Help & Problems With Dough

Difference between good crumb and perfect crumb – Sourdough

October 28, 2012
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The two loaves below are both made using the same recipe and the same flour; 100% white rollermill.  I want to show the difference between a good very acceptable crumb and a perfect crumb for a white wheat loaf, sourdough.  As soon as you start mixing other flours such as rye to the recipe it […]

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Why protein amount in bread flour is irrelevant

October 5, 2012
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I’ve been using the same rollermill white flour for a year and a half, and pretty much every batch I’ve received has been consistent as I would expect from a large mill with all the whistles and bells of test bakers and  Farinograph machines.  However all of this consistency changed with my last arrival of the […]

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Baking by Numbers – that’s what bakers do

October 4, 2012
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I’ve heard and read professional bakers claim they’re good bakers because they’ve been baking for ‘x’ amount of years.  Oh really?  How does following a recipe make you a good baker?   The flour you buy whether you’re a homebaker through a supermarket or if you’re a professional baker buying direct from the miller is […]

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Killing a Loaf by 30 minutes

June 3, 2012
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Last week in the dizzy temperature heights of 27˚C (80F) the dough was out of control.  Normally there are a few days, weeks even of adjustment in handling the doughs from cool to hot temperatures but this crazy weather went from the cool 19˚C to the high twenties overnight. Suddenly you realise what a fine […]

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Sourdough Held for 36hrs to Acidify

May 26, 2012
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At the same time I held the pouliche (poolish) loaf in the last post here for 36 hours in order to achieve a sourer crumb, I also had this sourdough sitting alongside it for the same reason. This dough was made mild, as per my usual sourdough loaf of 30g starter fed with 100g of […]

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Scoring, Slashing Sourdough

May 8, 2012
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I’ve already posted lots of photos on scoring/slashing loaves in this post here, but Nicola asked me last night to show her how, and since I had 2 loaves already in the fridge for baking this morning it would be easy to video scoring them…well easy because I had a second pair of hands to […]

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Oxidising Fresh Flour, Over-Oxidising & Over-Mixing Dough

April 3, 2012
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The subject of the need to oxidise fresh flour and also the need to introduce oxygen when mixing dough and the consequences of over doing it, which produces an inferior loaf both in appearance and flavour is a huge subject with nerdy-type of details.  These details cover the effect of the gluten-forming proteins as well […]

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Debra Wink & Pineapple Juice Sourdough Starter

March 29, 2012
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Debra Wink is a microbiologist who’s work I’ve used before on this site when explaining what’s happening inside a Sourdough Starter here.  Without Debra’s work I would still be in the Dark Ages, continuing to think incorrect facts about starters such as establishing a starter is a battlefield between good and bad bacteria or that […]

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The Broken Relationship Between Farmer, Miller & Baker

March 11, 2012
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It appears the relationship between farmer, miller and baker is somewhat broken and I feel this relationship should be intrinsically bound. Reading last night the book Dan Lepard  recommended to me a month ago, Breads White And Brown – Their Place In History, by R A McCance and E M Widdowson,  the author mentions in early […]

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How To Kill Your Sourdough Loaf

March 8, 2012
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If I’m experimenting then I expect to have a few failures but failures that happen when you know why and you were in a position to stop it I find frustrating, it’s a kicking-myselt type of situation.  I wanted to make a loaf for my meeting with John Letts yesterday, he was kindly providing some […]

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Shipton Mill No. 4 Flour Organic

March 4, 2012
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The white roller mill flour I like and use regularly from Shipton Mill is their organic number 4, 12% protein.  I use it for all sorts, to mix with stoneground flour like the loaf below or making the kids loaves, whenever I want a roller white texture. What I like about no. 4 is that […]

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Amaretto 2011 Using Amaretto Levain

February 27, 2012
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After the last post here, at the very end of that post I had said how the amaretto flour harvest 2011 had suffered a little from not being aged enough and I also said I was about to post photos of the successful dough having worked on it, and here it is.  No tearing before […]

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Difference Between Good & Bad Stoneground Flour

February 27, 2012
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I wanted to demonstrate the difference between good and bad stoneground flour.  I’m hoping that over the last few months I’ve shown how stoneground flour can produce beautiful looking loaves on par with any roller mill flour loaves.  I’ve also shown even freshly milled low protein 10.5% flour like this amaretto harvested 2010 with everything […]

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Problems With Yeast Doughs

February 18, 2012
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Back in October I discussed some problems with sourdough in a post here, and I wanted to highlight some common problems with yeast doughs.  Every week I bake both and my personal preference to work with is sourdough because it’s an incredibly forgiving dough.  I don’t understand when people find sourdough difficult because I can neglect it […]

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Dan & Chad’s Levain, UK & US

February 13, 2012
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Last year I knew how to achieve a sour or mild tasting loaf from adjusting the proportions of how the levain (leaven) was fed.  I don’t mean using a liquid or stiff starter which is a well known way of controlling acidity in a dough, I mean within your liquid starter you can affect the […]

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