[Mike Nolan]

My new rye starter is reading a pH below 3.7 now, so I think it's fully developed. Now I need to figure out what to try it on.

[Mike Nolan]

testing

[Mike Nolan]

There was an interesting discussion on flour mills on the BBGA forum recently, in doing some research I found that according to the national association for millers there are 166 flour mills in the USA, the largest of which can process over 3 million pounds of flour a day.

By comparison, there are 8 mills in France, and the average US mill process 13 times as much flour as a French mill. In general, the flour processed at a French mill comes from farms within a 60 mile radius, and the grower cooperatives decide which farmer grows which type of wheat, so that they will know what they have to work with when blending.

I recently got a small amount of French traditional T65 flour, along with two specialty flours, some Kapnor and some Campaillou. I'm looking forward to researching them some more then trying them out. (I think I know what T65 is, Kapnor appears to be a bread flour, Campaillou appears to be a blend of wheat and rye.)

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Tacos

[Mike Nolan]

I've got an iPhone 8 and it has more options that the New York Cocoa Exchange. I probably only know a small fraction of them.

I did discover you can change what voice Siri uses, I've got a female voice with an English accent. For a while I had it set to give me all the system messages in French.

[Mike Nolan]

I've used GM unbleached AP, it isn't quite as consistent as KAF, but it works reasonably well. I like a softer flour for pastry, though.

[Mike Nolan]

The Wall Street Journal has an article that says the five stages of isolation grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and banana bread.

Google says banana bread recipes are the #1 recipe search term right now, all those people who hoarded bananas are looking for things to do with those now-brown bananas.

[Mike Nolan]

I've had taco salad at a lot of restaurants, there are many different and good ways to make it. Salad greens, of course, tomatoes, onions, some seasoned beef, maybe some beans, jalapeno peppers, salsa or pico de gallio, sour cream, olives, cheese. Broken up pieces of taco shells or chips are good, too.

When we have tacos, I often take the left over lettuce and make up a salad with the left over ingredients, less to put away.

Darned if I know why the edit button would go away, rebooting the computer or deleting cookies or temporary files/cache might help.

[Mike Nolan]

Lockdown fatigue is fairly well-documented. But since my wife and I are both in several high-risk categories, we're staying put as much as possible. I telecommuted for a quite a few years before retiring, my wife is working from home and has several online conferences every week. We both took an online class Tuesday. But online meetings aren't the same thing as face-to-face contact.

[Mike Nolan]

I long ago stopped worrying about remembering people's names. My father-in-law was one of those people who remembered everyone, I'm not.

[Mike Nolan]

I've never been a fan of no-knead recipes, either, but there's an article in the latest Bread Lines (BBGA newsletter) that talks about Prof. Calvel's 'improved mix' idea versus the old French practice of "mix a little, ferment a lot". I think no-knead recipes might come close to that old practice in spirit.

I think one of the best set of baguettes I ever made was the time I was testing how many rises I could get out of the yeast, as there was a discussion underway that claimed you couldn't get more than 2 rises out of a lean dough without running out of sugars for the yeast to eat.

I'd let it rise for an hour, punch it down, let it rise another hour, etc. After 6 hours of bulk-rise, it was still rising just fine, and at that point I shaped, proofed and baked them.

[Mike Nolan]

Egg changes the texture of the bread a lot, be sure that's a change you want.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making a batch of semolina bread today.

[Mike Nolan]

Skeptic, a little vital wheat gluten might help increase the amount of rise you get from the generic whole wheat flour.

[Mike Nolan]

There was a story in the WSJ the other day about how Coronavirus is affecting the EU's agricultural/food structure. Right now it is common for pigs to be bred in Holland, sent to Poland for fattening, then shipped to Germany for processing. Produce often goes through similarly complicated channels.

[Author]

Posts