On Friday night (Day 12), I decided to make a leaven in preparation to make bread on Saturday (Day 13). Even though I had some misgivings about the new Tartine starter (“Francis”), I worked up a leaven using it. As a backup, I also worked up a leaven using my “Cavanagh” starter. Come Saturday morning, … Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 12 & 13
For the Tartine Bread starter (which I’ve named Francis*), I’ve been roughly following the original amounts and proportions that Chad Robertson lays out in his book Tartine Bread. As I’ve said in earlier notes, for daily feedings he has you discard all but 20% of the starter and then add to the remaining blorb an equal mixture of flour and water. I believe he says something like “amount doesn’t matter.” But I’ve been adding back the same weight of stuff I’ve discarded. Which, yes, as my friend John Wozniak points out, is pretty wasteful of flour. (In fact, I’m now more than halfway through my two 5-pound bags of white and whole-wheat flours just on growing the starter alone). Flour is relatively inexpensive, and I anticipate I’ll modify the feeding once I make the recipe exactly according to the book. Continue reading “Tartine Bread, Day 11: Need to formalize starter proportions for Cavanagh”
Same as yesterday for both starters, though today when I got home I noticed that Cavanagh must be easily doubling in bulk, since I saw crusty evidence of that on the sides of the glass bowl I’m using to grow it in. This morning I tried using a timelapse video app to capture the activity while I was at work. Unfortunately, the app seems to have crashed about 15 minutes into the day. Going to try to set that up again this weekend or Monday. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 10: Video malfunction
Nothing much to report. Cavanagh continues to thrive. After mistakenly adding the 50-50 white–whole wheat flour mix to it two days ago, I’m back to white flour, and it looks the same as before. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 9
I’ve brought Cavanagh up from off the bench (i.e., the refrigerator) and have revived it after months of neglect. Which is first-hand proof for me that you really can resuscitate a starter you’ve all but left for dead. What I’m going to do is keep feeding the TB starter and see if I can get it to take, but if not, I’ll use Cavanagh next weekend to make my first loaf of the Basic Country Bread. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 7: Bringing in the designated hitter, Cavanagh
Seriously, don’t bother watching this video. Nothing much happens. I got the notion of setting up a time lapse thing so I could see if the starter really was bulking up as part of the feeding cycle, as the book suggests it will. This is about 3 hours’ worth of time here. I’m thinking I … Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 6: Time lapse video of starter after feeding
As I said yesterday, I decided to time-shift my feeding schedule to the mornings. Trouble is, I’m pretty groggy in the mornings. Today, for instance, I almost forgot about tending the starter. But then I went into the kitchen to take my vitamins, and BLAMMO. “What’s that smell?” … “Oh. Yeah. Gotta feed this thing.” … Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 5: The hardest part
I fed my starter last night around 9pm. In his book, Tartine Bread, baker Chad Robertson recommends feeding in the morning. Not for any technical reasons. It’s just how he likes to time his day, he says. So he can feed the starter in the morning and use it for bread that’s ready for dinnertime. … Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 4: Time-shifting the feed cycle
Just putting this up out of a sense of completism. There is nothing to report today. There’s no apparent activity with the starter. Hence no photo. It does not smell like anything other than flour. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 2: Nothing to see here, people
I picked up Tartine Bread over the weekend after seeing my buddy John Wozniak rave about it on Twitter. I’ve been meaning to find a great book on naturally leavened bread, and this seemed a good candidate. After reading the first chapter and coming to an understanding of the recipe, I felt I could justifiably start the “Basic Country Bread.” To make it, you’ve first got to grow a starter. Continue reading Starting a journey with ‘Tartine Bread’