Bread making is always an adventure. I've gotten good with pizza crust dough, so I decided to try bread again. I've never been able to get it the way I want it. This time I decided to try a version of the NYT no-knead bread. It used beer and vinegar to give it a sourdough taste, supposedly. This time I got the rise I wanted and the texture I wanted. But I didn't like the taste. Next time I try, I'm going to go back to the original NYT recipe and use that as my starting point.
Some things I learned from pizza crust dough experiments are that you should 1) use SAF instant yeast (I get mine from Amazon and keep it in baby food jars in the freezer) and 2) weigh your ingredients instead of using volume measurements - this is for consistency. It took me awhile to get the proper weight/cup balance with the flours I was using - a combination of unbleached bread flour and whole wheat flour - and the proper balance of flour and water by weight - by memory, I think the ration is 100 flour to 70 water, but I could be wrong. With pizza dough, I also added olive oil for workability, something that most recipes don't use. That came from lots of experiments. It's fun, but often frustrating :)
no subject
Some things I learned from pizza crust dough experiments are that you should 1) use SAF instant yeast (I get mine from Amazon and keep it in baby food jars in the freezer) and 2) weigh your ingredients instead of using volume measurements - this is for consistency. It took me awhile to get the proper weight/cup balance with the flours I was using - a combination of unbleached bread flour and whole wheat flour - and the proper balance of flour and water by weight - by memory, I think the ration is 100 flour to 70 water, but I could be wrong. With pizza dough, I also added olive oil for workability, something that most recipes don't use. That came from lots of experiments. It's fun, but often frustrating :)