Bread Mixes For Breadmaking Machines

[xerostar]

Thanks for that tip Dustoff!

The image of a fine hand saw has long been the emblem of a true craftsman at work.

Used for metalwork, carpentery, dovetailing, joinery and many other functional tasks around the shop!

Now I'll just make sure the blade is free of steel or brass filings before I use it on the bread!

No seriously, I know the standard bread knives with the "saw edge" soon lose their sharpness.

I imagine a hacksaw blade with fairly course teeth would be best.

Would you still need to mount it in a hacksaw? - otherwise how do you maintain directional stability?

Wouldn't my sandwiches look a bit uneven with differing thicknesses and wedge shaped slices?

A Tenon saw should work well too ..

.. then again someone showed me a nice new Bandsaw down at the hardware ..

Some of my loaves are not that soft - I know, maybe a Mechanical Hacksaw!!

As a last resort .. has anybody seen this?

http://www.killsometime.com/video/video.asp?ID=297

Happy Baking everyone!

[p1p]

For best results, always keep yeasts (and flour if possible) in the deep freeze.

[Crow Boy]

No seriously, I know the standard bread knives with the "saw edge" soon lose their sharpness.

IF the bread is causing the blade to lose its sharpness then you may be baking the bread too long or the yeast hasn't let it rise properly

I imagine a hacksaw blade with fairly course teeth would be best.

Would you still need to mount it in a hacksaw? - otherwise how do you maintain directional stability?

Wouldn't my sandwiches look a bit uneven with differing thicknesses and wedge shaped slices?

Happy Baking everyone!

A tip I got from a baker a long time ago was that if you are Right handed try to find a Left hand bread knife. The scalloped edges are on the standard knife are on the RHS. With the sawing action and the nature of the bread it causes the loaf to twist. This is why many people start off nice and even at the top and have a door wedge at the bottom. A left hand knife has the scalloped edges on the left and counteracts the twisting motion.

For people who are natural left handers this is the one time that they can buy a "lefty tool" much cheaper than that for a "righty".

CB

[bunta71]

I saw my dearly departed mother do a fine job cutting a large watermelon with a handsaw once....there are certain instruments that in combination can help with the directional stability issue and the Dustoff dude knows what I'm talking about. Coincidently only needed when in a "fog". Seriously though bread knives last fairly long when they are used ONLY for cutting bread and not things that would normally be cut with a hacksaw.

[Crow Boy]

I saw my dearly departed mother do a fine job cutting a large watermelon with a handsaw once

You are correct that sometimes people use stange combinations. When we killed a steer at home the easiers way to split the backbone was with a chainsaw. You just had to remember to turn off the chain oiler or it made the meat taste "funny"

I came home one day to see my beloved one and her mother had been doing some pruning in the garden. My block of kitchen knives was sitting on the table under the now somewhat dramatically reduced mango tree. They had discovered that the bread knife is excellent for sawing through branches upto four centimetres thick after which the meat cleaver is a useful alternative. The kitchen shears came into their own for snipping through thinner branches. It took me several hours with a whetstone and then steel with a couple of bottles of beer to restore them back to condition.

They had totally ignored the secateurs, pruning saw and hatchet that were in the garage and had in fact walked past them to get my good set of knives. <sigh>

It still makes me cringe when I hear her go "chop chop" and know she is using the vegetable knife as a cleaver on the chopping block.

CB

[bunta71]

Not sure if female ingenuity is an oxymoron....anybody know anything about that? Seems I have seen smaller bags of bread flour at Limping Market...maybe 5 pounds or so.Just to keep on subject you know

Edited November 20, 2007 by bunta71

[SwaziBird]

Not sure if female ingenuity is an oxymoron....anybody know anything about that? Seems I have seen smaller bags of bread flour at Limping Market...maybe 5 pounds or so.Just to keep on subject you know

Tops Supermarket in Central Kad Suan Kaew are selling small 1lb (450 gram), brown paper-bag wrapped, whole wheat flour for under 30 baht and rye flour slightly larger (750 gram) for not much more. Both are imported from Australia - but they are simply flour and not mixes. There are "bread improvers" also for sale - but as we all know , getting the right mix by experimentation can be so frustrating. The pre-mixes are usually just perfect - but, alas and alack - there don't appear to be any readily available.

