The lull after the storm
Dec 2016. Nearly Christmas. The lull before the storm. Actually it feels more like the lull after the storm, having just had our second child, and having moved into our new home. So in this lull felt it was high time to press out some words on the lovely WordPress and tell you about some rehydration.
What are we rehydrating?
Three things are getting some much needed hydration here at Doughies:-
1) Our wheat sourdough starters.
So a nameless someone (don’t want to spoil a Christmas present here) asked for a starter for Christmas, and I said I’d see what we can do. If you’re running a sourdough bakery day in day out, that’s no problem, but Doughies has been a bit dormant during our life storm of late, and specifically our starters have been in dried dormant mode. But I thought this request was a good excuse to follow up on an old post I did “how to drying and store your starter”; with a new post on “how to hydrate your dried starter”. I haven’t done this before, (I learn through doing!), and to make it fun I have started a blank starter (just wheat and water) alongside the rehydrated starter (wheat, water and dried starter) as a comparison in speed – the rehydrated dried starter should be quick to good condition; the other one slower, but let’s see over the next few days (there a strong chance that due to proximity and the these bakery hands that they will both ramp up quickly together.
2) The sougdough starter guide.
So item 1 has given the push to finally do something about the sourdough guide (which you can read about here) as you can hardly give out a starter Christmas present without saying how to use it. And we have been 90% finished on the first draft of the guide for a while now. And although far from perfect this post from Leo B of Zenhabits reminded me that getting a first draft of the guide out quickly even tho it’s not perfect is ok, as sometimes it’s better to get something out and not focus on perfection, else you’ll lose focus and never progress. So the guide is coming out, burrs and all, to accompany the starter Christmas present.
3) Doughies – the Bakehouse
Here’s the big one. So with our house finished, we at long last have a space to bake from. Here it is:-
There’s lots to do; kit to clean, shelves for all those baskets and loaves, the oven still hasn’t made it in yet, and in due course we’ll need to register the space so as we can sell bread, but 2016 is looking good for some good old sours rolling out the oven again at long last..:)
That’s the rehydration post over – recommend readers now go rehydrate with either a cup of earl grey (or as I am doing perhaps a good craft wheat beer 😉
doughies 