Mike Nolan
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It was mainly a channel issue. From the time wheat is milled into flour until it shows up on retail shelves can be several months. The flour has to be aged, bagged and shipped, all of which takes time.
The first part of the year is also the traditional down cycle for millers, it's when they do a lot of maintenance.
Wheat stocks reported by the USDA remained in the 'normal' range during that time period. I wonder if shipments overseas were down, though.
I thought there was an earlier thread on this, I remember something about they were especially interested in 'failed' starters.
I may start a batch of burger buns shortly, they should be ready to bake about when today's heat has let up.
I think the flour supply is getting closer to normal, I was at Costco today and they had a big pallet of 12 pound bags of KAF AP for $5.99/bag.
One of the things we learned in Scotland was that they're pretty strict about what you can call a scone there. You better pronounce it right, too. 🙂
Brewers were the original suppliers of yeast in pure enough form and sufficient quantity for large scale use by bakers, in the foam skimmed off the top of the vat. I think most commercial beers have been heat-pasteurized, and yeast dies if it gets over 138 degrees, so adding beer to a recipe adds flavor but probably no active yeast.
Beer brewing and bread baking are both skills that have been around for thousands of years, nobody really knows which came first.
I think one of the microbrewery/restaurants in Lincoln may use some unpasteurized beer in a beer bread that also uses some spent grain, but they've got access to the raw products. I don't know if all the yeast comes from the beer or if they supplement it. I've never been all that fond of their bread, the residual beer taste is too strong for this non-beer-drinker.
I bought a 50 pound bag of clear flour from Stover Company (in the Pittsburgh area) when we visited my son last summer, froze about half of it, and over the last year have used it in a variety of breads, generally as a replacement for some or all of the AP/bread flour in the recipe.
It produces breads that have a bit more pronounced flavor, though not quite the nuttiness of semolina. The volume wasn't quite as high as with an AP or bread flour. But what I noticed most is that they tended to mold faster.
There are a number of recipes in the Ginsberg book that either call for first clear or say it can be used in place of AP/bread flour, recently I've been using it mostly in those recipes.
The price issue is kind of funny, old-time bakery books said that bakers used first clear flour in rye breads because it was cheaper than AP and the darker color wasn't a factor because the rye flour was even darker.
I had my former neighbor check on it, he couldn't even get clear flour from his suppliers unless he ordered a skid of it. Apparently it isn't sold west of about Ohio except for a few places on the west coast.
There's some evidence that whole grain breads might go moldy faster than ones made with white flour. I know when I started experimenting with first clear flour, which has more bran and germ than AP flour, I found the loaves went bad much faster.
It's probably because bran and germ retain more moisture than endosperm, so they release more as the bread cools. There has been an interesting thread in the BBGA forums lately on crusts, and how whole grain flours impact them.
When I've made English Muffins, I've found they have a short shelf life, probably because the interior is so moist. I generally only make them if I know I'll be using them within a few days. I don't think they freeze well, but your mileage may vary. Commercial recipes are loaded with preservatives.
I"ve done both the batter and the dough ones, I liked the dougn ones better and I thought they were less work to make, too.
I juiced 6 pounds of onions and wound up with about a half-gallon of onion juice, mother vinegar and alcohol to make onion vinegar and started it percolating, I'll monitor it over the next several weeks to see if it works.
I took pH and Brix measurements at several points, so I've got data to compare against.
My wife was worried it would stink up the basement, and it does smell like onions down here at the moment, but so does the kitchen when I make onion soup. What I don't know is how much the odor will dissipate overnight.
My wife asked me why I'm doing this. One reason is just to find out if it works. Another is that onion juice does not store well, even though it is anti-microbial. I'm hoping that turning it into a vinegar with a pH well below 4 will make it more stable.
The next day it isn't supposed to be in the 90's here is Thursday.
One of the things you have to be careful about is that as dough develops, it gets stiffer, so the strain on the motor increases. I've read of people who've burned out a 5 quart KA mixer with a really stiff dough.
I have a set of large round cookie cutters, for a bottom crust I'll use a 6" cutter, for top crusts I'm more likely to use a 5" round cutter.
I start by placing the cookie cutter on my scale and then lining the cookie cutter with plastic wrap. Then I measure in the amount of pie dough I want, depending on the type and size of pie usually anywhere from 200 to 350 grams. I fold the plastic wrap over the top and use a flat metal tool (a coffee tamper) to compact and flatten it into an even circular disc, then take it out of the cookie cutter. I wrap it a second time if it is going into the freezer, then label and date it with a felt tip marker.
If you do it right, this creates almost no mess to clean up.
When I want to make a pie, I take a disc or two out of the freezer a day ahead of time. Because it is already 5-6 inches in diameter, it doesn't take a lot of time to roll it out to the desired diameter, generally from 8 1/2 to 14 inches. (One of these days I promise I'll finish and post my table of how much pie dough to use and big the pie crust has to be to fit various sized pans and types of pies, an extension of the concept in a PJ Hamel KAF Blog post from several years ago.)
Happy Birthday Cass, cheesecake would make a great birthday cake!
I've been thinking about making Irish Apple Cake using the apple pie filling I have in the freezer, but I'm waiting for some cooler weather.
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