If you are looking for those smallish brown paper bags they're on the lower shelves of that section .

Cheers

[Crow Boy]

There are "bread improvers" also for sale - but as we all know , getting the right mix by experimentation can be so frustrating. The pre-mixes are usually just perfect - but, alas and alack - there don't appear to be any readily available.

If you are looking for those smallish brown paper bags they're on the lower shelves of that section .

bread improvers are frequently just ascorbic acid which helps the yeast to start and also works as a preservative so the bread tastes fresh and stays soft longer. If you want to add a bread improver the easier and cheaper way is to crush a vitamin C tablet into the mix. Try for a better quality one with more ascorbic acid and less filler. In my experience using fresh yeast and making the bread with care is much better. If the bread is really good you will be lucky to have any left over for toast the next morning. Oh and btw day old bread makes much better toast than fresh.

CB

[zorro1]

No seriously, I know the standard bread knives with the "saw edge" soon lose their sharpness.

IF the bread is causing the blade to lose its sharpness then you may be baking the bread too long or the yeast hasn't let it rise properly

I imagine a hacksaw blade with fairly course teeth would be best.

Would you still need to mount it in a hacksaw? - otherwise how do you maintain directional stability?

Wouldn't my sandwiches look a bit uneven with differing thicknesses and wedge shaped slices?

Happy Baking everyone!

A tip I got from a baker a long time ago was that if you are Right handed try to find a Left hand bread knife. The scalloped edges are on the standard knife are on the RHS. With the sawing action and the nature of the bread it causes the loaf to twist. This is why many people start off nice and even at the top and have a door wedge at the bottom. A left hand knife has the scalloped edges on the left and counteracts the twisting motion.

For people who are natural left handers this is the one time that they can buy a "lefty tool" much cheaper than that for a "righty".

CB

I'm ambidextrous by the way im also gluten intolerent so no wheat products . Has anybody tried a corn,rice or any non wheat flour mix? would love to know

Edited November 20, 2007 by zorro1

[SwaziBird]

There are "bread improvers" also for sale - but as we all know , getting the right mix by experimentation can be so frustrating. The pre-mixes are usually just perfect - but, alas and alack - there don't appear to be any readily available.

If you are looking for those smallish brown paper bags they're on the lower shelves of that section .

bread improvers are frequently just ascorbic acid which helps the yeast to start and also works as a preservative so the bread tastes fresh and stays soft longer. If you want to add a bread improver the easier and cheaper way is to crush a vitamin C tablet into the mix. Try for a better quality one with more ascorbic acid and less filler. In my experience using fresh yeast and making the bread with care is much better. If the bread is really good you will be lucky to have any left over for toast the next morning. Oh and btw day old bread makes much better toast than fresh.

CB

Hi Crow Boy,

You have to tell us you were /or still are a master-baker.

How do you know all of this stuff ? - or are you simply saying things and hoping no one will check up ????

All pretty fascinating as to just how much can go into or can ruin the simple old "staff of life" .

All I know is that the Thai liking for SWEET bread makes it difficult to find a good loaf without travelling vast distances. Pity.

I suppose the compensation comes when you eventually manage to get a decent loaf. Trouble is, that it's gone before you know it and then it's back for another long haul.

Cheers

[Crow Boy]

Hi Crow Boy,

You have to tell us you were /or still are a master-baker.

I grew up on a sheep cattle station in Australia and the nearest bread shop was 100km away so we had to make a lot of our own stuff. When I was a kid with all the workers and family the average bake was 12 loaves which were done in a big woodfire oven. Between toast in the morning and sandwiches for smoko (morning and afternoon) plus lunch and dinner we went through a lot of the stuff. I did a stint in a bakery as a part time job and was told part way that they didn't need me anymore. I had just spent a couple of hours inside an industrial oven scraping and cleaning it so was really impressed. My next and last job was to slice and wrap all the bread. Loaves get fed into one end of the machine that has a set of reciprocating saw blades (like a multi blade jigsaw cutter) and then slid into the wax paper wrapping machine. From there they are sold to customers. Instead of cutting the loaves transversely (ie across the loaf) I sent them down lengthways. It was more difficult getting the loaf into the wrapping machine but I soon sorted that out. Did the whole days bread at the shop all cut this way. Collected my pay and left with a couple of bags of cakes from the bakery staff. A week later I saw one of the bakers and he told me to never go near the shop because the boss was going to kill me and turn me into meat pies. He had to replace all the loaves when screaming customers came back calling him an idiot. Does that count?

