Here's a step-by-step guide on how to make an an Epi de Ble and a Dragon Tail Baguette. The Epi looks like wheat while the Dragon looks like, well, a dragon tail. Funny how that works. Even if you aren't into cooking, you might be into knowing how your food comes to take its end shape, right? Maybe?

The AV Club has posted this Gateway to Geekery for Danzig. Check it out.

Hey bro, like, whoa, wait, check this out. Some dude who has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his well-researched journalism is using decades of statistics, social studies, and logic, as well as the very loud voices of those involved in the drug war, to advocate for the legalization of marijuana. He is claiming that the ban on marijuana is as effective as prohibition, that it disproportionately targets minorities, and that we are essentially draining money from our cash-starved social services to finance a losing war on drugs while the only people who profit are those involved in the black market. Whoa. He must be totally stoned.

No, seriously.

"In honor of James’s arrival, the Miami Herald and its public-radio partner, WLRN, have organized a poetry contest, requesting submissions of six lines or less, six being the number on James’s new uniform."

I, like everyone else even remotely aware of professional basketball, am in awe of LeBron's athletic talent, but let's be real. Best case scenario: LeBron goes out onto the court, puts up really impressive numbers, plays a beautiful game, and the Heat win. The next day, we all wake up to our old problems.

This New York Times piece criticizes Jon Stewart for not grilling the President. Well, not really, because the article states that Stewart voiced traditional liberal complaints about his administration. It would also be unfair to say he was deferential, as the article also states that Stewart called Obama dude and described his policies as "timid." Yet, the author takes a critical tone to an unremarkable exchange between two rehearsed public personalities who were, more or less, doing what they always do. It seems like a desperate scramble to criticize Stewart in one of the most publicized periods of his career. I'm definitely a fan, but what is more disconcerting to me is that there only seems to be two stories about public personalities in this country: Their rise and their fall. Maintaining the status quo just doesn't sell.

Here's a link to an in-depth interview with Brad Schoenfeld who recently published a scientific how-to-get-freaking-hyuuge article in a peer reviewed journal. Exercise science has always fascinated me, but I lack the necessary foundation to understand a lot of it. What I do absorb, I try to apply and have had fairly good results from my efforts.

I haven't read his article, but even Schoenfeld's interview feels like a graduate-level course. I have no background in biology, so most of this is over my head, but what I did understand, I found useful. Thankfully, with the exception of occasionally training to failure, I am regularly employing these ideas.

Well, more like the Jets react. Defensive players have been pretty outraged over the new (or newly enforced) concussion rules in the NFL. Even though they were implemented under the guise of player safety, it seems that not every player wants to be that safe. Let's be honest: This is as much about future earnings for the league as it is for current players. No one will let their kid grow up to play football if they know it will surely result in brain injuries. That means fewer players in pee wee leagues, fewer on high school teams, and less talent marching up each tier of the ladder towards the NFL. The NFL isn't just protecting its stars, it is ensuring that future stars come into the league and that football does not go the way of professional boxing. Good luck with that.

Well, sort of. Google "world's most rational man" in quotes. Thanks to Arianna..

Here's an interesting link on how to make some of the more obscure bread shapes. They are some repeat slides (BOO!) but it is otherwise very helpful. I have had some trouble with advanced baguette shaping techniques (like the dragon tail) and the goddamned tordu. I hate the tordu, yet am drawn to its elegant simplicity and blossomed twist. Oh well. I am going to give it another shot this weekend.

Here is a picture of a well-formed tordu:



It's from Susan's Wild Yeast Blog, which is just a fantastic resource. Here's her explanation on how to form the tordu. I gave it my best shot, but I think the dough was too active and I wasn't aggressive enough with my flouring. Practice makes perfect, I guess.

A lot of people (the very few who read my blog) have told me that they have no clue what I am talking about when I write about bread. I've tried to include some more detailed explanations in this post to explain what everything means.

This weekend I decided to stop messing around with my baking and pay closer attention to each stage of the baking process. I wanted very sour bread with a nice crust, a very open crumb, and a wheat flavor.

I started by decreasing the hydration of my barm to 50% (meaning two parts flour to one part water). A barm is a starter culture that contains wild yeast. It can also be called a sourdough starter, mother starter, etc. It is more or less referring to the same thing.

Hydration refers to the relationship of water to flour in a dough. Flour is what is called a "100% ingredient." That is to say, it is the benchmark in all recipes. So, if I have 4 ounces of flour and 3 ounces of water in a dough, it has a 75% hydration rate because water comprises 75% of the weight of the flour. Alternatively, if I have 6 ounces of water and 4 ounces of flour, I have a 150% hydration rate. Same reasoning applies.

