Quite a few visitors took exception to the drop down menu, saying it was difficult to use, didn’t work well, etc. Since the customer is always right, the drop down menu is on its way out.

Try the new navigation and see how you like it. You can tell me which you prefer at johnfrum@optonline.net.

If no one objects too loudly, I’ll cut over by February 20 or 21, 2013.

Cheers, and thanks for visiting.

The process is dirt simple.

20 grams of water, 10 grams of bread flour and 10 grams of whole wheat flour.

Put these ingredients in a container, mix it up, slap a cover on it and let it sit for 24 hours. You’ll maybe see a bit of activity after the 24 hours, but you may not.

Throw away most of the mixture — keep about 10 grams, about 2 teaspoons — and add 20 grams of water, 10 grams of bread flour and 10 grams of whole wheat flour. Mix it up, cover it and let it sit for 24 hours. After this time, you should see some activity. This is called a refreshment of a starter. Now it’s time to go into fast mode.

For the next week or two, repeat the throw – add – cover – wait process every 12 hours. You should wind up with a very active starter that smells really good, not sour or acidic.

At this point, you can use the starter, keep it going or put it in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 days or up to a week, then do the refreshment again, let it age for an hour on the counter and put it back in the refrigerator. Some people leave the starter in the refrigerator for a week or two. You can try that and see how it works for you. I’m currently on a refreshment schedule of every 7 days.

Not elegant, not a famous name starter, but it will work and work well to help you make a natural levain bread.

We got a break these past few days, so I sprang into action (not quite a spring, since sourdough takes quite a bit of time) and made a sourdough using my newly started starter. I’ll describe the starter in the next post. Let’s just say that the New Jersey “ambiance” and good whole wheat and bread flours made for a very active starter. I dug out my traditional recipe and went to work.

I made two large roundish batards of 1500 grams / 3.3 pounds each. There is some whole wheat flour in the dough, but it is mainly white bread flour. I am using the starter to develop a levain that represents 40% of the final weight of the dough. This is a fairly dry dough and a fairly high percentage of levain. I decided on these numbers because I haven’t made sourdough in a while and wanted to be sure I had something that had a good chance of being good, meaning edible and not a doorstop.

Here’s the recipe in brief for those who may have forgotten since the mid-term exam.

Thursday, Aug 9, 11PM Step 1: 30 grams of the storage starter at 100% hydration, add 60 grams of water and 60 grams of flour. I used 30 grams of whole wheat flour and 30 grams of bread flour. Mix it up, put it in a container with a top and let it sit on the counter for 8-12 hours. Don’t let the mixture collapse if at all possible. This gives 150 grams.

Friday, Aug 10, 9AM Step 2: I thought the mixture was on the verge of collapsing, so I went to step 2. Add 150 grams of whole wheat flour and 150 grams of bread flour. Mix this up, put it in a slightly larger container, cover it and let it develop for 7-8 hours, or until it is at least a double. Then remove 30 grams to act as the storage starter for next time. This gives 420 grams.

Friday, Aug 10, 2:30PM Step 3: The starter was so active that I ended it at 2:30PM, after 5 1/2 hours. Add 400 grams of whole wheat flour and 400 grams of bread flour. As before, mix it up, put it in a container that will allow at least a double, cover it and THEN allow it to work on the counter for one hour, then place it in the refrigerator over night. This will be about 1220 grams.

Saturday, Aug 11, 9AM Step 4: Out of the refrigerator and on the counter to warm up. The temperature of the dough was 35F. After a little over one hour, the temperature was 52F. After two hours, the temperature was 60f. Pour the starter out of the container and into the bowl of a large (and I do mean LARGE) mixer. Add 36 grams of salt, 525 grams of water and 1275 grams of flour. I used 750 grams of bread flour and 525 grams of whole wheat. (Why such odd amounts? I ran out of bread flour.) Mix this up, cover it and let it rest for 20 minutes. Then knead for 8-10 minutes. The dough should not be very sticky and should pass the windowpane test. Place the dough in a very large container, mark the height of the dough on the side with tape, cover the container and let it sit on the counter until the dough doubles. This took 2 3/4 hours in my kitchen. Then fold the dough a few times, place it back in the container and let it develop for another 30 minutes.

