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austingirl

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Everything posted by austingirl

  1. You don't want to make starter with that - if you have instant yeast just use it to make bread like usual. The purpose of making your own starter is to corral enough wild yeast so you don't have to use commercial yeast if you don't want to. I'm a big fan of the pineapple juice technique to make starter - it gets you around one of the most common issues you can encounter and you can get to making tasty bread faster. If you want the science behind it, there's an essay linked in the article above.
  2. Rocket is up to 98 lbs but still insists on sitting with me in the recliner like when he was a tiny puppy. At least we both still fit. It's like having a warmer weighted blanket that breathes and farts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  3. Used half of my normal sandwich bread recipe (basic white sandwich bread from The Bread Bible) to make burger buns. Egg wash gives them a nice golden crust. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
  4. Better company than most humans, I imagine. I hope you get answers soon. I get it on the money. We adopted Rocket from the Austin Humane Society for ~$50 and have spent ~$5k so far on his hip dysplasia, but it's whatever. He needs surgery on his other side and I'm almost looking forward to spending the money because he's in pain and it will help. (They suspended all non-essential surgeries at the vet hospital because of the shortage of PPE and whatnot so they could give supplies to the human hospitals.)
  5. Looks awesome! I'm glad it turned out well! My son asked if we could have homemade burgers this weekend so I think I'm going to whip up these buns while I'm at it.
  6. This was my problem with that Bombshell movie about Fox News. Haven't watched Mrs. America yet but it's on my list.
  7. Edgar did this to me once, except it was a freshly killed dead rat and I was in the middle of a conference call. And I was working in our guest bedroom and he dropped it on the guest bed.
  8. Ok that's why your loaf was dense. The discard won't work on its own because it needs to be refreshed and "woken up" before it can leaven bread. Usually, you'll pull it out of the fridge, refresh it, and let it sit till it at least doubles, and that's when it's active enough to give you a good rise. The discard on its own still adds good flavor but it needs help from commercial yeast to leaven bread if you're adding it straight out of the fridge.
  9. The discard plus additional yeast, or just the discard?
  10. I think the issue is that recipe - it's weird for a yeasted dough to require no rise time. Looks like others are having trouble in the comments, too. Try this one and see how it turns out. It sounds like you might be underkneading, too. In a stand mixer, you know you're good when the dough starts to pull away from the sides and comes together in a ball. At this point, most sandwich bread feels soft and maybe a bit tacky, but not sticky. And passes the windowpane test.
  11. Can you post the recipe? If you're over 10k feet you may need to adjust for altitude, but there's likely something else going on. Is your flour fresh? Are you using active dry or instant yeast? Instant yeast doesn't need to be soaked in water first, so that'll eliminate any potential issues with water temperature. Are you kneading by hand or with a stand mixer, and for how long? You shouldn't need bread flour unless you're making sourdough, as long as your AP flour is fresh, but whichever flour you use, you'll need to be sure you're kneading it enough to develop the gluten. After you first knead it, before letting it rise, is the dough smooth or does it look like batter? If you tried to pick up a piece of it, would it come away easily from the rest of the dough, or try to stay in one ball with the rest of the dough? One thing to use when determining if you've kneaded long enough is the windowpane test - you should be able to pick up a small piece of dough and gently stretch it enough so that you can see light through the other side, without the dough tearing. If it tears, it needs more kneading.
  12. So when it sticks, is the dough tearing? If you're making something with a really wet dough, like a no-knead bread, you should do the final proof in the cooking vessel itself so that you're not messing with it after the last rise. Actually, most of the time, you should be able to do the final rise in the cooking vessel to avoid transfer problems. For sandwich loaves you'll do the final proof in the loaf pan and then pop it straight in the oven. For other shapes, like boules, batards, etc., you should do the final proof on a baking sheet lined with silpat or parchment and then put that in the oven.
  13. It's not consistently laugh-out-loud hilarious, and I think I went into it expecting that because on the surface, it looks like another version of Arrested Development. But the characters are genuinely likeable, much more so than you'd think given their backstory, and I like that while they are biting and snobby at times, the family relationship is endearing. Amidst some great storylines and characters. Don't forget the compilation of every time Moira says "bebe".
  14. Looks great! I think tomorrow I'm going to make a soft white sandwich bread with instant yeast and AP flour - the kids like it, and I've run out of bread flour and haven't been able to find anything, so straight sourdough is mostly out of the question. I did travel to the Pflugerville ALDI last week to find AP flour and it was the only flour I was able to get my hands on, so I'll make do.
  15. On day 3 you were probably tasting the bacteria that forms in the early stages of starter creation, and that early bacteria should be overtaken by the yeast and long-term bacteria at the point you're at. At this point, you've probably got a good growth of yeast, but the good bacteria takes longer to settle in, and that's what gives you the traditional sour taste. I go more by sight and smell to tell when it's ready to leaven bread on its own - if you're using a 1-1 ratio of flour to water, the mixture will be loose, like batter, with a bunch of bubbles, and it'll smell almost like beer. I've never used a dough scraper, and while I do like my banettons, they're by no means necessary. They give a nice design on the crust, and it's nice to have dedicated proofing bowls if you bake a lot, but regular mixing bowls definitely work as long as they're the right size. What kind of issues are you having transferring to the oven?
  16. I think they temporarily stopped delivering alcohol because they are doing no contact delivery - thus, no checking id. Oh shit, you're right. NM.
  17. Favor delivers beer and wine from HEB.
  18. What recipe did you use? What kind of flour and yeast? Also, how big were the dough balls when you made them before rising? Did you use a steam pan when you put them in the oven? I'm guessing you did a bulk ferment first (letting all the dough rise in one big lump) before shaping them into balls for the next rise? It's pretty common to make the dough balls too big at this point - for burger buns, they should be slightly bigger than a golf ball. Also, for the best results you'll want to shape them into mini boules before rising, as opposed to just rolling them into balls. They'll rise better. It's not hard - this is a good tutorial. I usually use the envelope fold method. Finally, consider scoring them just before putting them in the oven - it'll help the rise by giving the bread a predetermined weak point at which to break when it does its oven spring.
  19. It's hard to say what could've happened without the recipe or pics - can you post them? I made some last week and added some sourdough starter leftover from a refresh. It adds such a great flavor. Here they are after the bulk fermentation and before an overnight rise in the fridge. Finished
  20. It can take up to 3-4 weeks to get one going from scratch, so don't worry if it feels like it's not doing anything. What flour did you use to get it started? Whole wheat? I almost exclusively make soudough, and a few things that are nice to have (but not completely necessary are) a stand mixer, pizza stone, Silpain, and banettons.
  21. Cards Against Humanity released a family-friendly, free, online printable version. Will probably try to play today.
  22. A girl I went to high school with died Wednesday (obit here) and I am much sadder about this than I thought I'd be considering I haven't talked to her in ~20 years. She was married to her HS sweetheart and he was a good friend of mine back then. Last May she was diagnosed with a rare high-grade neuroendocrine cancer that started in her endometrium. She fought hard but it was so aggressive - about a month ago they found tumors everywhere in her body. Brain, abdomen, everywhere. Just two weeks ago she finished whole brain radiation, and last week she did another round of chemo. I guess I expected her to drift away more gradually, but it sounds like the latest round chemo put her through the ringer. She took a turn for the worse overnight and that was that. She was 40. Here's to Amy.
  23. So...Schitt's Creek doesn't have its own thread? I just dug up the guitar tab for Noah Reid's version of Simply the Best. I'm definitely a fan.
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