Since my first blog, I've baked quite a bit, read a lot of books, done research on-line, watched countless bread related videos, and (hopefully) learned much. Before I deleted all of my previous blogs (I actually saved them as drafts), I read through most of them. I had to chuckle. While I did (luckily) manage to produce a fair amount of good breads, I had many that were mediocre at best (yet still edible), and more than my fair share of complete and utter failures. Inconsistency was a big issue for me. I'm now ready to learn from my mistakes and give it another go.
My plan is to devote the time to developing (and documenting) a good sourdough starter, and try some new recipes from various bread baking books I've acquired. I've amassed quite a nice collection on my iPad:
- The Bread Baker's Apprentice (Reinhart)
- Artisan's Bread Every Day (Reinhart)
- Bread Revolution (Reinhart)
- Whole Grain Breads (Reinhart)
- Bread 2nd Edition (Hamelman)
- Baking Sourdough Bread (Söderin, Strachal)
- Classic Sourdoughs (Wood, Wood)
- Flour Water Yeast Salt (Forkish)
- Tartine Bread (Robertson)
- The Art of Baking Bread (Pelligrini)
- A Passion for Bread (Vatinet)
- In Search of the Perfect Loaf (Fromartz)
- Baking Artisan Bread (Hitz)
- Bread Baking (DiMuzio)
My blog already contains some informative bread-related videos, but I'm sure I'll be adding even more from the extensive list of bookmarks I've collected over the years.
As of today, I have a new sourdough starter in the works (I'm also thinking of purchasing an authentic San Francisco sourdough culture). I'll be documenting everything to include:
- Starter hydration
- Flours used
- Feedings
- Times
- Ambient fermentation temperature / Starter temperature
- Observations: Taste/ Aroma / Appearance
- Mother starter information
- Dough making (hydration, mixing, fermentation, times, temperatures, scaling, forming, proofing, scoring, baking, etc.)
- Final crust and crumb observations: Taste, texture, aroma and appearance.
- Comments from my volunteer panel of taste testers :)
All of this is a plate full for sure (no pun intended), but I'm willing to give it a shot :)
Till tomorrow...
Joe
