Greetings from SFO!
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I’m looking forward to hearing the result. My guess is that the oil emulsifies things a bit so the holes in the middle aren’t quite so large - better for sandwiches.
Mik, I checked the ingredients in the Whole Foods loaf. Looks like a winner!
@Steve-Miller said in Greetings from SFO!:
I’m looking forward to hearing the result. My guess is that the oil emulsifies things a bit so the holes in the middle aren’t quite so large - better for sandwiches.
One thing that may make a difference, too, is that I don't preheat the clay baker I use; most recipes specify a preheated cast iron or clay baker. One blog I read suggested just putting the loaf into a cold baker and then sticking it into the preheated oven. I sort of like that because I'm not trying to put the loaf into a super hot baker. Of course that means the bread doesn't get that jolt of initial heat and I'm guessing maybe doesn't get that extra rise.
So I left out the oil and adjusted the water a tiny bit. Otherwise I did everything else per my usual routine, including baking temp and time.
A few more holes than usual, but not as open as the pic you posted. The loaf did brown more, and the crust is even crispier than usual. Made a great roast beef sandwich today for lunch. I had cut off a test slice earlier in the morning and I noticed that the cut end seemed like it dried out more than it typically does. I'm thinking it may not keep as well without the oil. Will keep you posted!
Where's @jodi? We need her to weigh in....
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We took a Waymo back to the hotel. Wild!
@Steve-Miller said in Greetings from SFO!:
We took a Waymo back to the hotel. Wild!
I was in SF in August and wanted to take a Waymo but my son vetoed it.
I’ll be back in May without him and will surely try it out.
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Perfect!
I’ve learned to ask for a “vermouth rinse” instead of “very dry”. Ups the success rate to about 98%.
@Steve-Miller said in Greetings from SFO!:
Perfect!
I’ve learned to ask for a “vermouth rinse” instead of “very dry”. Ups the success rate to about 98%.
One of our friends in the city orders them like that! For bartenders that look confused, he tells them to add some vermouth to the glass, give it a swirl and then dump before adding the shaken spirit of choice.
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@Steve-Miller said in Greetings from SFO!:
We took a Waymo back to the hotel. Wild!
I was in SF in August and wanted to take a Waymo but my son vetoed it.
I’ll be back in May without him and will surely try it out.
Waymo ride was completely drama free! The car is a better driver than I am, especially given the complexity of the San Francisco street and lane system.
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So here it is, the holy grail of sourdough. Country loaf from Tartine bakery, rated #1 on several top 10 lists. Ain’t she a beaut?
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For those of you all on board with Waymo, how do you justify taking income away from human beings? I was recently reading an article showing that the average cost of waymo is ~$12/mile. That's a whole lot more than a taxi driver would get. And it's $12 that could help to support our fellow citizens. I couldn't do it on principle.
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Considering I’ll probably do it once in my lifetime I don’t see it hurting anything.
Uber and Lyft are both less expensive.
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It’s easy to make your own starter. Even if you get starter from somewhere else. It will soon be colonized by the wild yeasts that are in the flour you use to feed it and from your own environment. I mostly make a sandwich loaf and pizza dough out of sourdough, I skip the overnight bulk ferment, I can start the sandwich loaf in the morning, I use a stand mixer and then put it straight into the loaf pan, set it to rise in the oven with the light on, and I can bake it in the afternoon. Sandwich loafs are great because they fit nicely in the toaster. Pizza dough can also be cooked the same day. the sandwich bread is salt, flour, starter, water and 2 T honey. Plus an egg wash before baking. The pizza dough is salt, flour, starter water and olive oil, though I forgot the olive oil yesterday and it was still fantastic. When I make the round loaf that cooks in the Dutch oven I do an overnight bulk ferment in the fridge and bake it in a Dutch oven using the cold start method. Those are just salt flour starter and water.
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If you make your own starter, you want to start with rye flour, apparently it has the highest concentration of wild yeasts. Once it gets going you can feed it with your regular bread flour.
I’ll do that!
I’ve been putting off baking my own because the process seemed daunting. Now that I have the link that WTG posted, and learned that I can refrigerate the starter, I’ll give it a go!
