Mmmmm....beer

This blog is suppose to be about all kinds of yeast related stuff. This weekend was beautiful and both of us worked hard outside all day. There was playing around, digging around, watering around, etc. Any way, today, out of any day was the most perfect day of the year so far to end it with a beer.

This is one of my home creations, a Honey Blond. The primary sugars while derived from the liquid malt extract was enhanced with a full pint of pure Wisconsin honey. I really like this one and it poured nicely. It's a little darker than I would have guessed a blond to be, but it tasted perfect.

It was sweet, with a dry after taste. I'm guessing the alcohol content is pretty high on this one, but you can't taste it. Now while I do prefer my beers at room temp, this one was perfect being refrigerated.

Next blog, sour dough strikes.

Freedom Baguettes

The weekend before last I ended up making some baguettes with the same simple French Bread recipe that I began with. The only difference this time was that I cut the dough and formed two smaller loaves. Andi and I ended up making them into sandwiches. They tasted excellent, however we had them the next day and the crust wasn't as crunchy. I don't think I should have stored them in a plastic bag. I'm not exactly please with the shaping but I'll get it down some day.

Last weekend...a little Italian

I know a little Italian.

He's sitting over there.

Now that I got that out of my system. Last weekend I went for the Italian loaf. I was looking to make bread that would rise a lot and make some decent sandwiches. While we never made sandwiches out it, I think these turned out beautifully.

The little secret behind these loaves or Italian for that matter, is the crust. While your French and sour doughs typically are accentuated by a hard crusty....well crust, the Italian is not as, and mostly chewy. Not unlike the Wookie.

I've been playing with techniques to change the type of crust you get with various suggestions on hydration. I've mostly been placing the broiler pan at the bottom of the oven and letting that heat up with the preheat. When I put the bread in I throw a cup of warm water on the pan and create a steam cloud. This cloud normally results in a super crunchy crust.

For the Italian, in order to get the crust just right, there has to be a little bit more moisture in the outer layer. This crust technique called for brushing the loaves with water before putting in the oven. They turned out perfect, and the loaves were only too ready to sop up all that tomato goodness from a nice (or not so nice) pasta dinner. These loaves were f-ing huge and I ended up taking one over to the neighbors. After all, bread, especially home made bread should be shared among friends.

Next time, I try and improve on my loaf shaping techniques, when I make baguettes.

A baking fool

I was feeling especially creative and recently emboldened by my success at rolls, I decided to attempt the Cinnamon Oatmeal Raisin bread. This time however, I didn't have any oatmeal. Not to be dissuaded I went and scoured the internet for a recipe for cinnamon raisin bread that didn't have oatmeal or any thing else fancy. I found one at allrecipe.com Cinnamon Bread. This one was promising.

I actually added about 1/2 cup more raisins than the recipe called for because it didn't look like enough and frankly, I like raisins. These first two pictures show the dough and then after the first rise. It doubled all right, and then some. Don't worry, this called for making three loaves.

After this rising you punch it down and flatten it out with a rolling pin. After rolling it out you spread out a cinnamon sugar mixture all over it. Now this was the tricky part and where my lovely wife lent a hand. She rolled it up for me like a jelly roll. After that you cut it into thirds and pinch the ends down.

We only had two loaf pans so one of the loaves was made to bake free form style. You can see that they colored very well and the rolling action made for a pretty neat looking loaf of bread. Tasty too I might add.

Second verse same as the first

This past weekend since I had off an extra day and decided to get some more baking practice. I did the same recipe as the weekend before however, I made rolls instead of loaves. I believe they turned out very pretty and very tasty. They went well with Nana's leftover ham from Easter. I thought they even split nicely.

The Second First Attempt - Lesson 2

Ok, so on Sunday I decided to follow directions a little better and move up on the lesson plan. Lesson two called for adding fat and sugar to the mix. This time, milk, butter and sugar were added to the flour mixture. However, I did deviate from the recipe. I know I shouldn't have, but for some reason it made sense in my head. I shouldn't listen to myself. It didn't turn out bad, but not as fluffy as I wanted. I added a little bit of wheat flour to the mix, when it didn't call for any.



The next time (this next sunday) I'll follow the recipe and do it right. Perhaps, I'll only try to make rolls instead.

This time you can see that my first rising was very successful. In the first picutre my blob of dough doubled in size just like it was supposed to. Now this time, after I beat up the dough, I took the time to shape it and rise for a second time on the stone. After scoring and baking you can see the bread did rise and color very nicely.

However, if you can tell once I cut it, that while it did rise nicely, the addition of the wheat flour seemed to have a negative effect on the crumb (little air pockets that form when the bread rises and bakes). It was slightly....heavy. I think the added wheat was too much gluten and I didn't compensate for it. I will do better and follow the recipe.

Basics

It’s true that I’m a little bit of a beer snob. I have been brewing for about three or four years now, and while I don’t drink enough to make enough, I try to keep up on my local and national micro brews. Also, recently, I’ve started to make homemade bread. Not the stuff in the machine, but actual down to earth get your hands sticky and beat down some dough, bread.

The first two attempts were disastrous. I tried to make some fancy bread and they just turned our horrible. The first was a blue cheese and walnut, which was flat and smelly. I know blue cheese is smelly any way, but this was like burnt blue cheese. The second one I tried was a cinnamon raisin. Again, this turned out disastrous and I made more of a cinnamon raisin hockey puck, then bread.

Thankfully the boys aren’t sophisticated with their tastes and they loved the bread anyway. Perhaps they were just being polite, but they would always ask for more “ray-ray bread.”

It was after this second disastrous loaf that I decided to do my research and found this site, The Fresh Loaf. They have not only lessons on line for free, but great tips from someone who’s worked at a commercial as well as local bakery. His insights and tips, led me to the conclusion that I had not been or did not knead enough.

So then last weekend, I did his lesson 1 first simple loaf. All it consisted of was flour, water, yeast and salt. Can’t get more simple than that. After kneading for the right amount of time, the dough turned out exactly like he described, a smooth silky ball. It doubled in size just like it was supposed to, the other loaves didn’t. And with the second rising, I knew I would be successfully. My one problem was that I should have shaped it after the second kneading. So that after the second rising, when I put it into the oven, when it was finished, I really had a bread ball, instead of a loaf.

It was a classic French ball, and tasted just fine for my first real bread. I had achieved success. For the most part. So now, in lesson two, we’ll add some kind of sugar, while changing out the water for milk. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to that today.