Bake General

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I had a mishap with my starter, Lil Yeezy. I took him out to hit room temp and he got a little out of hand. Reminder to leave your starter container 2/3 empty.

After i cleaned up that mess i fed it and put it back in fridge for the week, but i took 100g out for bread. After I took some out and premixed with a bit of flour and water to start a preferment I got some texts from some friends so I put the preferment in the oven with the light on. While at that party, I got a text about another party. I ended up not coming home for about 10 hours. When I got back the whole thing was sitting at 140F and had a shell. All the yeast was definitely dead by this point, so I'm starting over again. This weekend was failure after failure... I didn't realize I've lights would make an oven so warm. Should have set it to proof, but I didn't want to leave it running while I was out the house.

That's a bummer. I still haven't made my own starter yet (mainly because I don't generally have a stretch of 5-7 days in a row when I'm at home at the same time.

I finally got my starter going it seems to consistently rise now.
What I learned was to not mindlessly follow recipes and schedules. Only to feed it after you experience some rise and some fall which may not always be within the 12 hours of when you feed it.
If there's not much activity leave more starter for the next feeding. Don't dilute the yeast with more food than it can eat.
Warming up the water before feeding also helped alot.

Any of you guys have experience in getting these awesome ears on your breads?
I've only been making boule shapes and my scores only produce dissapointingly flat patterns.

I've tried shallow scores and timing my final proofings such that they're not underproofed or overproofed (which is also another mystery I have). I tried cooking at 500F for the first 20 minutes.
I bake with a combo cooker, do I need more steam? Do I spray water on the boule before putting it in the oven? Do I put a steam tray in before covering the combo cooker
I'm making another one in about 2 hours and the only thing I'm gonna try this time is to place it in slightly underproofed and make an even more shallow cut.

you're the only people I can ask because I don't want to join a bread forum.

My bread in comparison with no ear
Rosemary sourdough.

You could try spritzing the bread before putting it in the oven, but I don't think that'll make much of a difference ear-wise (though it will make a difference crust-wise). When scoring your dough, make sure to score shallowly and at about a 30-degree angle. It helps to have the surface of the dough a bit dry, too (i.e. doing the final proof in a brotform/banneton basket, as opposed to a bowl.)

>General

Looks like you scored across the top of the loaf instead of towards the side. It's going to be harder to get an ear when you do a straight-down score. For your next loaf, try moving your score line down the side of the dough significantly, and then cut at an angle when you do!

makes sense,
Now that I look at the picture I want to imitate, seems like they cut it more lower and almost horizontally, while my arc was not as pronounced and the blade was slanted but still pointing downwards.
cool, stoked to see how it'll look in the next one
thanks

No prob. Post pics of your next loaf!

What did he mean by this?

just pulled this out of the oven -- 1/3 whole wheat flour, 2/3 bread flour. i've made several sandwich loaves with plain bread flour, but this is my first time substituting whole wheat for part of it. it didn't "thump" as much as i wanted after 30 minutes in the oven, so i baked it an additional 7-10 minutes.

Fresh dough?

Well, for all the miss starts this weekend with the starter, I finally pulled this out the oven. Had to let it rise for 2 hours because the starter was slow... Probably because 80% of it was free flour and water after I jacked it all up. I baked it on fully prheated stones at 475 for 10 minutes, then 350 for 12. Total bake of 22 minutes. Its a 30% whole wheat dough, 70% bread flour. 2 T vital wheat gluten. Milk for liquid. Really slow and probably weak sourdough starter.

That looks good. You are gonna have some freakin sweet sandwiches throughout the week. Could use a little more color, probably a hotter oven needed - HOWEVER, that ear on the side of the loaf screams BODACIOUS OVEN SPRING COMPADRE!!! That's gonna be a nice sandwich loaf for sure!

