Bread

a'ight

I'm saying that terracotta is fine, but there are tiles that are made to emulate the look of it that may have a matte glaze.

True, the unglazed 'should' be the cheapest. I'm wary of any glazed pottery in the oven, I like to be very sure of the source.

We looked at some terracotta tiles in B&Q too, but they were either too small or too big. The stepping stone was goldilocks for our oven.

Good idea about soaking them in water. I just use the small dish of hot water and plastic spray bottle.

Opp, forgot to mention that if using the tiles warm up takes longer, I have an oven thermometer and an infra red temperature thing to make sure the oven get to temp.

Hey bread lords, I made sourdough for the first time, wrote about my method here. Any pointers to improve it (mainly make it less dense) muchos appreciated. Ta

How much rye is in it? Rye has much less gluten which helps the bread hold its shape.

Ah good point. Not much, used a bit in the starter. Probably no more than 20%... dough didn't feel as springy as when I make pizza.

What flour did you use?

For rye I mix in 50% white bread flour. Straight rye makes a very dense dough.

How long was the first rise?

I'd add more water maybe? The dough I make is really wet but proves nicely because its so loose. It looks dauntingly sticky in the tin on the second rise, but has baked into a really decent loaf each time so far.

Thanks y'all. First rise was about 4h. Yes I probably made the dough too dry, just find it sticks too much when kneading othereise...

Well stop kneading other ryes then!

I knead mine in a cheapy stand mixer with dough hooks, couldn't deal with it by hand. Sacrilege I know. A little bit of olive oil then goes a long way for dealing with the knocking back.

Did the dough roughly double in size?
Rye does need to be quite wet, an am making my doughs wetter than I think I should and as marie said, the stickyness has never been an issue as I use a small amount of either olive or vegetable oil on my hands..

So keep trying. PS stainbuiry do dove farm rye for £1.60 a kilo which is the cheapest.

Have you tried the folding technique? I do like a good knead myself sometimes.

Well stop kneading other ryes then!

Do you mean don't add Rye. Sorry, noob here. I won't next time!

A little bit of olive oil then goes a long way for dealing with the knocking back.

On your hands or in the dough?

Cheers for the tips all!

Do you mean don't add Rye. Sorry, noob here. I won't next time!

Sorry I was making a pun; you spelled "otherwise" wrong in your post above.
I'll get my coat..

On your hands or in the dough?

On your hands.

Ah, subtle, i was never gonna pick up on that pre-coffee :-)

: ]

French style kneading can help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvdtUR-XTG0

Gives you a work out (I do 10 mins rather than the 20 he suggests but I leave it 5 mins after mixing the flour and water together to give the gluten a head start)

Haha, this looks arduous, but also fun. I will try this.

give the gluten a head start

There's a recipe for pizza dough that suggests only adding half the flour first, so it's sort-of a "pancake-dough", and mixing (stirring) this really good, then leaving it to rest for 20 minutes before adding the rest of the flour.
I found this helps a great deal with "fluffyness" of the dough later, no matter how you continue, so this is what I do not only when making pizza, but also when baking bread now.

Make sure you don't have anything on the worktop that might topple over or gradually bounce off the surface and smash on your floor... (Cleaning up a mixture of honey and shards of glass is not fun)