Hydration typically does what you think. It makes a softer, looser crumb. However, when we are dealing with a barm, it has an added effect of enabling the growth of acetic bacteria. "Acetic bacteria prefer the denser, less-aerated environment of the firm starter; lactic bacteria prefer the wetter sponge of the barm method." (Bread Baker's Apprentice, p. 234). My goal was to make a very sour sourdough by decreasing the hydration of my barm for a day or two prior to starting the recipe.

I started the bread on Friday night. I followed Reinhart's base sourdough recipe. To do so, I had to adjust the flour:water ratio of the firm starter to accommodate the change in hydration of the barm. The math isn't bad. Reinhart's firm starter calls for 4 ounces of barm, 4.5 ounces of flour, and 1-2 ounces of water. The barm is normally 100%, so that means that it represents an addition of 2 ounces of water and 2 ounces of flour. So the final firm starter should have 6.5 ounces of flour and 3-4 ounces of water. My 4 ounces of barm had 2.67 ounces of flour and 1.33 ounces of water because it had a 50% hydration rate. 2.67 is two thirds of 4 and 1.33 is the last third (remember, it was a 50% hydration barm). So, to reach the prescribed flour:water ratio, I had to add less flour and more water to to the firm starter to make up for the dryness of the barm.

It was at this stage that I added some spelt flour. It is similar to wheat and I thought that it would bring out a nice flavor. The firm starer had 20% spelt and the final dough had about 15% spelt. It was enough that the bread had a strong wheat flavor but was not so strong that the bread had a wheat texture. Also, gluten development in whole wheat breads is very difficult and, since I was going for an open crumb, I knew that the more spelt I added, the harder my goal would be.



In addition to making the firm starter on Friday, I also mixed the final dough's flour and water together for a process called autolyse. The reason why bread has a shape and is not a soupy mess is because the flour has protein that, when activated, form long strands of gluten that hold the shape of the bread. Gluten gives bread a chewy texture and helps create an open crumb. Autlysing is the process of mixing the flour and water together and allowing the water to work its way into the flour and develop the gluten. It doesn't require much effort beyond a rough mix of the two ingredients, but it does involve some patience.

I wanted to get a very open crumb, so I chose a 12 hour autolyse. As the yeast eat the natural sugars in the flour, they produce ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide in the process. The alcohol gives the bread flavor and the carbon dioxide gives the bread an open crumb (meaning air holes, etc.). If the yeast did not release carbon dioxide, the bread would be as dense as a flour/water mix. However, if the gluten is not well-developed, the carbon dioxide will diffuse throughout the bread. That means there won't be an large holes (think good baguettes) and the dough will instead have a tender, even crumb (think brioche or sandwich bread). Where the gluten is not developed at all, a lot of that gas will escape. That would be bad. Since I wanted a very open crumb, I tried hard to fully develop my gluten. Hence the 12 hour autolyse.

The firm starter and flour/water mixture sat out for 3 hours and then went to the fridge to hang out overnight.

I made the dough the following morning at 8:30, meaning I mixed the firm starer in with the flour/water mixture that had been autolysing and added the .5 ounces of salt called for by the recipe. Instead of letting the yeast get acclimated in the new dough, I had to throw it in the fridge right away to go watch Northwestern unfortunately lose to MIchigan State. Oh well. When I got home at 4:30, the dough looked anemic. I gave it a warm rise by taking it out of the fridge and letting it hang out in my kitchen until about midnight. I then threw it back in the fridge for the night, took it out the following morning at 8 a.m., gave it an hour or two to rise, divided it and let it rest, shaped it and let it rest, and then baked it.

The bread was good. The dough looked flat when I shaped it, but it had tremendous oven-spring. The crumb was exactly what I wanted and the crust was a deep brown. It could have been more sour, but I am not sure how much the spelt flour inhibited that aspect of its flavor profile. Oh well. This is the first time that I have been entirely happy with my baking technique. I have some work to do on scoring, etc., but this was a breakthrough. Bread is a slow food. You just can't rush it. I guess the same goes for learning to bake.

