/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>3867838
how do i spelled trip?

>>3867632
>>3867637
Looks awesome! Good job. Nice rise!

>>3867689
It appears a kind anon has managed to crack my tripcode. I guess I'll be changing that sometime soon. Sorry gentlemen.

>>3867754
I have a wife and I STILL don't get to wake up to a house filled with the smell of warm bread.

i trolled you all. I cooked that bread in my girlfriends stank assed puussy

Bad news, dudes. YouTube ate my video after 4 hours of uploading. I'll try again tomorrow so my ISP doesn't flag my connection for anything. I'll create a new thread as soon as it's up.

>>3865772
I'm sure people have told you this before, but that sourdough boule is really stunning. Beautiful crumb (I can tell it is very moist), gorgeous crust, it's a winner all the way around.

>>3865748
2 answers.

1. I develop a strong gluten network, ferment/proof for enough time, make high hydration doughs, and preshape to create lots of surface tension.

2. You don't, but it's rare to get sick from your starter. There is a bread called salt-rising bread that is leavened (and flavored) by Clostridium perfringens (which is a pretty serious pathogen). Doesn't seem to make anyone sick.

>>3865760
Beautiful!

Video is at 75% (of a 12GB upload). Should be finished in 2 hours or so. I'll post it when it's done.

>>3865680

Whoops, forgot the trip.

>>3865138
Yes sir. All word of mouth. I started by selling to a few chefs I used to network with back in the day. From there it kind of ballooned, and now I just send out an e-mail to a listserv, and whoever responds first gets the bread. It's a pretty ideal situation.

>>3865160
I actually bake at 550F with convection, so that's an effective temp of 575F. I do think the extra 75 degrees makes a difference, but not a big enough one to preclude anyone from being able to achieve very similar results in their home kitchen.

>>3865070
Thanks! That means a lot coming from an industry professional. In all fairness, I'm not an average home baker (though I think bread of this quality is achievable by anyone who chases after it). I have a culinary degree, professional baking experience, a food chem degree (with a LOT of time in a cereal chem lab doing bread research), and am occasionally hired to do product dev/R&D work for medium to large-format bakeries.

Of course, the bread I post on this board is only made with a normal home oven and non-commercial equipment (if you ignore the Hobart A200 that I have in my home kitchen).

>>3865036
Use honey and bake the bread before it's finished fermenting/proofing. That will leave some of the residual honey in the bread so that you can taste it. If you let it ferment/proof too long, the yeast will have chewed up the honey and, though some non-carbohydrate flavor compounds may remain, it will probably not have the same honey flavor you are looking for.

>>3865037
My first suggestion to you is to just experiment. I think people get too freaked out by bread, because so many people have tried to convince them that it is exceedingly complex. It is not. Make a bunch, experiment with different things, try 2-3 different techniques every time you bake a new batch, and find what works for you.

It's hard for me to ID a basic bread recipe b/c bread is, at its core, very simple. I very rarely expand beyond flour, water, sourdough starter, salt, and maybe some nuts and/or dried fruits. I would peruse www.thefreshloaf.com and find something that looks delicious to you, and give it a shot! Just don't let yourself get discouraged if you have a couple bad batches. Keep at it!

>>3865001

Exactly. As you shape the dough, just be sure you're making the surface very taut. I do this by pulling the dough toward me as I roll it up into a loaf.

>>3865000

Spaghetti bread! Wild! Way to think out of the box! Take some photos and post them. I'd be interested in how they come out.

Is there a reason you've chosen the no salt route?

>>3864984
Interesting. I don't actually add any sugar to my breads, but bread without salt is pretty boring.

Can't say I've ever used fruit in my bread in that way. Very cool idea.

>>3864969
It sounds like the gluten may be your primary concern. If you don't strengthen the network enough, it won't be able to stabilize the rapid growth in the oven, and you end up with a dense bread.

Fat is also a problem. Fat is more surface active, but can't form intermolecular bonds, which means it jumps to the air/dough interface rapidly, but then can't create a network to stabilize it. As a result, you end up with a dense/soft baked product. That's why shortening is called shortening, and why fats are used in pastries.

It's also important to really create good surface tension in the bread while shaping. This orients the gluten network in a way that will be able to direct expansion positively, and stabilize it.

>>3864919
There's nothing up on the channel yet, but I think I made the name FiveFlourFingers.

>>3864925
Hah, no sweat. I don't engage in the competition game anyway.

>>3864880
Making a sourdough starter is time-consuming, but very easy. Start by creating a base, with a ratio of 1:1 flour to water by weight, then feed once daily until you see life. You can start feeding twice daily when you get reliable 2x rises within a few hours. Once it's stable and consistent, then you can use it to bake. The whole thing takes 2-3+ weeks, but is totally worth it, assuming you're willing to take care of it long-term.

The density issue is tricky. It's hard to say what's going wrong without looking. Are you developing enough gluten? Are you using any fat in your recipes? Are you applying sufficient surface tension in the gluten network when shaping? Are you proofing long enough? These are all big variables in the density puzzle.

Tried to post it last night, but YouTube was being a dick.

In short, it's not available yet.

Your bread looks really great! Very nice rise on your sourdough breads.

>>3863818
I've gleaned most of my bread baking knowledge from working in the industry and observing other baker's. I would probably comb YouTube for videos that have high view counts to get an idea of the process, since visualizing the technique can save you a lot of heartache.

www.thefreshloaf.com is a really incredible bread-baking forum that has a ridiculous wealth of bread and pizza-related information on it. They probably also have some really great starter guides.

>>3863800
There are a ton of great beginner's guides out there. I'm also happy to answer any questions that you'd like to ask.

Aside from that, the video will serve as a good overview of how and why I do what I do. I made a couple errors when discussing things on the fly, but corrected them with text on-screen. The video should be a good place to watch the whole process, though you may still have questions after watching it.

>>3863737
My apologies! No offense taken no matter how you intended it. I'm in hardcore study-mode right now, so my powers of interpretation are locked to the ultra-literal. I should have understood it differently.

>>3863724
Sorry, my friend, but it's just not going to happen. I can understand if you don't share my passion for bread, but enough people do for me to spend some time posting OC from my weekly/bimonthly bakes. If I can get even 1 person excited about baking high quality bread at home, I consider it a success.

Thanks for the feedback, though!

>>3863717
Thanks for the kind words!

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant that the sourdough starter was cultured here in Los Angeles, from what's available in the air/in the flour/on my hands/etc. Starters can definitely be shipped to different parts of the country, though they change based on what's around in the environment.

I was really hesitant to make a Los Angeles sourdough, given how crappy the air is here, but I have to say that it's a really excellent starter. It is mildly tangy (not nearly as strong as SF sourdough starters) and produces a really wonderful oven spring.

>>3863671
Thanks, but no thanks! I think I'll keep cranking out bread instead.