Bread

It looks impressive, but the flavour and texture with manufactured yeast doesn't compare to sourdough, just had the need for speed this time. For quick loaves and enriched dough I find it works great (and a little too fast sometimes)

Looks like samspound (was sams99p) has kilo bags Italian strong white type 0 flour for 4 for a £1 same as this https://www.ocado.com/products/selezione-casillo-strong-white-flour-524717011

Also have the 00 flour like this and was going to post on the pizza thread https://www.vicofoodbox.com/prodotto/casillo-farina-00-1kg-max-2-pz/

EDIT: Anyone want any dried yeast, have a few sainburies boxes of 8 packets with sell by date of end of May. Bought during the yeast shortage of lockdown for people for who never got back to me and never paid me.

Sunday is bake day. Best rise and was a bit laissez faire with the proofing. It’s come out well done. 20 mins under a Pyrex cloche and 20 mins without. Temperature 220 fan.

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Basic bitch white went well.

I forgot about the wholemeal / malt, though, and it overproved, and never rose again after knocking it back.

No photos, because its a brick.

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I didn't feed my starter for months ... was pretty sure I'd killed it, actually. 3 feeds later, and it seems not all is lost!

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This weekends attempt. The starter wasn’t great because I only had Tesco flour. I also think the amount of dough is too much for the basket to allow it to full proof so will take it down a bit.

But it does have a decent distribution of bubbles and a nice crust.

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Why the fuck do I keep trying to do higher hydration loaves which struggle to get skin tension and luft when 70% gives me this?

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Thanks, I needed to hear this.

Is high hydration’s a bit of a fad? I understand more is better than less but there’s a limit.

It’s an internet dick swinging thing. You allegedly get a more open crumb, up to the point the dough is oversaturated and can’t hold tension or gas. It also results in a thinner crust.

Left over pizza dough focaccia.

It’s probably the worst thing for you, but high protein bread flour does make for banging pizza and focaccia.

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I’ve made a loaf today but the rye flour I used is really wet. Like super super wet. I’ve set it prove over night but not holding out much hope.

Looks ace but

Left over pizza dough

Does not compute.

Happy starter vs a sad starter. Had neglected but thought it would be okay, was not okay at all. After three feeds in a day keeping it at 25C it’s back in shape and made a far nicer loaf.

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Another day another pancake. The start looked great really lively. I did a mix of rye, white and granary. Only problem was it was super wet. It hasn’t risen at all.

I have to say I’m considering buying some yeast and fucking off sourdough.

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What hydration?

650 flour to 450 water with 150 of starter. It was so wet and didn’t get any dryer as the folds progressed

That's 72.5%, I wouldn't expect that to be impossibly wet. But just drop hydration until you get a manageable dough, you'll probably find that 400g of water (65%) is a lot easier to handle. Probably the most valuable thing of my foray into 80%+ hydration loafs is that medium hydration (~70%) doughs are much easier to work with now.

I was also going to also suggest drop down to 400g water and see how it goes. Different flours can take up very different amounts of water.

Also don’t add all the water at once, add 3/4 and then once that had been absorbed add the rest in sub 50ml increments.

Very much my experience. Dicking around with higher hydration doughs has made more moderate ones much easier.

Just realised I forgot to put the salt in!!

What is the hydration of your starter?

100 ml water to 100 g flour

I made 1800g of dough for me and my wife.

~500g makes a 9x13 inch Detroit pizza which feeds 2. After 3 nights, and not wanting the to go crap in the fridge, a cheeky focaccia seemed a prime choice

What % of your flour is rye flour? Rye doesn't have as much gluten in as wheat bread flour and so can be more prone to pancaking. If a significant % of the flour is rye, then maybe try reducing it.