Making bread, part 1

I’m making bread this weekend using Jim Lahey’s famous no-knead technique. The idea was too simple and the results promised to be too good not to try. Mix bread flour, salt, yeast, and water. Let it sit covered for at least 18 hours. Scrape the dough out of the bowl onto a floured work surface, fold it into a ball and let it sit for another 2 hours. Then all you need to do is preheat an oven to 475 with a heavy pot (such as cast iron) inside, fold the dough into the hot pot and bake for half an hour covered and another half an hour uncovered. And voilà: a perfect boule!

So I started the process at 6 pm yesterday so I could be getting the dough out of the bowl by noon today and baking the bread this afternoon. The first glitch: I sent Alan out to get bread flour and he could only find whole wheat bread flour. Lahey’s recipe for whole wheat bread calls for a proportion of whole wheat and regular bread flour since he finds that 100% whole wheat yields a bread that is too dense and gritty for his taste. So I mixed whole wheat bread flour and all-purpose flour.

Second glitch: after mixing the ingredients according to the recipe, instead of a “wet sticky dough” I got a very dry, flaky dough. So I added a bit more water and hoped for the best.

I checked my dough this morning. It didn’t look like much had happened. It was supposed to be bubbly. Oh no, is the yeast dead?? So I quickly tested some of the yeast I had used and it looks like it was very much alive.

Was it too much salt? Salt inhibits the yeast and Lahey calls for some inhibition but maybe the saltier Himalayan crystal salt was too much? Or was the all-purpose flour too soft? If the flour lacks enough protein, it won’t ferment.  After pacing a bit I decided to try a 100% whole wheat bread flour approach. So I’ve just mixed another batch in case the first one doesn’t work at all. Yes, because I’m determined that at least one loaf will come out of my oven this weekend!!

After mixing the next batch (same thing happened with the dough being a bit too dry and having to add extra water; this time I used regular table salt), I went back to check again on the first. To my great surprise it had started rising and it was now bubbly as it should be! Oh well, we may end up with two loaves. But that’s ok. Stay tuned.

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