The title is misleading. There really aren't any. According to this New York Times artice, football helmet safety standards are designed by the industry to prevent skull fractures at the expense of avoiding concussions. The standards themselves are not produced by any third party or government agency, but are instead propagated "by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, or Nocsae, a volunteer consortium that includes, and is largely financed by, the helmet makers themselves." The standard is, predictably, tailored to meet the legal needs of the helmet manufacturers. Since it is the only applicable standard, it provides a defense against legal liability ("your honor, the helmet in question has met the industry standard and is in no way defective") as well as the helmet producer's financial needs, e.g. unclear and weak testing guidelines, little oversight, etc. Accordingly, there is no incentive to make a safer helmet or to create new guidelines. If the Nocsae standard is raised, then thousands of helmets now in circulation will be unusable or, worse yet, used but unsafe by industry standards (lawsuit). If a new standard is created, helmet manufacturers will face a similar problem with their helmets now in circulation and will also lose the financial benefits of a loose standard. Of course, the people who will suffer the most from a helmet recall would be those with little funding for their football program. Poor high schools could potentially face a dissolution of their football programs due to a lack of equipment.

It seems as if football is at a crossroads in this country. The information that has leaked into the public consciousness regarding the long term effects of repeated concussions and brain tissue damage won't be forgotten. Further, it has clearly changed the economics of football in a way that even the most aggressive, pro-contact player can't ignore. A portion of many players' salaries will one day be allocated to caring for the mental injuries they incurred while playing the sport. In turn, their football earnings/football-related expenses will be drastically altered. However, the violence which has caused so many of these injuries has also made football the most popular sport in America. Surely, then, hard hits cannot be removed from the game. Perhaps equipment design holds some of the answers. The only thing I am certain of is that, should the NFL decide that a better helmet design is necessary to stave off head injuries, the standard will change overnight.

I should start by saying that a room temperature biga is not bizarre sex act that only frat boys are capable of defining. It is an Italian pre-fermented dough. Bigas, like poolishes and pate fermentes, are flour/water/yeast mixtures which ferment overnight (or longer) to extract flavor from a portion of a bread's final dough. I typically follow Reinhart's pre-ferment recipes, which call for the pre-ferment to be refrigerated after an initial 3-4 hour rise, but I decided to veer away and try something different. Reinhart calls for the refrigeration of the pre-ferment to slow the yeast's reproduction and feeding. The longer the yeast feast (assuming ample food for the yeast supply), the more flavorful the bread will be. At some point, the yeast will eat all of the simple sugars in the flour, break down all the starches, and leave you with a puddle of very sour, wet dough. Also, without any food, the yeast will go dormant, which will obviously hinder the final dough's ability to rise. So... you don't want your yeast to eat all of the sugar in the dough, but you also want to give them enough time to eat a good portion of it.

Let's get nerdy. The Artisan's Yeast Treatise explains the relationship between yeast growth and temperature.

Temperature Activity
-20 C. (-4 F) Loss of Fermentation Capacity
< 20 C (68 F > 40 C (104 F) Growth Rate Significantly Reduced
20 C (68 F) - 27 C (81 F) Most Favorable Range For Yeast to Multiply
26 C (79 F) Optimum multiplication of Yeast Achieved
27 C (81 F) - 38 C (100 F) Optimum Fermentation Range
35 C (95 F) Optimum Fermentation Temperature
> 60 C (140 F) Yeast cells Die

Most refrigerators are going to maintain a temperature in the second lowest range. So, if you have time or don't want a strong flavor, a refrigerated pre-ferment is probably the way to go. Unfortunately, I had to mix the final dough some 12 hours later. I put in a fraction of the yeast called for in the recipe, added 1/10 whole wheat flour, and let the mixture sit out on my table overnight. It helped produce some delicious bread. The whole wheat, although just a fraction of the final dough, imparted a noticeable flavor, surely due to its incorporation into the biga. The bread had fantastic oven spring (better than expected) and was a great compliment to the sausages we made. I wonder if there is an algorithm to express the various time + yeast:flour ratios that would produce the same pre-fermented doughs. Oh well. Here's a picture of the bread proofing in an old (but very clean) towel.

I don't even know how I learned about tiger bread, although I imagine The Fresh Loaf had something to do with it. Tiger bread is bread that looks spotted, like a tiger. It is really that simple. There isn't a special tiger recipe for the bread. Any bread can be tiger bread if it is topped with a spread that, when baked, will cause the bread to look spotted. The technique is also known as Dutch crunch. Wikipedia, as always, gives the concise and simplified breakdown.

"Tiger bread or Dutch crunch is made with sesame oil and with a pattern baked into the top made by painting rice paste onto the surface prior to baking.[1] The paste dries and cracks during the baking process, creating a two-colour effect similar to a tiger's markings, hence the name. The rice paste crust also gives the bread a distinctive flavour. It has a crusty exterior, but is soft inside. Typically, tiger bread is made as a white bread bloomer loaf or bread roll, but the technique can be applied to any shape of bread. Some supermarkets in the UK have taken to naming the shapes of bread, such as Tiger Tails for sticks, Tigar Paws for small rolls, and Tiger Chest for the large loafs.
Tiger bread originates from the Netherlands, where it is known as tijgerbrood and has been sold at least since the early 1970s but probably originates from the time when the Netherlands had trade with South East Asia.
It is sold as "Dutch crunch" in delis throughout the San Francisco Bay Area[2] and other parts of California served by Winco Foods supermarkets, but is little known in the United States outside that region.[citation needed] In the United States it is also sometimes known as dragonette bread."