Related Pic is you from a week or two ago right? Today's loaf looks more evenly risen because of the scoring. Well done on your first partial whole wheat!

oh shit yeah, that was me! thank you! i do think the scoring helped it rise for sure, i'm just concerned my hydration ratio was a little off, because i didn't compensate much for the whole wheat flour.

the oven spring was MASSIVE, i was pleasantly surprised! thanks for the tip about a hotter oven, next time i'll bump it up by 25 degrees or so!

crumb shot! tastes great. next time, i'll bump up the salt by 3-4%, but otherwise i'm quite pleased

Oh man this loaf came out delicious.

that looks incredible! question for you -- what kind of stones do you use? i've made mostly dutch oven and sandwich loaves, but i want to branch out soon

I use 6*6 baking tiles. I bought a set of 6. These are a little thicker than most single stones, and the smaller sizes means that internal stresses in the stone are lower. They are also light enough for my wife to pick up and move individually more easily. I like them, but I do understand people that like a single big stone... Its easier to move a single piece all at once.

thanks for this! i suspect multiple smaller tiles would be better for me for various reasons (key amongst them, kitchens in brooklyn are not known for their ample storage space, and also i don't trust my roommates not to break a large one). i assume you generally keep them out of the oven, and only put them in when you're baking?

>i assume you generally keep them out of the oven, and only put them in when you're baking?

I have two ovens and a toaster oven. The stones generally get left in the convection oven that I bake and roast in. If I want to cook something else and don't want the stones, I just pick up and switch out the whole wire rack with the stones in place and put them in the other oven. When I want to bake, I just move the rack with the stones back to the middle of the convection oven. When I was at my other house I would take them out and stack them up on top of each other so that they took up 6*6*~3.5. Depending on your storage situations that may be better than an 18*12 sheet. Also with 6 individual tiles you can just use 4 for 12*12... of if you found some weird arrangement where it made sense with your heat source you could do 6*36... or you could do 6*12 on one level and 12*12 on another.. or go diagonally if your oven will fit them. It's more flexible. I don't know if its flexibility that is actually useful, but it's there.

Most of my other oven use happens in the toaster oven for reheating things, or the other non-convection oven for baking cakes or pies that don't need convection or stones so the stones stay in the convection oven mostly.

two ovens? you're living my dream! i think having tiles i could stack, instead of a giant sheet, would be best in my situation. thanks!

Fresh bread, getting used the way Zeus intended. As a substrate for fried eggs!

Ya niggaz mad jelly of my pork chop sammiches!

question for the bread bakers here -- how long can you ferment dough in the fridge?

i want to make a loaf of "artisan" style bread wednesday night for a work potluck thursday. unfortunately, i won't be home at all tomorrow night. can i mix up some dough tonight and bulk ferment in the fridge for 48 hours, or is that waaay too long?

alternately, could i bulk ferment overnight tonight, shape the dough tomorrow morning, and proof for 36 hours in the fridge? and if this is the way to go, should i ferment in my brotform or will it stick too much?

You can ferment for that long. You will have problems if you try to proof for that long though. Might still be edible, but results would probably be freakish. You can also leave the yeast out until day of bake and just let the flour hydrate for 2 days. That could be pretty good.

Honestly though, depending on the loaf, a simple white bread could just be turned out Wednesday evening so long as you started right when you got home and stayed up late letting the loaf cool. To be honest, you'll spend 2 hours letting cold dough reach room temp Wednesday evening anyway.

thanks for the info! i know i can make a kneaded loaf wednesday night, no problem, but i was hoping for something with an airy crumb.

i just mixed up a basic dough (500g bread flour, 390g water, let autolyse for 30 min, then added 11g salt and 1/8 tsp yeast), let it rest 20 minutes and then did one stretch and fold. i've got it in the fridge now -- hopefully it won't rise too much before wednesday night. if it does, i'll just do a kneaded loaf.

flour porn right there

Thanks.

Keep us posted on how it goes. Sounds like you know what you're doing!

here. this morning when i checked the dough it basically hadn't risen at all. i'm concerned my fridge might be too cold, but we'll see. if the thread is still alive when i get home after work tomorrow, i'll update!

No pics, but made some Irish soda bread last week.

Pretty good.

You can freeze dough and it'll come back to life. Don't worry, be happy.

Moar pork chop sandwiches. Weekly bread is the gift that keeps on giving.

i always leave dough in the fridge overnight, and it definitely improves the flavour. I've left dough boxed in the fridge for 2 days, but the results can be unreliable; sometimes it works absolutely fine, and the dough will rise ready to be baked, but other times it just fails

however, dough will cope absolutely fine if you freeze it, and then just let it defrost before shaping/rising/baking

i always use fresh yeast, and that also copes fine living in the freezer, and i put the frozen block straight into the warm liquid to dissolve it before adding to the flour (however if you've already frozen the yeast, you can't then freeze the dough after, as that often fails to rise after you defrost it)

i wouldn't try and shape and rise the dough slowly over 36hrs in the fridge, as you can't predict how much it will rise, plus when you take it out of the fridge and try and bake it, the interior will be cold and won't cook as well

I am, shit makes me mad

when you do this, do you let the dough rise first and then put it in the fridge, or just mix the dough up and put it straight in?

