[aaronatthedoublef]

I am on day one of my first starter! I decided to go with the Serious Eats starter as it's simple. I started with an ounce of water and .5 ounce of white whole wheat, stir, and cover with plastic. Day 2 is just stir. I will see how it goes!

I also have flour and water autolyzed and frozen. I'll thaw it and see it I can make it into whole wheat bread!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. This helps a lot. I will definitely need to experiment! Been meaning to do that anyway.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I realized as I was making pizza dough I always have left overs. I'll keep the leftovers from batch to batch until I have enough to make a pizza. But how much old dough would I need for a new batch of dough?

I make five pounds of dough from two pounds of water. I have 1.5 pounds of either cake flour or Caputo tipo oo when I can find it, 1 pound of KAF white whole wheat, and 4 ounces each of BRM flax meal and chickpea flour.

Also, how would I turn this into baker's math amounts?

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

I have the paddle with the rubber edge and the paddle without from an older mixer. I prefer the older style. There was a third party that made a paddle with rubber on both sides and KA drove them out of business by telling people like me that using this beater voided my warranty. Shortly after the double edged paddle company went out of business KA came out with their own, one sided version. It's supposed to function as both a paddle and a bowl scraper. I used it for a while with cakes and cookies and breads but I like the regular paddle now and just use a scraper.

Most of my bread making is done by hand because it's too big for our mixer. Stella Parks is fan of using a food processor for her whole wheat bread over at Serious Eats. She mixes the bread using the metal blade and for a very quick mix - probably about two minutes or less. I've made this bread three times now and it's as light and airy as promised. Now if I can just figure out how to keep it rising up instead of flopping over the side of the bread pan it will be perfect!

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've never tried the dough throw method but I'm not sure how I could not degas it when I cut it into smaller balls.

I've hand stretched dough in college and it degassed it but if the dough sat it would puff back up (on big nights we would roll out pizzas ahead to keep up with demand and they rose as they sat).

I used to hand stretch dough but it's less messy to roll it and most of my family actually prefers it without the big crust edge. I also don't let the dough rise once it's rolled.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Flour and yeast is selling unbelievably fast. Sold out before I even made it to the site.

They were only selling five lb bags of AP flour. But I also know the owner. I can ask for some whole wheat flour. Happy to do it.

Nash in Sequim (pronounced Squim) has hard red and white whole wheat listed on their site as does One Mighty Mill. I have not tried either of their flours. One Mighty Mill is pretty expensive. Their pretzels are good. Their bagels are bread doughnuts.

Let me know and I'll see what I can find.

[aaronatthedoublef]

A local bakery is selling supplies. I will see if I can pick up some stuff for anyone who wants some.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike and everyone else - a local bakery is selling ingredients online. Does anyone want me to see what they have and how much it costs?

I will ship it to you at cost. 50 lb bags of flour would be prohibitively expensive to ship but I might be able to send smaller amounts and yeast would probably be okay. They used to use KAF flours and SAF Red instant yeast. I do not know what they use now.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I think using the old dough is instead of yeast.

I read using old bread is to reduce the flour and use up leftover bread.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made KAF coconut macaroons but I used too much coconut (recipe called for 12 ounces I would back it down to 10) and too much sugar. I also baked the first batch with the convection on so they browned too quickly. If I make them again I will reduce the coconut, sugar, and temp and turn off the convection.

Last night I made matzah caramel crunch.

Passover is over so I'll make pizza dough tonight for this weekend. I'll make Stella Park's whole wheat bread this weekend. My yeast (SAF Red instant) never foams anymore it may be because out kitchen is cold - usually around 65 or 66. Now the days are a little warmer at 67. My family liked it when I made bread the last time because I "cranked" the heat to 68 to shorten the rise time.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Would I need to grind the berries?

Oh, also one thing interesting in the article was that Bob saves some of his dough from the previous batch to use as a starter. This might not work if you didn't make bread everyday but I wonder.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Nash is the first place I've seen Triticale other than you here. I may buy a bag to test.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Nestle is 16 oz and Guittard is 12. I went with Nestle. Maybe Guittard is more "chocolatey"?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi Mike,

I've seen a couple of those threads and actually something I like about KAF/Bob's is how much they stay the same from bag-to-bag and year-to-year. This isn't trivial and I should not take it for granted.

I did find a place out west called Palouse Heritage and I am thinking about trying a couple of bags from them for fun if the shipping is not too expensive. One of the things that attracted me to them is their "heritage" breeds of grains. But it's hard to know if that is real or just marketing.

I did find one place out west selling triticale here at Nash Organic.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA,

In reading the article I was thinking about the wheat grown in volcanic ash and thinking maybe I would try some of the small mills in Washington and Oregon if the shipping is affordable. West is where you'll find volcanoes. I didn't see any in Alaska or Hawaii. Not sure if they grow wheat there or not. Hawaii probably did once.

I will also try some of my local mills here just because I want to support them.

And I won't give up on KAF or Bob's. KAF is still small even though they've gone corporate and they probably needed to do it to survive. Bob's is going that direction too they just aren't so far along. But they are both still nice companies who will take the time to have real people talk to you about what you are baking and how to make it better. They've been really gracious giving me information and I'm probably a customer for life.

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