So, any other bakers in the group?

That is some serious hardware. I unfortunately don’t have enough space for a good mixer. My parents got my wife and I a Bosch mixer for a wedding present and I can’t stand it, at least for bread making. The dough likes to creep up the inner spindle and get into the gears.
 
I used to make cheesecake when I worked at a bakery in college at Purdue. They had those huge Hobart floor model mixers and I’d have to stick my arms way down to the bottom to make sure everything was incorporated. Mmmm. I think I’d break about 100 eggs every morning back then. Pie crusts too for quiches with an automatic press- that was cool.
 
My wife has been taking on all the bread baking since The Plague started. She’s big on the no-knead technique, which is great by me. Our place is tiny and more power tools in the kitchen would not be fun.

I love fermented foods in any case. Used to do beer, currently doing Jun tea regularly, which is green tea kombucha with honey rather than cane sugar.
 
KR Sound said:
Those look fantastic. What kind of flour do you like to use?
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I was using King Arthur, but I couldn't find it anymore except in the 50lb bags online, and freight on those is a killer. I've been using Ardent Mills AP. I was using their bread flour (more protein) but that disappeared as well. The all purpose flour is a decent price in the 25lb bag and available at Costco.
 
RetiredUnit1 said:
Did she get the food allergy blood test? I THOUGHT I was becoming allergic to bread, because my symptoms would manifest after having bread. I got the blood test and low and behold I was allergic to eggs and milk. I stopped eating eggs and a month later I felt really sick. I took my blood pressure and it was 74/46!!!!!!

That's when I stopped taking Atenolol for my high blood pressure which used to average 145/95. That low BP scared me enough that I take my BP twice a day and keep it in a log to show my doctor twice a year. He likes that. But my BP this morning was 103/64. And all my stuffy head and poor indigestion problems have vanished.

Allergies tests used to be a painful thing, where they would put a patch on your back or chest and poke you with needles that had potential allergens on it and then they'd see where the red bumps were a week later. A friend of mine went through that and had skin problems for years afterwards. But now they just do it with a blood test, quick and painless.

Just a warning, I had to SLOWLY stop taking atenolol, it can cause major problems like DEATH if you just go cold turkey, so anyone that may have similar results DO BE CAREFUL.
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It's a complex gut thing that she would NOT appreciate me detailing here, not celiac or anything. Also struggles with weird stuff like carbonation. All the more disappointing since she loooooooves beer.

Glad you're keeping up on the BP, she's an FNP so she would be happy to hear that you're on top of it.
 
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RetiredUnit1 said:
I was using King Arthur, but I couldn't find it anymore except in the 50lb bags online, and freight on those is a killer. I've been using Ardent Mills AP. I was using their bread flour (more protein) but that disappeared as well. The all purpose flour is a decent price in the 25lb bag and available at Costco.
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You may be aware of this already, but I figured I might share just in case: you can add vital wheat gluten to AP flower to make your own bread flour. 2g of wheat gluten for every 100g of AP flour is what I use. No need to reduce the AP flour.

I do this for my pizza dough and it works wonders. It's also nice just having one bag of flour.
 
Passinwind said:
I love fermented foods in any case. Used to do beer, currently doing Jun tea regularly, which is green tea kombucha with honey rather than cane sugar.
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I have made a stab at Cyzer/Mead. been successful a couple times, but the last batch I let my airlock go dry and even though there was no visible contamination it was rank. Sad because it was a burnt honey recipe that sounded really good on a paper and smelled delightful when I was cooking it. Kombucha mothers are weird critters. Not a Kombucha fan, but for the sake of science and as a gift to a friend I cultivated one from some unpasteurized store bought kombucha. Rubber pancake is best I can describe it.
 
I made my own kombucha for a while. I never liked it but my wife did and it was expensive so I gave it a go since the ingredients are dirt cheap. I ended up loving it when it was homemade. We moved in to a new place just before the kiddo was born and I never picked it back up for some reason. I ought to get back to it.