How do you know all of this stuff ? - or are you simply saying things and hoping no one will check up ????

I have an enquiring mind and like doing stuff like this. Over the years I have worked some pretty odd kind of jobs. I also pick up lots of useless information around the traps from other people.

All pretty fascinating as to just how much can go into or can ruin the simple old "staff of life" .

All I know is that the Thai liking for SWEET bread makes it difficult to find a good loaf without travelling vast distances. Pity.

I suppose the compensation comes when you eventually manage to get a decent loaf. Trouble is, that it's gone before you know it and then it's back for another long haul.

Cheers

There are a few good bakery shops around the place but there are commercial aspects to every venture or they don't last long. English style bread is different to the US which is not the same as German/Swiss/French/Dutch so it is hard to find a loaf that suits Farung style and will be eaten in sufficient quantity to make it worthwhile. I used to get Damper from Pie Sabai but they stopped because only the Aussies wanted it and that made it uneconomical to make.

My bread machine is about 5 years old and has made a lot of "pretty average loaves" everytime I change the flour or water or yeast or whatever there needs to be an adjustment made to the mix. It ain't easy I tells ya - if it was everyone would be doing it.

The guys I really respect are people like p1p who makes his own bread from basics and built his own wood fire oven to bake it - does pizza as well Hmmmm.

At my home we don't even have an oven - fully fitted kitchen just no electrical or gas connections

CB

[SwaziBird]

Hi Crow Boy,

You have to tell us you were /or still are a master-baker.

I grew up on a sheep cattle station in Australia and the nearest bread shop was 100km away so we had to make a lot of our own stuff. When I was a kid with all the workers and family the average bake was 12 loaves which were done in a big woodfire oven. Between toast in the morning and sandwiches for smoko (morning and afternoon) plus lunch and dinner we went through a lot of the stuff. I did a stint in a bakery as a part time job and was told part way that they didn't need me anymore. I had just spent a couple of hours inside an industrial oven scraping and cleaning it so was really impressed. My next and last job was to slice and wrap all the bread. Loaves get fed into one end of the machine that has a set of reciprocating saw blades (like a multi blade jigsaw cutter) and then slid into the wax paper wrapping machine. From there they are sold to customers. Instead of cutting the loaves transversely (ie across the loaf) I sent them down lengthways. It was more difficult getting the loaf into the wrapping machine but I soon sorted that out. Did the whole days bread at the shop all cut this way. Collected my pay and left with a couple of bags of cakes from the bakery staff. A week later I saw one of the bakers and he told me to never go near the shop because the boss was going to kill me and turn me into meat pies. He had to replace all the loaves when screaming customers came back calling him an idiot. Does that count?

How do you know all of this stuff ? - or are you simply saying things and hoping no one will check up ????

I have an enquiring mind and like doing stuff like this. Over the years I have worked some pretty odd kind of jobs. I also pick up lots of useless information around the traps from other people.

All pretty fascinating as to just how much can go into or can ruin the simple old "staff of life" .

All I know is that the Thai liking for SWEET bread makes it difficult to find a good loaf without travelling vast distances. Pity.

I suppose the compensation comes when you eventually manage to get a decent loaf. Trouble is, that it's gone before you know it and then it's back for another long haul.

Cheers

There are a few good bakery shops around the place but there are commercial aspects to every venture or they don't last long. English style bread is different to the US which is not the same as German/Swiss/French/Dutch so it is hard to find a loaf that suits Farung style and will be eaten in sufficient quantity to make it worthwhile. I used to get Damper from Pie Sabai but they stopped because only the Aussies wanted it and that made it uneconomical to make.

My bread machine is about 5 years old and has made a lot of "pretty average loaves" everytime I change the flour or water or yeast or whatever there needs to be an adjustment made to the mix. It ain't easy I tells ya - if it was everyone would be doing it.