I made Chinese steamed buns. They are a bit overcooked.

Hey folks, I wanna make an apple pie for my D&D group tomorrow, but we meet at 7:00, and I get off of work at 5:00. Can I mix the filling tonight, leave it in the fridge, and bake it tomorrow? I want it to be fresh when I serve it.

t. person who has never baked, but watched the Great British Baking Show once

looks good desu. sharp white cheddar?

Land o lakes American. Too soon after the 4th for anything else but merican cheese!

Yep, just don't put the filling into the crust until you're ready to bake it

Do you have a 10 minute commute, and is d&d like 2 minutes from your place?

That's gonna be a tight schedule. Maybe precook the apples and thicken the filling with cornstarch. Parbake the shell so all you really need to do is broil the top brown...

Eh, it's pretty close. D&D is at my house, so I'd planned on letting it finish/cool while we play.

>D&D is at my house

You're golden. Precook your apples and the filling though. It cooks the water out and you get a thicker, less runny pie. If you really want fresh hard apples you can add some uncooked as well. Either way, Mix a little cornstarch into the filling before baking, the starch will gelatinize around 145-160 degrees in the oven and help set the filling.

Apple pie smelling d&d household... I want to be your adopted manchild...

yeah, what this dude said

dunno if this user is still monitoring this, but to update:

the dough hadn't risen at all after 36 hours in the fridge, so i pulled it out and let it sit covered this evening while i baked a simple kneaded loaf (pic related).

after three hours out of the oven the original dough started rising. i've done 3 stretch and folds and am gonna leave it out covered tonight to see if it rises. i'll wake up super early in the morning and check the status -- if it looks nice and risen, i'll shape/proof/bake it in the morning.

three hours out of the fridge, not oven, i mean

Looks awesome man. The slow ferment dough sounds like its gonna be great. Just be patient with it.

I am just about through with my loaf from Sunday. Looking forward to baking again on the weekend. I'll be too busy over the next couple days to do any baking myself. Work is getting kind of crazy.

thanks! hopefully my coworkers will like it.

i'm most definitely a weekend baker, i'm usually too busy on week nights to even think about it, and i wake up at the last possible second that will allow me to get to work by a 15-minute late window. not looking forward to waking up two hours early to check this damn dough, but it might be worth it if it rises and turns out well.

i doesn't make much difference really if you put it straight into the fridge
dough is pretty forgiving, so you can mess around with it, and it'll usually turn out fine
i always make a point of adding extra sugar when i know i'll be leaving the dough to sit for a while
virtually always, i have to go back to the fridge after a few hours and knock the dough back, as it will rise as it chills, but after that it will rise far more slowly, so it'll be fine left on its own after that without leaking out of the box. just make sure the container/bowl you use is far bigger than the volume of the dough

I'm not a morning person either. I'm east coast and here I am up at 1:32 with an alarm set for 5 hours from now... My wife has to have surgery on Friday for some scheduled surgery bullshit, but they have to put her out.. its mostly minor but she'll be off her feet for a bit. Anyways, I have to wake up at 5am Friday morning to take her to that at 6:30 - and I am not looking forward to that. It'll be nice when she feels better again though. Yeah, looking forward to baking again on the weekend. The upside is I am taking Friday off, so I might even start a dough Friday evening.

thanks for the info!

oomph, i hope the surgery goes smoothly and she has a swift recovery. for what it's worth, i say start a dough friday evening -- it might help you take your mind off of your stress!

heres a pizza i made tonight. simple crust recipe but the sauce is a zucchini butter i made today. mushroom and red onions as toppings

also is sous vide considered a bake? because i had some fun testing out my new anova today

I'm gonna say yes. And bravo!

Shitty pic of my zuchinni bacon shrimp calzone

I've got some bread proving in the kitchen right now...

thank you, it was wonderful