Proofing - raising questions????

[Frances]

Thanks Jim and John!

I'm really pleased (and surprised) with how well its going so far, you've certainly made another sourdough convert here...

I do usually slash my bread, but this lot was rather highly hydrated, and I thought it would slosh all over the place if I tried. I noticed the box cut on those pictures - nice!

[sarah h]

Frances, your bread looks great! I got bogged down and didn't get any starter going yet, but this will serve as inspiration - I'm off to the store for some un-clorinated water.

[CanuckJim]

Sarah,

Don't forget, I'm not that far from you. Unless you're very tied to the idea of a do it your self operation, I'd be more than pleased to send you some of my starter to get you started. Err, what did I just say? Anyway, let me know. A kick start, sometimes, is a good thing. Err, what did I just say?

Jim

[Dutchoven]

Frances
For the really hydrated doughs you can clip them with kitchen shears...well any sharp shears for that matter...
Dutch

[sarah h]

Jim,
I'd, err, be happy to accept your kind offer and will shoot you an e-mail with my coordinates. Thank you!
Sarah

[Inishta]

Originally Posted by Frances

Here's a pic of one of the four small loaves, and one of the copious notes I had to make to get there...

Love the notes..................and I can relate to the "something" bit on the right hand side. My head has been hurting from the first page of the topic............

I'm not doing anything in the baking department till I get the rest of the construction side further on.

[CanuckJim]

Sarah,

Will do. Give me a few days, and I'll get if off to you, including feeding notes.

Jim

[Frances]

Talking of clorinated water... our tap water has 13 mg/liter, the lowest clorine content I found for bottled in a preliminary search at the shop has 12 mg/liter.

(Hey Inishta, fancy doing the math for convertions? Since your head is hurting already...? )

Although its working fine, I'm still curious to know how this compares to what you people are using. Do you have zero clorine water?

[sarah h]

If I'm doing the math right (always chancy for me!) my bottled water, at 2.7 ppm of clorine translates into .0027 mg/litre (mg being fairly equal to ml for water). Even if I'm off a few decimals, it's still very low!

[CanuckJim]

Sarah, Frances,

Chlorine is a gas. If you let the water sit out for a day, chlorine actually evaporates. What's of more concern is whether the water is hard or soft. Most municipal water is on the hard side. To avoid taking chances with water at all, I've used bottled water (no salt added), filtered water (I have a large filtering system [Sarah, on sale at Crappy Tire from time to time]) that gives room temp, cold or hot water. It's very useful for manipulating the temperature for the water I use in bread making through the seasons. Also, I have a source to the north for extremely soft deep artesian well water that is the best.

Spock (er, Sarah) beam me those coordinates so I can beam up the starter.

Jim