work too. I then
attempted to fold the dough from the top till it loosened and I could
flip it over in the bowl. Then I did the envelope fold and flipped
the dough to seam side down and covered the bowl with either a towel
or the plastic top for one hour. When it was time to bake, I
sprinkled the surface and the
sides with cornmeal and made sure the ball was free from the sides of
the plastic bowl. Then dumped it into the heated pot as directed -
450 F for 30 minutes then uncovered for 30 minutes. It was well
accepted the whole week.
Two additional thoughts. I found it to lean toward slightly gummy and
we let the loaf cool completely and then toasted the slices. The
other experiment was with a dried pesto mix, to be added to olive
oil, that I found on the shelf. This mix contained salt, basil,
Parmesan cheese and some other spices. I added that to the initial
dough (measurement was: that looks like enough) yielding a very tasty loaf.
Joe S.
Philadelphia