Resolving the Picture Backlog

  Now that Google fixed the problem that was preventing bloggers from uploading from their Picasa program to their Blogger accounts, I can get up to date. I also found a new scale that I hope will eliminate the measurement consistency problem that I've been wary of in the past few loaves.

The first few pictures are a pain complet au son or whole wheat with bran. I was trying to work out a formula that's smaller in size than my usual 400g total of flour. It wasn't the right time for my scale to display problems in measurement. Not a bad loaf for eating but my recipe didn't follow expectations. 



       





























The next two pictures are from a pan marino, an Italian bread with rosemary and olive oil. The bag of flour in the background is White Lily Bread Flour which I had expected to be a little bit softer than my usual Dakota Maid BF. I started with a 60% hydration biga that I made overnight. My recipe math was set up to deliver a dough with 70% hydration but it didn't feel like 70% dough to me. The crumb photo shows a dense texture. While I need to do much more work on the recipe, I do enjoy the flavor the rosemary imparts to the bread.

















This final set is from my first attempt at J Hamelman's "Vermont Sourdough with Whole Wheat". This is the loaf that convinced me that my old scale was falling down on the job. I had the whim to try a loaf that used a 125% hydration starter and this came up at the top of my list. This loaf turned out to be about 275g larger than most of my loaves. In the matter of procedure and execution, this wasn't one of my finer loaves but I did give myself good grades for my seat of the pants adjustments. Mrs PG has requested that I try it again and soon so I guess I can relax for now.

Here on the city limits of the First City in Kansas, we've been fortunate enough to get 2.5" of rain in the past five days. That's more than we got over the previous three months. The lawns are starting to green up in the patches that survived and many of the plantings in the flower beds are reviving as well. We're also fortunate enough to have large numbers of cardinals flying in and cheering us with their song.

Football season has returned to the Midwest and the NFL season starts tomorrow night. Oktoberfest beers are plentiful in the liquor stores, just in time for the season.

Have I ever mentioned that NFL football and US Presidential elections are my favorite spectator sports?


Comments, humor, and questions are welcome.