Jeff Hertzberg’s Comment
May 8, 2008
Maybe I should have called this ‘Bread Week,’ but I wanted to highlight a comment from the post on my attempt at no-knead bread.
None other than Jeff Hertzberg himself, co-author of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Andy: I’m Jeff Hertzberg, one of the co-authors of “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.” Two tips I can give you. First, we never have the drying-out problem if the batch is covered well. In the fridge, I use Tupperware-like buckets, which I keep cracked for the first 24 hours; thereafter I close if fully and they don’t start inflating. That should take care of the drying-out problem.
But the small dense loaf… I’m not sure I can put that onto the Rapid-Rise yeast (which should work fine), or to the fact that you let it go for five hours in the initial rise. A longer rest after forming the loaf will probably help, try 1 hour and 20 minutes. Also, test your oven temp with a thermometer; that could be the likeliest culprit.
I may not be able to check back here, but please let us know how you make out by posting into any of the “Comments” fields in our blog at http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com
Jeff Hertzberg
(His second comment asked if I was baking at a high altitude, which I am not.)
I can’t believe that not only did he find the blog, but he was nice enough to comment and help me out. Jeff seems like a great guy and his bread blog looks good if you are into baking. Depending on how well I can get this bread to work, I am going to consider picking up his book. I just thought it was neat that the author of the book left a comment.
Also, thank you to everyone else who commented and gave me some advice/encouragement too – the blog is nothing without you.
Posted in Recipes |
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May 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
That is awesome! I love reading your blog and hope you keep it up for a long time. I even shared your site as one of my two favorite cooking websites in a recent blog of my own. Hope you don’t mind!
Keep it up!
May 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Andy,
My dough was wet, your dough was dry. Either one should still make bread. Next time, if you get that thing into the fridge sooner, you’ll get that perfect “artisan in 5″ loaf.
And, if you love sourdough, you’ll like the “one week in the fridge dough” bread. Especially if the yeast still has food for making your bread rise. And if you have it in a container that will really keep the moisture in.
Once you get one right, you can experiment to get that bread to meet *YOUR* schedule, by changing the temperature or the time, or even the amount of yeast you add. It all depends on the temperature in your kitchen, and when you are available to shove it in the fridge.
Don’t freak out! You are very close. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to do this in your sleep.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Thanks for the encouragement. I look forward to trying to get it more sour dough like.