So, I decided to wing some tiger bread this Friday. I had read about it earlier in the day and saw some recipe that called for semolina flour and water. Seemed easy enough. Well, it wasn't. The semolina paste never cracked and gave the bread that spotted look. It seems that oil and sugar are included in every recipe and those two essential ingredients were lacking from my formulation. Oh well. Here's my sad tiger bread.



For those of you who are interested in making tiger bread (anyone?) here is a link to a good Fresh Loaf discussion. I may give it another shot this weekend. I think it would work especially well with sourdough.

I think Kanye West is an amazing producer. I don't think there are many people who would say he is not talented. The most common, and most valid, critique of Kanye is that he is an egomaniac who either can't rap or stopped trying long ago. Frankly, I think his egomania has produced some very conflicted tracks and its unabashed narcissism is really unparalleled in popular culture. This is all besides the point. Sometimes, it's easy to forget that Kanye crawled his way into stardom by being an amazing producer who is at least one step ahead of his peers. Check out this old Scarface track from 2002 (two years before Kanye debuted as a rapper). It's just a simple hip hop beat that has enough dynamism and layers to carry an-otherwise-horrendous chorus and some unremarkable rap.

This might be a bad bread week. These baguettes tasted good, but there was plenty of room for improvement and they were WAY TOO WET.

I wanted to follow Peter Reinhart's Pain de Campagne recipe, but instead of preparing a pate fermentee (pre-ferment) the night before, I made a poolish. The next day, when I proceeded with my recipe, I didn't really think about the effect this would have on my bread. A pre-ferment has twice the yeast of a poolish and has a hydration level of 60-70%. A poolish, on the other hand, has a hydration level of about 100%. Oh well.

I did an 80/20 bred flour/dark rye flour blend and started off with a 30 minute autolyse to kick start the gluten. Also, still unaware of the impact the poolish/pre-ferment mixup would cause, I added an extra ounce of water to the recipe. By the time I mixed in the poolish, the bread looked like soup. I added an extra 2.5 ounces of bread flour, but it was still incredibly wet.

Baker's Percentages

Poolish
Bread flour 100%
Water 107%
Yeast .27%
Hydration 107%

Final Dough
Poolish 177%
Bread Flour 84%
Dark Rye Flour 16%
Water 56%
Yeast .8%
Salt 1.5%
Final Hydration 80%


The Proofing Baguettes
Shaping the dough was nearly impossible. There was always a part of my hand that had wet dough on it and no matter how much I floured the counter and my hands, it seemed like it was never enough. I managed to shape four baguettes and gave them all about a 2 hour proof. They looked like overfilled water balloons (but are probably a much more effective way to ruin someone's day). I ruined two of the four by transferring them to my peel, but the other two turned out well. The baguettes browned nicely and had a nice light rye flavor. The crumb was loose, but not cavernous. Frankly, I expected a more open crumb, but I am starting to realize that gluten development also plays a large role, and my gluten probably wasn't as developed as it could have been.

Overall, these were good but unremarkable. I need to ferment my poolish or pre-ferments for longer and start elongating the bulk fermentation by placing the dough in the fridge. Also, if I am going to go off recipe in a dramatic fashion, I need to do the math beforehand. Even if I had my flour/water ratio down, being short on salt or yeast would have harmed my bread's flavor. Oh well. Baby steps.

I've started and stopped writing this thing so many times that I hardly know if a new post deserves some sort of acknowledgement or my sporadic posting. Let's say it doesn't so we can get to more important matters.

Sourdough.

When I bought Peter Rheinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I promised myself that I'd bake my way through it. Several months later, I've found myself distracted by a few breads. I like to think of them as staple breads: ciabatta; sourdough; pain de campagne; brioche; pretzel rolls; etc. They are the breads that earn a mention by name when they appear on a menu. They are also heavy on skill and offer a baker an expansive array of variations.

There are a lot of great websites for home bakers, but I often find myself turning to the The Bread Baker's Apprentice when looking for a base recipe. It's heavy on pictures and Rheinhart adds enough commentary to make me feel comfortable with my process.

