Hi there.
New user, however am familiar with BBS's... nice site. :D
I am a stay at home dad and have recently gotten hold of a book called "bread" but Eric Treuille & Ursella Ferrignio. it looks like a pommy book 8) however seems to be very good...
(I started a new thread I hope you dont mind all u Admonsters) ...
Anyway... I dont know how much I will use this forum as my true hobby is woodworking (great bbs : www.ubeaut.com.au - go to "forums") but I cant get out to the shed as the young lad wont allow it!!! we'll see how my time allows me to get on....
So my question; I've made one loaf - tried to post a pic in this thread... but dont understand this bbs's methodology for posting pics.... sorry... the book i mention above mentions a thing called "strong White Flour" but I cant find this sort of thing in the shops, just plain white, wholemeal, self raising etc etc... so if I just use "plain white" flour will this be ok ? I started a starter with fresh yeast and plain white flour and it came up fabbo but i didnt use "old" dough just more plain white and wholemeal ... will strong white improve the flavour ? is it available in Oz ? the loaf also got a bit stale quickly (2 days and it was getting quite hard) is this normal ? Arthur's Bavarian bakehouse s'doughs (West Pymble Sydney where we buy sourdough) doesnt seem to get stale as fast as mine did...
My starter fermented for 4 days with white flour and fresh yeast and knocking back, proving etc was all pretty easy but since I want to get this sideline hobby happening I'd like to get things better by each loaf. the book mentions some other great recipies I want to get into as well but I want to get each recipe right in its turn before moving on....
cheers
great site, thanks for the help in advance.
Replies
Now you are in the Termite's clutches you nose picking bloody chimp.
Welcome to the world of sourdough, you may find it a little quieter than the woodies forum, apart from a current knuckle with a rather obnoxious person.
Mate from what you have written about your starter, you were using "Yeast".
That is not sourdough and would be one of the reasons why your loaf went stale quickly. I can either email you some instructions for starting a starter, which may be difficult at this time of year, or you can read through some of the psots on the beginners section. OR I can send you some dried starter with instructions on how to get it going, I'm just about to dry some to send to New York.
As to flour, the prefered protein content is 11.5% or better, and a recommended brand is Laucke Wallaby Bakers flour. Should be available at Coles, though some branches are switching over to Defiance, which is no where near as good as it is only 11% protein. Generally available plain flour is somewhere between 9-10.8% protein and on its own is not suited to general bread making, not to say you won't make use of it as you gain experience.
My suggestion is to read all the posts on this forum and have a look at the following:-
http://northwestsourdough.wordpress.com/
http://www.danlepard.com/index.htm
http://www.northwestsourdough.com/index.html
http://www.sourdoughhome.com/index.html
http://bill44.wordpress.com/
Come back with all your questions, that's what this place is about.
Once again, welcome Zed.
PS. For those of you wondering about the opening line of this answer, I know this bloke from another life.
how did you know it was me ?
mate - mail me your recommendations by all means... i'll pm you me address.