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Without a $4 toast recipe
Mar. 27th, 2015 07:27 amThat is, without using the super-hydrated dough to produce large, open crumb - I had sourdough bread success last night. It was nice and airy, although less sour than I like. Also a bit less crust than I've gotten accustomed to on a hearth loaf. This is partly using the toaster oven, which does not have a baking stone, and partly turning the heat down part way through. I'll probably go back to my standard 400 for 40 minutes.
This tells me it was mainly the starter's fault. Somehow it de-yeasted and was producing nothing but untoastable bricks. I'd been having success with low-knead, super-hydrated doughs but I wanted a standard loaf every now and again, y'know? Like I used to make back in them thar olden days when I baked a lot.
I may have to make some not-anthrax packets for the freezer* as backup now.
* Some years back I backed up my sourdough by brushing it on parchment and letting it dry in the oven with the light on for several days. The resulting thin layer of dried sourdough was crumbled and put into Ziplocs. And then I helpfully labelled it "not anthrax", because they were envelopes of white powder and that was the thing of the time.
Strangely enough, no one who wanted sourdough took me up on my offer of mailing them not-anthrax envelopes. People are weird.
This tells me it was mainly the starter's fault. Somehow it de-yeasted and was producing nothing but untoastable bricks. I'd been having success with low-knead, super-hydrated doughs but I wanted a standard loaf every now and again, y'know? Like I used to make back in them thar olden days when I baked a lot.
I may have to make some not-anthrax packets for the freezer* as backup now.
* Some years back I backed up my sourdough by brushing it on parchment and letting it dry in the oven with the light on for several days. The resulting thin layer of dried sourdough was crumbled and put into Ziplocs. And then I helpfully labelled it "not anthrax", because they were envelopes of white powder and that was the thing of the time.
Strangely enough, no one who wanted sourdough took me up on my offer of mailing them not-anthrax envelopes. People are weird.
