The bread thread
 

First Try.
Ingredients were 3c. flour, 1/2 tsp "dry active" yeast, 1.5 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp sugar, 1.5c. water. (2:1 ratio)
Recipe from the internet.
Whisked all the dry together. Add water slowly and fold gently into center. Don't over-mix.
I covered with DRY towel for 18 hours but bubble production was almost nonexistent!

Baked at 450deg 30min covered and then 8 min uncovered.

Result= Outer crust was hard as a rock. Teeth breaking hard. Too salty for my taste. No bubbles in the center and chewy.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585452987.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585452995.jpg

Second Try.
This time the ingredients were: 3c. flour, 1 tsp "dry active" yeast, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar, 1.5c. water.
This time I covered with a WET towel for 6 hrs.
Decent bubbles, but I think they mostly popped when transferring to the parchment paper.

Baked at only 400deg 30 min covered, and then 15 min uncovered.

Result= There were good bubbles before but they seemed to completely flatten in the oven while cooking.
(Bread needs a high initial heat to puff up and retain shape.)
Good outer crust but simply not cooked in the center. Should have baked it longer.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585453008.jpg

Third Try.
Same ingredient formula as #2 but I used "fast acting" yeast for 8 hours.
Very good bubble production.
I also put the mixed dough in the rise bowl directly on parchment paper so it would retain it's shape when transferred to the nabe/hotpot/casserole dish.

This time I baked it at 450deg for only 20 minutes and then 10 minutes uncovered.

Result= Still a little chewy in center and should have been 25-30 min covered.
Not much flavor but the bake result is pretty close.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585453020.jpg

Oops wrong forum.

Failed bread = Trumps fault.

Thought this was going to be about the price of bread in a year.

I have taken up making Sausage..

Use ka meat grinder attachment..then got a LEM sausage stuffer..found a Little Chief electric smoker for 35 for that low and slow smoke..

What kind of flour are you using??? That makes all the difference, don’t use all purpose flour.

I though this thread was about your $1200 Trump-check.

What's the "LEM" stuffer. I get the KA (kitchenaid grinder). Does the KA meat grinder work well? We have the mixer and I've always wondered how the meat grinder attachment works.


Yep! I made pizza last week and had to do some reading on the different flours and which one works best for the type of crust you desire. Same for bread making.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585492032.jpg

500 grams of high protein bread flour (minimum 12% protein).
350 grams of 110f water. EDIT: 375 grams of water!!!
1 teaspoon of yeast
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Mix flour and salt. Put yeast and sugar in a 1 cup container. Pour in about 1/4 inch of the warm water. Let it sit until the volume doubles.
Mix water/yeast mixture into the flour. Form a ball and let it rise in a 70 degree or so area until it doubles in volume. Knead the dough for a minute or so. Then form ball and work the ball, stretching the surface a little over and down, keep going until you start to see the surface tear just a little. This firms up the gluten on the surface and lets it remain a ball instead of going flat. Gluten inside the ball doesn't get as stiff, letting air pockets develop inside.
Put it on a piece of parchment paper so you don't have to handle the dough any more. Let it sit in a warm area until the ball doubles in size.
Put a dutch oven in the oven and heat oven to 460 degrees.
Put the bread ball w/paper on the lid of the dutch oven and put the bottom of the oven over it. This creates a dome that holds in the steam and develops the crust.
Bake for 20 minutes, remove cover, bake another 5 minutes.
I make a loaf every week. Sometimes I cut it in two and freeze half.

Your problem might be that you didn't sift the flour. Here's a no nonsense easy recipe....

https://www.food.com/recipe/beer-bread-73440

Good. Now if anyone could show me how to make toilet paper I’d appreciate that ;).

Yeast to flour ratio is 0.6 to 0.75 tsp per cup flour.

High Hydration 24 hour Final Rise
 

Yes, you can use AP, and of course better flour has a tremendous affect. My go to is a 25% whole grain hard red wheat (I mill my own) with 75% Organic commercial AP. I have a very old starter. Hydration is key and how you add the water. Baking is a two step process, one/half with steam and covered crock, the former uncovered with no steam.

The photo shows a bread that I prepared for a neighbor that has 84% hydration and a 24 hour final rise. It is a whole grain starter and the main dough is pillsbury AP (I am out of my go to King Arthur Organic AP). It has flavor to kill for.

Another key is if you use yeast, you must use it properly. Active dry yeast must be proofed and combined with the wet ingredients. Instant yeast (which I prefer if using yeast) is simply mixed in with the dry ingredients. Just practice to get it right.

And one last thing, use baker's percentages. Once you learn baker's percentages you can far better understand bread baking.


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585574633.jpg

That's the missing step. And the wrong flour. And not proofing the yeast before. ..
The braintrust here is strong.

I just use a KitchenAid bread maker, mostly for really good French bread, but I need to figure out how to make these:

https://im.indiatimes.in/content/201...45_725x725.jpg

There are some really great websites out there. My favorite is this one: https://breadtopia.com

Multi talented people here. Even though some disagree we can all come together to make bread.

