Maintaining Levain

I keep two pounds of starter on hand in my fridge. I prep my starter the night before I am going to use it. If the starter has been in the fridge, I pour off any accumulated alcohol into the sink and discard half of the starter by weight, then replenish what I removed with equal amounts flour and filtered water.  

I leave it on the counter overnight. The starter usually spills out of the container overnight, so putting the container on a piece of parchment paper makes next-day cleanup easier. 

The next morning I remove a pound for baking, and add a fresh 8oz. of water and 8oz. of flour to my starter container, let it sit for 3 hours, and then I pop it back in the fridge. 
Some other helpful hints: 

•  Always maintain at least a pound of starter. 
•  If you bake every day, you don't need to refrigerate the starter; and if you use it often, you won't need to throw away any, you can use the pound you would otherwise discard. 
•  If I am going to need more than a pound, I build up my starter mass over a few days, doubling its mass each day.  I don't discard any starter when I do this, I just keep adding more mass. 
• I always discard any gray, discolored starter from the top before using it. 
• And finally, I don't discard the starter down the sink, as I'm afraid it could accumulate in the drain lines.

California Homemade Food Act

Reposted from Mark Stambler's post on LABB Meetup site:

"Governor Brown signed the California Homemade Food Act this morning [21 September 2012]. It goes into effect January 1, 2013. 

We'd like to work with the Health Department to figure out a way to make sure the law goes into effect swiftly and fairly. Please leave comments and suggestions below. Again, many thanks for all your help." 

A wonderful example of our democracy at work -- special thanks to Mark for getting the ball rolling, to the Sustainable Economies LAw Center for all their help, and to California Representative Mike Gatto for introducing and championing the legislation over the past 9 months or so!

The text of the law is available here. 

LABB Bake Sale

Check in table.

A couple of weekends ago, Mark Stambler and members of the Los Angeles Bread Bakers organized a renegade bake sale to benefit attempts to pass a cottage food law in California that would legalize bakes sales, and the direct and indirect sales of bread and other safe foods.  


Currently, food cannot be sold unless it has been prepared in an inspected, commercial kitchen.  This include breads, cookies, jams, and other foods that are commonly sold at bake sales, fundraisers, etc. 


More than 30 states have laws in place that allow home-baked goods to be sold either directly to consumers or through retailers or both, but California is not one of them!

Sweets for sale.

A bill has been introduced by Rep. Mike Gatto (AB 1616) and has cleared the Assembly Health Committee. If you are interested in supporting this bill, please encourage your friends and neighbors to have a bake sale!  

We were able to organize our sale in less than six weeks, with only two meetings, and a flurry of emails.  The bake sale raised $3000 to support the Sustainable Economies Law Center's work on the bill, and it was a lot of fun! 


More about the proposed law can be found here: http://www.theselc.org/cottage-food-laws/

Club Buy

A little over a ton of flour after being delivered in LA to be divided among members of the LA bread Bakers.

I now have 50 pounds of High Mountain, 25 pounds  of ABC, and about 15 pounds of medium ground, whole wheat flour to play with. All of the flour is organic, all from Central Milling in Logan, Utah by way of Keith Giusto Bakery Supply in Petaluma, CA.

The quality of this flour is wonderful, and being able to buy in bulk keeps the cost under $1 a pound.  LABB members ordered 40 bags of flour; hopefully we will be able to do another buy in about 3 months -- or sooner.

Pizza Dough Mixing

For those of you not taking notes at the workshop on the 18th, here is the mixing schedule that we used for the pizza dough:

• mix pre-ferment + flour + water (no salt) on low for 4 minutes
• 20 minutes bulk ferment, covered
• add salt and mix on medium 6-8 minutes
• 45-60 minutes bulk ferment
• One fold
• Return to bowl for 30-45 minutes
• Quick shape & divide
• shape into 10oz. balls, cover and retard at 40° for 90 minutes
• pull the dough from the retarder 1-1.5 hours before baking.

And here are some other notes:

• Desired dough temperature is 76°
• Hydration was 70%
• Salt was 0.5% (a scant tablespoon)
• Friction factor for the KitchenAid mixers is about 20°

We rushed the retard part on Saturday.  As a result, our dough developed a little less flavor than it might have with a longer retard, but gluten development didn't suffer at all, so, yes, you can push the times.

I usually do a 70% hydration with high-protein flour (Central Milling High Mountain, Giusto's Ultimate Performer, or Tipo 00 pizza flour will all work).  Avoid adding flour after the first mix; it's okay to adjust consistency by adding water during either mix.

I posted the XLS file that I use to calculate specific dough proportions on the LA Bread Bakers meetup page under "files."