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It is super easy, @Steve-Miller . Here are the two recipes I make on a regular basis, though I may modify the first one to leave out the oil and bump the water up to 300 g. We like the no oil version. It's keeping much better than I thought.
Italian-style sourdough bread
150 g starter
285 g water
25 g extra virgin olive oil
500 g bread flour (I use King Arthur unbleached bread flour from Costco)
10 g saltTo make dough (day 1):
Combine starter, water, and oil in large bowl. Stir to mix. Add flour and salt. Mix to make a shaggy dough.
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes to an hour and do the first stretch. Stretch dough again every few hours, for a total of 3 or 4 times.Before going to bed, form loaf, cover it, and put it in the refrigerator overnight.
Baking instructions (day 2):
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put formed loaf into baking dish lined with parchment paper, slash bread, and put cover on the dish. No need to heat the baking dish. Though I use a clay baker; not sure if it will work to skip the preheat if you have cast iron.
Turn oven down to 400 degrees. Place covered baking dish in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove cover and bake for an additional 40 minutes. Remove bread from oven and cool on rack for one hour before slicing.
Sourdough rye bread
360 g bread flour
170 g rye whole grain flour
395 g water
100 g sourdough starter
21 g honey
11 g salt
2 g caraway seedsTo make dough (day 1):
Combine starter, water, and honey in large bowl. Stir to mix. Add bread flour, rye flour, caraway seeds, and salt. Mix to make a shaggy dough. This dough is stickier than the Italian sourdough bread.
Cover and let rest for 30 minutes to an hour and do the first stretch. Stretch dough again every few hours, for a total of 3 or 4 times.
Before going to bed, form loaf, cover it, and put it in the refrigerator overnight.
Baking instructions (day 2):
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Put formed loaf into baking dish lined with parchment paper, slash bread, and put cover on the dish. No need to heat the baking dish. Though I use a clay baker; not sure if it will work to skip the preheat if you have cast iron.
Place covered baking dish in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Take covered bread pan out of oven. Carefully remove the loaf from the pan and put it back in the oven on the rack, no pan. Bake for 10 minutes for even browning of the loaf. Remove bread from oven and cool on rack for one hour before slicing.
I got my supplies from breadtopia.
I have this basket and the basket liner. Makes it really easy to get the bread out.
And I bought my clay baker from them because I wanted an oblong shape instead of round.
I also like these little shower caps to cover the bowl and later the proofing basket:
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Andy - Those look yummy.
Steve, it’s really easy once you get the hang of it. I keep a large amount of starter in the fridge so I don’t have to worry about it keeling over. I never discard either - if you have a large jar and you don’t bake all the time - this works, there is plenty of room in the jar for extra starter, and there are all sorts of things you can make with extra starter besides bread (overnight sourdough waffle batter is the best I’ve ever had, and there are lots of cracker recipes that are great). I don’t weigh and I don’t feed on a regular schedule, I usually only feed it when I pull some out - so about once a week, but sometimes longer - I just add extra water and flour when the starter looks like it needs feeding. It can get really flat with lots of liquid on top and it still perk right up when it’s fed. (I usually pour the liquid off when that happens, just to keep the amount of starter down a little, but if you want your bread sour, you are supposed to keep that). I keep a container of water in a large mason jar in the fridge, with a canning ring over a coffee filter - that’s the water I use to make the bread and feed the starter - the coffee filter lets the chlorine get out of the water. Sourdough microbes don’t like chlorine (they also don’t like iodized salt). Also - if you are going to be away for awhile, you are supposed to over flour it - so it’s almost dry, keep it in the fridge, and then just rehydrate it when you get home. I did that once - it worked great.
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I think those yeast beasties must be pretty resilient. I use iodized salt and water straight out of the tap and my starter seems to do OK. But it's easy enough to buy non-iodized salt, so I'll get some on my next trip to the grocery store. Or I'll try some of the pink Himalayan salt I bought at Costco a while ago; I forgot about it lounging in the back of the spice cabinet. And I can try the jar of water in the frig to evap the chlorine. I'm always up for a lab experiment. We'll see if anything changes!
is Steven Miller? Tune in next week to find out!