Saturday, Aug 11, 3:15PM Step 5: Pour the dough onto the counter, deflate it and let it rest, covered, for 15 minutes. Divide the dough into two large pieces (or more, if you want smaller loaves or rolls), form into boules, batards, or whatever you want. Place on floured parchment paper, cover with a towel and let rise for 3-4 hours, until at least doubled. Mine took 3 1/2 hours. Spritz the towel several times to keep it slightly damp.

Bake at 450F, spritzing the loaves before placing them in the oven and spritzing the oven at the start of baking and once more after three minutes. SHift the loaves every 10-15 minutes to equalize baking.

After 15 minutes, reduce the heat to 425F and bake until done. I shoot for an internal temperature of 200F, then bake another 5-10 minutes, depending on the crust color.

Here are four shots of the finished product.

The two loaves out of the oven and cooling.

Another shot of the loaves.

The cut loaf, showing the crumb and the crust. The crumb is pretty tight because the dough was only 60% hydration.

Here’s the bottom. Medium dark and nice and thick and chewy — it softens up nicely with olive oil or balsamic vinegar.

There’s a new forum on Artisan Bread Baking dot Com with a new forum package. Take a look, sign up and get started.

I’ve set up several categories for posts just as a start; we can add more and different categories as we need them.

There is a category for members to post pictures of their breads, whether triumphant successes or door-stop failures.

There’s going to be a learning curve, so please bear with me for the first few weeks as we glide over the bumps in the road.

If you have comments, suggestions or problems, either email me at johnfrum@optonline.net or register and post a comment in the Message to Management category.

If you have the book, be sure to read the section on the page where I discuss the error in the book.

One of the nice things about the Weebly platform is that it will allow visitors to move from picture page to picture page without gong back to the main site. I think this is valuable, but time will tell.

Take a look.

Take a look. I think you’ll like it.

It’s in All Recipes, Easy and Whole Grain.

You can find it listed under All Recipes, Sweet Breads and Festive Breads.

I’ve tried a new layout on the page. Let me know what you think of it.

I’m not an expert on bread machine baking, so I am operating at a disadvantage here.  Other responses were to cut the yeast, cut the water, etc.  All over the lot; not surprising, since this seemed like such a strange problem.  Actually, it wasn’t a strange thing at all, just a bit of a twist on the flying crust, tunnel crust, problem.

Here’s what appeared to happen.

First, the bread machine is a closed environment, so the dough crust doesn’t dry out during final rise.  This means that if the dough expands and then the crumb falls back, the crust can follow, instead of being stuck up in the air high and dry, as in a flying crust.

Second, the bread machine warms up as the dough is sitting in it, while an oven is already heated when the dough in put into the oven.  This means that the bread machine dough doesn’t get a blast of hot air first during baking.  The dough continues to rise normally until the bread machine reaches a critical temperature, then goes into high activity as it gets heated, then dies.  The continuation of the normal activity leads to a bit of over rising, much like a loaf of dough that has been left on the counter a bit too long.

Third, I wasn’t sure what the hydration of the dough was, but in general, the potential for a flying crust seems to go up as the hydration goes up.  I don’t think the bread here was particularly wet, so there isn’t anything to change in the hydration.

The combination of the first two things appears to have caused the collapse in the center of the loaf during baking.  What happened was a flying crust that didn’t fly, that crashed back into the crumb.

My recommendation was to cut the yeast a bit and, if possible, cut the final rise time a bit.  The goal is to reduce the amount of final rise enough to make the dough capable of expanding without then falling back.

I tried something I had been wondering about all winter. Why haven’t I been able to get 100% of my pitas to puff up? I’ve solved it.

I lowered the rack to the lowest point in the oven, let the oven get good and hot and baked at 500F / 260C for 3-4 minutes.

Results? 100% puffed pitas.

I’ve modified the pita site to change the position of the rack.