Desired Dough Temperature (and other stories)

The issue of "desired dough temperature" just came up on the LA Bread Bakers page so I thought I'd post my interpretations of Jeffrey Hamelman's formula(s) from his book "Bread."


It's pretty simple concept with two key variations: there are separate formulas for calculating dough that uses commercial yeast, and dough that uses a levain, poolish, starter, or sponge.  All the formula does is compare the average temperature (in Fahrenheit) of the target desired dough temperature, to the average of the temperatures of the components of the bread.  The output of the calculation is the water temperature.


The calculation also takes into account a nifty fudge-factor called "Friction Factor" which is different for hand mixing and for each type of mixer.  Mixer manufacturers often publish the "friction factor" for their mixer.  For example, my Electrolux is usually listed as having a friction factor of 6°, whilst I usually use 12° for handmixing.  Some standing mixers can impart as much as 24° into the dough during mixing.


To do the calculations you will need:

• a food thermometer with a range between 40° and 200° (a barrista-style one works well)
• some way to measure the ambient temperature of the dough prep space
• the estimated friction factor of your mixer (use 24° if you don't know)
• the desired dough temperature (use 76° if you don't know)
• a calculator and/or paper and pen

It might seem kind of complicated, but in practice it's straightforward.

Here are the formulas: (Because this is computer-land, the * means multiply, everything else is a minus)

Formula for bread with a starter:
(Desired Dough Temperature * 4) 
- Ambient Room Temperature 
- Starter Temperature 
- Flour Temperature 
- Friction Factor      
= Water Temperature

For dough with commercial yeast:
(Desired Dough Temperature * 3) 
- Ambient Room Temperature 
- Flour Temperature 
- Friction Factor      
= Water Temperature


Example for a dough with starter:
Desired Dough Temperature = 76°
Ambient Room Temperature = 72°
Starter Temperature = 74°
Flour Temperature  = 68°
Friction Factor = 6°


(DDt*4)-ARt-St-Ft-FF=Water Temperature
(76*4)-72-74-68-6 = Water Temperature
304-72-74-68-6 = 84


So in this case you would want to add water that is about 84°


Once the dough is fermenting, take the temperature again.  If the dough temperature is above or below the target, you can adjust the friction factor up or down a bit to compensate.  For example, I use a friction factor of 4° for dough made in my particular mixer and usually end up with a final dough temperature of between 75° and 77° for dough with about 70% hydration.

Oven up and running again

Saturday night I made 100 ounces of dough for pizza with these proportions:

pounds	ounces
1	0.0	levain
3	1.3	Flour
2	2.7	Water
0	1.0	Salt

Which was almost the same as the focaccia dough (75% Hydration) I described in the earlier post.  Because of time constraints I had to make the dough the night before, fold, divide, and shape it, and put in the fridge overnight.  The dough was in the fridge from 12-midnight until about 2:30, when I pulled it out and started the oven fire.

I wasn't too happy with the results.  It was just too wet to easily work with -- especially for kids and neophytes.  The extensibility was fine, but  something was amiss.

Also, the oven took FOREVER to heat up!  It wasn't ready for the first flatbread until almost 5:30 -- it took nearly 2 1/2 hours to reach full temperature, and then I had trouble keeping it hot.  This is only the second weekend since the holidays that we used the oven, so it's probably drawn a lot of moisture into the insulation.  Last year it took three, successive firings to get the oven to behave.

Luckily, the pizzas tasted great and we had cake friends and wine, so who's complaining!

Focaccia al Silverton

Thursday was my daughter's Jr. High School graduation.  A party was held at one of the graduates homes to celebrate.  Originally the plan was to make pizza in their wood-fired oven, but under the influence of Nancy Silverton's recently published focaccia recipe, we decided to try that instead.

I did some calculations based on the LA Times article and determined that her hydration was 75% +/- with about 2% olive oil, salt, and about 3% rye flour added.  I swapped whole wheat for rye (as I didn't have any rye in-stock) and using my standard starter (levain), mixed up two batches of dough the night before for a total of 180 ounces of dough.  I let this ferment on the counter for an hour and a half, then did a fold, and put in a dough tub in the fridge overnight for a retarded ferment.


My friend Andrea did something similar, but an 80% hydration and 30% wheat flour.


In the morning I pulled the dough from the counter, let it warm up, and then did another fold. I trucked the dough over to her house about three hours later and divided it and did quick shapes into 18-ounce balls.  


The balls were placed seam-side down into 12" pans that had been filled with about a quarter cup of olive oil.  After resting for about 30-40 minutes we started topping them with onions, peppers, olives, tomato, and herbs.  all in all, we made about 30-40 focaccia, and then cooked them over the next few hours 6 at a time in her oven.


The flavor was great -- but I think next time, we will cut back on the olive oil, significantly. 

photos: K. Labby