For this loaf of sourdough, I decided to try out a few new things (scientific process be damned). First, I knew I wanted a lighter and softer sourdough. My last sourdough was a pain Poilane, with its dense and sour wheat crumb. It was filling and at times overpowering. I knew the crumb was going to be heavy going in since the bread was all wheat flour, which lacks the protein of white bread flour.

The effect of protein in flour is something that I am still learning about, but it has a substantial effect on the bread's texture. Basically,

Gluten is the characteristic in flour that creates good bread. It is the strands of protein that are created when the dough is kneaded. You want these tight and springy. Since whole wheat flour contains all parts of the wheat kernel, cup for cup it has less protein than white flour (which has had part of the kernel removed). Adding white bread flour helps improve the balance.

So this time around, I wanted to go in the opposite direction. I decided on a bread flour/semolina flour blend at an approximate 70/30 ratio. Semolina flour is high in protein and would also contribute to my bread's crust and crumb color. Semolina flour imparts a light and nutty taste as well. However, at 30% of my bread's flour, its effects wouldn't be overpowering.


Bread Before Bulk Fermentation

I also knew I wanted a higher hydration sourdough. The most I bake, the more I want to work with wet doughs. They tend to produce more open crumbs and softer bread, although they are much harder to shape and handle. Reinhart's basic sourdough recipe calls for 12-14 ounces of water. I increased that to 15 ounces, but also changed the starter/final dough ratio from 1/3.4 to 1/2.8 by adding 6 oz of 100% hydration barm instead of 4. It sounds way more confusing than it is.

Baker's Percentages

Firm Starter
Barm (100% hydration): 133%
Bread Flour: 100%
Water: 33%
Hydration: 60% (assuming barm is equal parts dry and wet)

Final Dough
Firm Starter: 54%
Flour (30/70 semolina KA Bread Flour): 100%
Salt (should have increased this due to addition of extra starter, but forgot): 2.5%
Water: 74%
Total Hydration: 77%

As you can see, this is a very high hydration sourdough. Unfortunately, I lacked the time to sit around and do stretch and folds to develop the gluten, so I had to resort to using my stand mixer. I did a rough mix, followed by a 20-30 minute rest, 4-5 minutes of kneading, followed by a 5 minute rest, and another five minutes of kneading. On the first knead, the dough was barely clearing the sides of the bowl and looked a little soupy. On the second knead, it was clear the gluten had begun to develop and the dough began to look more pliable and stable.

Bulk ferment for four hours at room temperature. I found shaping to be a bit difficult. I made three boules at roughly 400g each (I switched units because my scale only displays ounces to the tenth place, but an measure in grams. Since 1 gram = .03 ounces, I can be more precise in grams. Unfortunately, most American bakers and baking recipe books use ounces). Anyway, it wasn't too hard to get surface tension on the loaves, but the dough was very tacky and I had to use a lot of flour to be able to grip and stretch it. Even then, I always found part of the boule sticking to part of my hand.

The original Reinhart recipe called for a 2-3 hour proof. I did not have that time due to a family engagement. I could give the bread a 1.5-2 hour proof at best. So I did the first half hour of proofing at room temperature and then placed the proofing bowls near my pre-heating oven for the last hour.

The dough was pretty flat when I took it out to bake. It was very wet and probably could have used a bit more kneading and another hour of rising time. At least one of the loaves stretched out a bit when I tried to take it from the proofing basket (well, the bowl I used to proof the bread in). This almost certainly affected the crumb and flattened the bread. Oh well.



I usually set up my oven with the steam pan below the baking stone, but decided to mix it up this time around and put the steam pan on top.

After 40 minutes of baking, the bread looked too pale on top and too brown on the bottom. I think the steam pan was in for too long and that the wetness of the bread also delayed the onset of a hard crust on top. The bottom was crusty though, almost too crusty. I attribute this to the baking stone being on the bottom shelf.

I was disappointed when I took out the loaves, but they tasted great. Two of the three loaves had a nice open and airy crumb. The semolina flour gave the inside a nice chewy texture and a heartier taste. Unfortunately, I didn't photograph the best loaves (I took one with me for my car ride and gave the other one away). I did take a picture of my least favorite loaf, which looks flattened as advertised, but still has some nice holes.

Overall, it was a nice flavor but the color and shape of the loaves ruined them for me. Also, having the baking stone on the lowest shelf produced an uneven crust on my bread, something that I absolutely hate.

Next time, I will use the middle shelf for my baking stone, try less water in my steam pan (I think having too much is hurting my bread color), decrease the hydration to something more workable (roughly 65-70%), and do some stretch and folds.

I wonder what happens if I try this with baguettes.