Hoarding and baking bread

[Peter Easterling]

Flour? Even yeast? None on the shelves I've seen. I asked a couple of supermarket employees what have they seen being hoarded. Cereal, 6 gallons of milk at one time and watermelons. OK, not watermelons. Anyone seen foolish hording recently?

[terracore]

When Long's had a sale on all purpose flour a few weeks ago we bought 10 bags (50 pounds) and probably looked like hoarders, but that is the normal amount that we purchase. We bake and barter bread with other farmers and friends and have for years. I usually get 50 pounds bags from Costco but the sale was good and Costco is a 200 mile round trip. We buy the 2 pound bread yeast packages from Costco and one lasts us a few years. But if one has flour and no yeast they can bake bread by going online and learning how to do a sourdough starter. It takes 7 days before one can turn out their first loaf but in the "olde daze" people didn't use commercial yeast to bake bread, it's just a convenience.

I don't know if its easier to find but champagne yeast makes good bread. But bread yeast makes horrible champagne.

If somebody on Punaweb NEEDS yeast but can't find any I will send them some.

eta: accuracy

[d96778]

Terracore , would you mind sharing your bread recipe? It seems that everything I ever knew about bread making doesn’t seem to work here with the humidity. I got 50# of flour from Costco, & my daughter sent me instant yeast from the mainland & I’ve tried both regular bread & revived my 150 year old sourdough from Alaska. The sourdough overnight bread rose well last night, but fell this morning. I made it anyway, & hubby loved it. The regular loaf that I made a few days ago just didn’t rise very well & didn’t have that wonderful taste & smell that I’ve always associated with bread making. I’d sure love to get some tips from you re: bread making. Thanks, Dee

[terracore]

If you lose this thread do an internet search for German no-knead bread recipe. There are also sourdough recipes. The "secret" is that the yeast works the gluten overnight which eliminates the kneading and takes all the effort out of making the bread.

Oma's Artisan Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour
1½ tsp active dry yeast
1½ cups warm water
1 tsp salt (some people like more)
extra flour for dusting

Instructions:

Mix the first four ingredients together in a large bowl with a wooden spoon or use your hands. The dough will be sticky and look a mess!

Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Let the bowl sit on the counter (at room temperature) for at least 12 hours and up to 18 hours. The dough will rise and the top will be bubbly and sticky. (In tropical temps it can frequently be done in 8 hours)

Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit inside of dutch oven. Place paper on counter and sprinkle lightly with flour.

Lightly sprinkle flour on counter. Gently put the dough on it. Sprinkle a bit of flour on top and fold the dough over on itself twice, shaping it into an elongated ball.

Gently place onto parchment paper. Cover with a large bowl that doesn't touch the dough

Preheat the oven to 450°F and put your Dutch oven (see above) into the oven to heat for about 30 minutes.

Remove preheated dutch oven and, using oven mitts (see note above), gently lift parchment paper with dough into it and cover with lid. Be careful ... use oven mitts! Return to oven.

Bake at 450° F for 30 minutes. Remove lid and continue baking for another 15 minutes or until bread is golden brown.

Remove to a rack and let cool before slicing.

.... that's the basic recipe. We like to add garlic, herbs, etc. This recipe works fine in Hawaii but at VERY high humidity the loaf doesn't rise as much.

https://www.quick-german-recipes.com/art...ecipe.html

[ironyak]

I'll repeat this here - yeast is free for the taking everywhere (flour not so much)

Corporate sponsored: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/...ter-recipe

Social media yeast geneticist "viking" endorsement: https://twitter.com/shoelaces3/status/12...9041974272

Old-school wild yeast capturing from nature: https://www.motherearthnews.com/real-foo...0z1804zmos

As for hoarding, if it sits on a home shelf as well as a store shelf, then it's really just micro-warehousing closer to the point of consumption, right?

[terracore]

A lot of the sourdough recipes say things like you have to use "whole wheat" or "unbleached" flour etc because they are assuming the yeast is coming from the flour itself. That isn't really true. There are plenty of wild yeasts in the air (esp in the tropics) that will work on all purpose flour, it just might take longer.

[Ccat]

Your recipe seems about right! Similar to mine.

I have recently read that because people now have a lot of time on their hands, they are baking *5* times as much as normal! And they have the time to do yeast bread. Yeast makers can’t keep up!

Hooray for YouTube! We may never go back!


Ccat.

[kalakoa]

Use beer instead of yeast!

3c self-rising flour (or: 3c flour + 3tsp baking powder + 1tsp salt)
1/4c sugar
1/2c melted butter
12oz beer (bud-miller-coors, dark beers make funky bread).

Sift the flour! MIx everything up, bake in a greased loaf pan for 1h at 375F.

For added "zing", mix in some shredded cheese, chopped green onion, etc.

[terracore]

Maybe this should be in the "silver lining" thread but people are learning to make bread from scratch, raise their own food, even the chicken hatcheries are sold out as suburbanites are raising egg hens for the first time. I see a rush of people trying to learn and practice the things that I was taught growing up. I think it's great. I just dread that when all of this is over people will let their gardens get reclaimed by grass lawns, they will give away their chickens (especially when they age and stop laying), and go back to store bread again. Maybe they wont. Time will tell.

[geochem]

Interesting that this got started today - there is an article in the Trib food pages today that describes in detail the initiation of sourdough using the King Arthur Flour recipe.

I've never tried sourdough - am surprised that it will work here. Many years ago, my Dad brought some sourdough starter out (from a batch that he had maintained for years on the mainland) when he visited - it completely cratered inside a week. Just too much other stuff floating around in the air - got into the mix and completely overran the sourdough yeast.