21–30 of 41 posts
If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
Eh, I found the Seattle artisanal bakeries (Fremont, Grand Central) to be better than all but the best I’ve found in Europe.
https://github.com/hendricius/the-sourdough-framework
3.6k stars
This guy and book is great. Idk if he invented it but he might have popularized using low hydration or high hydration starter to change the flavor of your sourdough.
The idea I remember is that lower hydration starter gives you yogurty flavor and high gives you more sour.
> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…
Reproducibility requires more than just measuring ingredients , however, as other characteristics can greatly change results. Leaven viability, flour moisture content, relative humidity, ambient temperature, and accidents of a home-baker's process (did you get interrupted by a child / work / partner / household exigency during your dough prep or bake) all have pretty sharp impacts on results. Precise reproducibility…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole obsession about measuring giving exact hydration percentages is strange to me. Assume you have 100g of flour at equilibrium 20% ambient humidity, and the same 100g of flour at 80% humidity. I don’t know how different the effective moisture content would be, but measuring the weight of the flour to the gram seems like you’re including the moisture in the weight of the flour. Maybe one packs denser on a scoop…
I measure by mass when I bake, but I've always had the same questions as you (about humidity, for example). That was always the answer I got when discussing volume versus mass measurements — that volume can change due to all sorts of things — but it always seemed to me that mass could change for the same reasons. I eventually decided mass measurements are most useful when the amount you need in mass is fairly small r…
Mass will only change based on things not related to your in-the-moment technique (e.g. humidity).
> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…
This is the crux.
Sure, if I bake a loaf of odd bread every couple of days, I will EVENTUALLY get good enough to produce something good rather than just edible. After how long? A week? A month? A YEAR?
So, in the interim, I am WASTING those ingredients and my time.
I liken this to knife sharpening. Sure, EVENTUALLY you will get the feel for sharpening on whetstones and then sharpening your kitchen knives is quick and straightforward. But how many times will it take--especially if you have no mentor to teach you? Alternatively, you can get a fixed-angle sharpener and have sharp kitchen knives tonight.
> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…
> You'll even get better at it till you usually get something good. This is the crux. Sure, if I bake a loaf of odd bread every couple of days, I will EVENTUALLY get good enough to produce something good rather than just edible. After how long? A week? A month? A YEAR? So, in the interim, I am WASTING those ingredients and my time. I liken this to knife sharpening. Sure, EVENTUALLY you will get the feel for sharpenin…
If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
I’ve always found King Arthur to be reliable? Their recipes are good and include metric, you can get the flour anywhere and they’re very proactive with support if you have questions about tweaking. Also good books. Good bread exists, it’s just not cheap like it is in Europe.
Boston Logan is probably your closest truly useful airport, and the Dartmouth Coach goes direct from there to Hanover.
The point of a ratatouille is not that it has precisely bell pepper, eggplant, tomato, and zucchini. It’s that it’s a stew of summer vegetables, and the point should be to figure out what the summer vegetables are for you.
We live in a world where we can buy summer vegetables in January (imported from across the world), so we don’t have to deal with those limitations.
I think it’s a fool’s errand to determine the precisely correct formula for the correct (tm) way of making x, y, or z.
This might be different if you work in a Michelin-starred restaurant or get a kick out of the scientific method.
But if you cook at home, the point is to make delicious things for the people you love.
Precision measure and mixing and timing helped me a lot in the beginning.
Though I still do that, I find that now I can rely on feel (experience if I'm honest) to know when the dough is just right.
Like with everything, there's probably a middle ground there but I think I just like having fun pretending I'm on a chem lab :)
My experience and conclusion was largely the same as the author. I found the brevity of many recipes frustrating, which led me to study the details of bread making.
The type of four, how much yeast, salt and water. How the water amount varies for so many reasons in a home kitchen.
Making 4 loafs a fortnight gives plenty of opportunity for iteration and learning. And over time I was able to develop a good understanding of dough hydration and how that affects the end product, and how it can make kneading and handling the dough easier or harder. There is a sweet spot.
This also led me to adding oil to a dough. Which acts to keep the gluten chains from getting too long and chewy, thus making the dough short.
It’s also how you make a great pizza dough.
From there I started experimenting with different flours, because I had to if I wanted bread. Running low on bread flour I added semolina, and also made a pure semolina loaf.
The main thing I’ve learned is there is a lot of leeway in the recipes that still produces tasty food. I’ve made some incredible and some woeful loafs that all taste great.
I still prefer specific recipes in metric, but I find more and more I’m reading into what the ratio of ingredients is doing and why.