I also used to make fermented hot sauces, pickles, and sauerkraut but again, stopped making them a while back. I've done sauerkraut a couple of times in the past few months but that's it.

@Harry Klippton is the fermentation king though, he's been inspiring me to slowly start back to it and why I was getting my funky groove back with sauerkraut.
 
KR Sound said:
I used to make beer for years and had a 3-tier full grain system that I gave to my cousin’s husband. I quit drinking almost 2 years ago now, so it’s not been a part of my life anymore. I really enjoyed it though.
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It's been over 10 years now but I did partial BIAB extract brewing for a while. I still have the stuff but haven't gotten to it. I don't drink beer much anymore, though I do still drink whiskey and wine, but most beer doesn't treat me well anymore for some reason.

I had a lot of fun when I did it, it's really cool learning all about it. I always wanted to graduate to full grain for more control but it's pretty surprising how good of a beer you can get with extract.
 
peccary said:
I made my own kombucha for a while. I never liked it but my wife did and it was expensive so I gave it a go since the ingredients are dirt cheap. I ended up loving it when it was homemade. We moved in to a new place just before the kiddo was born and I never picked it back up for some reason. I ought to get back to it.

I also used to make fermented hot sauces, pickles, and sauerkraut but again, stopped making them a while back. I've done sauerkraut a couple of times in the past few months but that's it.

@Harry Klippton is the fermentation king though, he's been inspiring me to slowly start back to it and why I was getting my funky groove back with sauerkraut.
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I never knew you and @Harry Klippton were fermenters!
Always wanted to get into it— watched a lot of youtube on it over the years. Always wanted to pickle my homegrown cucumbers and peppers, and make my own kimchi and horseradish
 
peccary said:
I made my own kombucha for a while. I never liked it but my wife did and it was expensive so I gave it a go since the ingredients are dirt cheap. I ended up loving it when it was homemade. We moved in to a new place just before the kiddo was born and I never picked it back up for some reason. I ought to get back to it.

I also used to make fermented hot sauces, pickles, and sauerkraut but again, stopped making them a while back. I've done sauerkraut a couple of times in the past few months but that's it.

@Harry Klippton is the fermentation king though, he's been inspiring me to slowly start back to it and why I was getting my funky groove back with sauerkraut.
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I still have some stash of a few different crazy wicked fermented hot sauces I did 5-6 years ago. Like Tabasco but with Habanero, Faitalii, Ghost, Scotch Bonnet,etc. We can grow most of those peppers right here in our yard. I do booze infusions a lot too, especially Habanero rum. Not for drinking so much, but killer for jerk sauce.

Jun is quite a bit different than regular konbucha: very mellow, super easy to do, and even more probiotic goodness.

I only did extract beers, but my then-GF and I were way into it and we would go get hops straight from some big commercial growers up in the Yakima area. They were perfectly happy to let us play post harvest gleaners for a free trunkload, good times. A few people from my old homebrewing circle went on to careers in commercial brewing, which is a very big thing here now.
 
peccary said:
You may be aware of this already, but I figured I might share just in case: you can add vital wheat gluten to AP flower to make your own bread flour. 2g of wheat gluten for every 100g of AP flour is what I use. No need to reduce the AP flour.

I do this for my pizza dough and it works wonders. It's also nice just having one bag of flour.
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I was NOT aware of this! I'd seen Bob's wheat gluten before but hadn't done anything more than a look and kept scrolling. I found the best price at webstaurantstore dot com at 4.44 a pound (average includes freight). Looking forward to experimenting with this!!! Thank You!

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KR Sound said:
I used to grow my own hops at our old house. I had 6 types and it was so cool to watch them take off each year. Cascade, Centennial (CTZ), Nugget, Galaxy (these grew the best), Sorachi Ace, and one more I forget.
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Centennial was always one of my favorites back when I was brewing, and of course Cascade is hugely popular here in the Pacific Northwet. But whatever grows best kind of is best. ;)
 
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