Bread

It’s so difficult to tell. How you make dough, do you use warm water, what is the temperature and pressure in the initial proving period, what is the flour, when was the salt added, are you retarding at the top or bottom of your fridge, how cold is your fridge etc etc. There are so many variables it is difficult to gauge if halving the yeast is going to achieve the desired outcome.

Sort of bread I guess, made these the other day;

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Oh ok, that makes sense, not a question with a simple answer. I’ll do some more reading up and maybe stick to guidelines of the recipe for now.

Third batch. Starting to get the hang of them now.

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Does anyone prove in an oven? We have an oven that’ll go down to 50 deg C but it always sores out with a crusty surface even when covered.

Big bowl of boiling water in the bottom of the oven, oven off. Works a treat as a proving drawer.

Can also recommend 3d printer cabinets

The new Heygates Extra Patents White flour (16kg delivered next day via e*bay) is excellent. Really strong.

Feel like I’m getting the sourdough dialled better.

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Bangin'!

Yeah those are well good!

I just bought 16kg on eBay. Time to find somewhere in the house to put it.

Now that payday has arrived, I'm pondering doing some more brioche/enriched doughs and wondering about a stand mixer. Any suggestions besides going all out on a KitchenAid?

Did some reading up on mixers and apparently it's a diving arms mixer or nothing

Those of you buying 16kg bags of flour: Where are you storing it when it arrives?

Plastic tub, ideally not airtight (flour can sweat a little with temperature changes) but not a big enough gap for bugs and rodents to get in.

I use “wham bam” boxes as they also act as my steps to get onto high shelves in the larder.

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Smaller volumes of flour are decanted into these lock and lock tubs - for ease of use

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For anyone around Brixton/Herne Hill in need of flour, Jones the Butcher is now stocking some stuff from Marriages

First attempt, really happy but definitely room for improvement. How deep do I razor it to make it bloom nicely?

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I'm finding that angle of cut is more important than depth. A shallower angle and not as deep (half a centimetre or so) is working well for me

There’s lots of factors that contribute to how much the loaf springs.
How did you bake it?

I followed pollen bakery method, scorching hot oven and loads of water on a pizza stone. It stuck a lot to my proofing basket which could have caused it to deflate. I used proofing basket without the cloth, trying next batch with.

You get better spring if you have a cast iron pot with a lid, but your method is the best alternative otherwise. As mentioned above, score shallow - I always over score and it comes out crap.
The amount of spring is also affected by the proof - you want enough proof so that the loaf isn’t dense with big holes generated in the bake, but not so much proof that there’s no more energy to rise and spring when baked. There’s other factors too, but too many variables makes identifying problems even harder.

I just leave it in the bag.

Wow, lots and lots of variables.

Another one if you're looking on a pizza stone is a tray of tea towels soaked in hot water, if you have the facilities to do so lava rocks is also another alternative for steam. I don't really make boules that large (cast iron for me) but they seem to work OK...