Bread

Not a baker, couldn't say for sure.
It performs so much better for reheating, cooking, toasting et cetera than any other toaster/type oven we've tried though.

We got our first one direct from Japan!

I'm actually looking at used restaurant backup ovens at the moment. They don't need to be built in and some of them go quite cheap on local classifieds.

Good idea and good luck.

Got given a sourdough starter on Friday. Made two delicious tasting but very un-risen "loaves" over the weekend. Got a third batch of dough on the prove at the moment. I'd been leaving it overnight to prove but that has proven (geddit?) not to be long enough. My friend I got the starter from said he proves for 36 hours(!) so here's hoping I have more success with the next loaf.

The tast is something else though, nothing like anything you get in the supermarket.

This mornings loaf. Since I started using a Banneton my loaves have been pretty wide and flat.

^^36 hours seems like a crazy long time, please update with the results!

I normally prove for 12 hours and get a nice bread but it's lacking in Dem' big holes

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How active is the starter, I'd be feeding it every day for 3-4 days (chuck 2/3's away, add 100g strong flour, 100g tepid water) then the night before take 1tbsp of starter and 200g of flour 200g water and it should be nice and sweet in the morning to start baking. Tartine book has a pretty solid method that has rarely failed to rise.
Also what %'s for the loaf?

Looks decent, it's all about the flavour anyway.

In my extremely limited experience, I'd say it's not very active. I've been feeding it with rye flour and adding dechlorinated water at room temp but only to replace what I've been taking out.

The recipe I'm using for the bread is from Bread Matters - 250g wholemeal flour, starter, water, salt. He does suggest an overnight prove in a room at about 20 degrees should be sufficient but my house is has been colder than that at night recently. In my latest batch I've tried 50g spelt flour with 200g wholemeal to see if that speeds up the prove a little. I'm not going to be able to check on it now until later this eve so we'll see what happens...

I did think about starting off another starter following the Andrew Whitley method to compare (he uses rye flour for sourdough starter) if I don't have any success.

I find anything above​ 25% wholemeal does make for a denser loaf; what kind of results do you get if you just use extra strong white?

I tend to use a wet dough with minimal kneading and handling and just let time do the gluten development - I make an overnight sponge and then prove the dough for anywhere between 12 and 24 hours (for the latter I tend to leave it in the fridge overnight.) I've always found it relatively insensitive to proving time - above 3-4 hours, a longer rise mainly just makes for bigger holes and a stronger flavour.

I know we've been taught white flour/bread is evil but starters need it imho. Rye, spelt etc are really hard for the yeasts to metabolise, I have two starters, one fed on 100% strong white for pizza doughs, baguettes etc, and one fed on 50% white/wholemeal mix which I use for most all other breads.
Those sourdough loaves with great rise are at least 75% white flour.

In fact the ones I posted in the last page although looking and tasting wholemeal are mostly strong white.

Knocked out this beauty, bit of a surprise as it was looking a bit listless in the second prove.

Lovely big bubbles and great chewy texture with a decent crust as well.

It came from a just add water pack, 500g white flour, 375ml water. After water and well mixed in, I added a good dollop of butter loosely mixed in before kneading for 5-10 minutes.

First prove in bowl above pan of warm water, second prove in creuset pot, 30 mins at 230C lid on, then 15 mins at 170C lid off.

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My rye starter has been getting a bit lackluster (I had a few going, but it was filling the fridge, so I limited myself to just rye)... I keep it in the fridge right at the back and only feed once a week usually, as I mainly make bread on the weekend. I haven't been using dechlorinated water though - am I missing a trick? I usually use boiled water that has cooled, as I thought this might be vaguely "purer" for some reason, but there's still all sorts of limescale from the kettle...
My standard loaf is about 3tbsp of wet rye starter, and the rest is white flour and a bit of salt. I bake in a dutch oven blasted at gas mark 9 to get it as hot as I can (my oven is crap and tops out at about 210 degrees on its own). I usually leave it overnight in a banetton, or even longer to prove, and sometimes it gets a decent increase in volume in the banetton, but in transfer/scoring always seems to collapse, and my oven spring is virtually nonexistent. Am I overproving, so that when it is time for the bake, the natural yeasts are already dead/spent? Or is my starter underactive? I have never managed the big dramatic bubbles really - even at the best of times it is a very even boring crumb...
Should I go back to an all-white starter? This was obviously best for pizza but I never felt like it had great lift either...

My gf just took our baking to the next level, she bought a grain mill

So far I've only done a wholemeal wheat loaf, but the flavour was completely different to what I've gotten before. Much more of everything really, and it seemed to be more filling as well.

Blimey, serious business, where do you get the grain?

We get it at the supermarket, though it's overpriced. I've found a few mills that sells grain in 10 or 25 kg bags. As it's grains it wont go off and it's also pretty cheap at those quantities. Problem is I'd like to have wheat, spelt and rye. Not really sure where to put 30/75 kgs of grain...

I’d feed the starter more before getting ready to bake, at least three days of room temp cycles to liven it up. A tsp of starter should float before use and smell really sweet.
I’d experiment with the timings, that’s the dark art of baking - being able to look and feel when the dough is ready for the next stage. It does sound over proved but the trade off is moar flavour...

Wow, I’ll have to keep my eyes open for that, how long does it take to produce 1kg of flour, do you have to pass it through the machine more than once?

It mills about 100g per minute, so quick enough for household use. I only bake single loafs, so milling 400g is about 5 minutes of work. If you need much more I think it'll be too much hassle.

There's apparently hand driven mills as well, but I think that too would be too much hassle in the long run

that sounds like a bit too much babying of my starter! To be honest, I have been pretty lazy, and also had a no throw-away approach to starter, which I know is unconventional (although endorsed by this book:

but it also stems partly from rye being more expensive, so I hate to throw it away. It just doesn't seem to work with the current frequency that I make bread though, so maybe I will need to treat my starter a bit better.
@kboy that mill looks epic! I'd love to taste how different the results are... life loaf swap?

Happy to swap loaves! I'm in sweden though so postage might be a bit steep?

Grains can go off; we buy steel cut oats that we cook up for breakfast and I've found that the local stuff (that I've tried on and off for years) consistently smells rancid.

Is that whole oats, or cut oats?

Steel cut.
Not rolled.

Not sure how they're stored over the long term, whole or cut.