Kinda Biblical.

Yep, it, like horseradish relish, is a universal food.

Google Jim Leahy no knead bread.
Just flour, yeast, salt and water
His technique does it with a long overnight ferment, with the sugars in the flour as the food source for the yeast, with a high hydration

Done right, it gives a bubbly open airy crumb
Happy baking

I didn't do a good job of describing how to work the bread. How you work it is as important as the recipe. This video is about a different kind of bread, but the process of folding and stretching the surface ( at about 10 minutes in - the rest is BS) is how you want to handle it.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/30CLbYT7Ruk" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

In my earlier post I made a typo about the amount of water I use. I said 350 grams. It's 375. That little bit of water makes a big difference.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585598025.jpg

Here are some loaves I made this afternoon, a crusty loaf and a boule. I have a long, narrow ceramic pan to make the crusty loaf in. I LIBERALLY coat it with olive oil, and put the dough in it for the last rise. It has a wonderful crusty yet oily surface - just a great texture. I'm thinking of putting some rosemary and oregano in the oil. It would go great with Chianti or any spaghetti wine.

Ours is an old KA mixer from the heavy duty days (35-40 years ago), but the grinder only works OK if you trim all the meat properly first.

I like how you “roll”;);)

Nicely done, zig et all,

Yeah that is what I was going for.
The 'glutens' are supposed to be made 'safe' but it's also something that makes it stick together.
A balance of opposites. Like in life.

^
This, there is a video of him demonstrating to Marc Bitman (NYT) this technique...

I bake bread every week or so, and can't remember the last time I broke out my mixer..

I use a Dutch oven,and heat for a good while at 500-550F, dump in the ball of dough, and bake for 15-20 mins covered, remove cover and bake until nicely browned....



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585605020.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585605020.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585605020.jpg

DON'T MEASURE ANYTHING.

WEIGH ingredients.
Flour absorbs water, and a "cup" of flour is an unstable measurement of the actual amount of caloric food available for the yeast, and gluten protein for the dough.

Weigh flour, weight water, weight yeast, weigh salt.

Also, use the web as a lookup stable, various flours have various densities and absorb various amounts of water, you can use the tables to convert a accurately if you want to use different flours, for example

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart

I do weigh water and flour. Yeast I’ve used for a 500 gram loaf has varied between a teaspoon and 1 1/2 teaspoon with no discernible difference. I don’t measure the salt anymore, I toss in what looks like a teaspoon worth.

Made a dozen bagels last week. Mmm

Interesting, 2 different methods from the same guy. I am not making my own bread (yet), but I do get sourdough from a local baker.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/drCg9IQSGRo" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/13Ah9ES2yTU" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Yeast and salt is far less important, but it's still good practice. Eventually, you'll get to your local wild yeasts (which do contribute) and the preferred salt level, and you can then go to the "by eye" measurements.

Another thing that new bakers don't know is that yeast changes, grown, dies, mutates, gets sick, etc. You can make 3 "identical" loaves of bread on 3 weekends, and they'll be different because the yeast changes.
That's why sourdough bakers have a mother that lives for years (or decades...), and a good bakery works very hard to keep that mother safe, clean, pure and healthy.

Flip side is to wild inoculate your bread with local yeast in the air, and see what crazy stuff happens!

We one started a mother and made a few loaves using the still living yeast in the bottom of a bottle of Jester King beer, which is a brewery that makes wild sour beers (based on the wild yeast all around), and leaves some in the bottle to bottle condition the beer. That yeast is still alive, and interesting enough that the bread shared some flavors with the beer.

My trailer-trash bread recipe (been making it for years):

1 cup water
1 dollop honey
7 shake of salt
1 sploosh of olive oil
4 loose cups flour
big spot of yeast

Put in bread machine on "dough cycle".

Wait until done, drop in loaf pan, put in real oven at 375F for 30 minutes.

I'm going to have to try some of the recipes above.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1585751975.jpg

Two for me and one each for the neighbors. Got 20 pounds of King Arthur, so I am hoping they will resupply. This is a 25% whole grain, using fresh milled hard winter read wheat. It is really good.

Next week, German Rye, with fresh milled sprouted rye and molasses!

(Just realized there were other bread threads.upps)

This time around I added a cup of milled chia seed and flax to three cups flour. Also a cup of crushed mixed nuts (cashews, almonds,pecans, peanuts).
More proofed yeast. Olive oil and rosemary on top. Buttered top after the oven.
Baked on the pizza stone @ 450deg.
Not enough rise because I worked it after rising, popping the bubbles and making a mess. Still getting the hang of it.

It created a much heartier loaf than just all purpose white flour.
Homemade bread is so good even when it's bad.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1587258004.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1587258013.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1590889989.jpg

Tonight’s beer bread... it takes 45 minutes in the over at 375 and about 10 minutes for prep and cleanup.

Been working on my open crumb sourdough.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1590943303.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1590943303.jpg