The guys I really respect are people like p1p who makes his own bread from basics and built his own wood fire oven to bake it - does pizza as well Hmmmm.

At my home we don't even have an oven - fully fitted kitchen just no electrical or gas connections

CB

Thank you Crow Boy . Fascinating story . Loved the bit about the lengthwise bread slices.

It seems as though I'm just going to have to give up on the idea of a beautiful whole grain bread, fresh out of the oven with butter melted into it whilst the beautiful aroma pervades all rooms of the house !!!

Thank you all for the disheartening information. I'm going out to find a decent pizza !

Cheers.

[Steve2UK]

I did a stint in a bakery as a part time job and was told part way that they didn't need me anymore. I had just spent a couple of hours inside an industrial oven scraping and cleaning it so was really impressed. My next and last job was to slice and wrap all the bread. Loaves get fed into one end of the machine that has a set of reciprocating saw blades (like a multi blade jigsaw cutter) and then slid into the wax paper wrapping machine. From there they are sold to customers. Instead of cutting the loaves transversely (ie across the loaf) I sent them down lengthways. It was more difficult getting the loaf into the wrapping machine but I soon sorted that out. Did the whole days bread at the shop all cut this way. Collected my pay and left with a couple of bags of cakes from the bakery staff. A week later I saw one of the bakers and he told me to never go near the shop because the boss was going to kill me and turn me into meat pies. He had to replace all the loaves when screaming customers came back calling him an idiot. Does that count?

CB, maybe we're related or it's true that great minds think alike. As a spotty student doing vacation work in a bakery in Sheffield (North England), I pulled the same stunt at the end of my last shift. As you say, getting the long-cut loaf into the wrapping part of the machine was do-able.......... but I already had my mind set on grabbing the cross-cut loaf to put it through a second time for the long cut - so as to make "bread fingers". If I had only mastered that............ next step would have been to put the loaf through a third time on its side. Voila - instant croutons!

[Crow Boy]

I did a stint in a bakery as a part time job and was told part way that they didn't need me anymore. I had just spent a couple of hours inside an industrial oven scraping and cleaning it so was really impressed. My next and last job was to slice and wrap all the bread. Loaves get fed into one end of the machine that has a set of reciprocating saw blades (like a multi blade jigsaw cutter) and then slid into the wax paper wrapping machine. From there they are sold to customers. Instead of cutting the loaves transversely (ie across the loaf) I sent them down lengthways. It was more difficult getting the loaf into the wrapping machine but I soon sorted that out. Did the whole days bread at the shop all cut this way. Collected my pay and left with a couple of bags of cakes from the bakery staff. A week later I saw one of the bakers and he told me to never go near the shop because the boss was going to kill me and turn me into meat pies. He had to replace all the loaves when screaming customers came back calling him an idiot. Does that count?

CB, maybe we're related or it's true that great minds think alike. As a spotty student doing vacation work in a bakery in Sheffield (North England), I pulled the same stunt at the end of my last shift. As you say, getting the long-cut loaf into the wrapping part of the machine was do-able.......... but I already had my mind set on grabbing the cross-cut loaf to put it through a second time for the long cut - so as to make "bread fingers". If I had only mastered that............ next step would have been to put the loaf through a third time on its side. Voila - instant croutons!

I managed to do some with the second cut - the best was was to do the long cut first and then put it back for the cross cut. Doing it the other way round the blades couldn't do the long cut without tearing up the loaf. I never managed to get the machine to do the third cut - it would had simply shredded the bread. With stale bread it is easy to do but fresh bread moves around too much. The problem was it took too much time so I figure the one long cut was enough to make my point

The bakery boss was seriously angry and if he had caught me would have beaten me up - I have no doubt about that. I did it because I was doing a regular four hour shift starting at 4am and he told me half way through without any notice. I had just finished the worst job and wasn't very happy. I am sure you know what it was like crawling inside the oven and using a scraper to remove the carbon and burnt on sugar etc. You get burns from the still hot oven and bang you elbow on sharp corners. Rotten job. I had a normal job as well but the extra money was paying for my car so I needed the work.

I worked at a place called Harndorf in Australia where they make preserves (chutney, sauce, pickled onions etc) that was a wild job - you don't want to know what goes into tomato sauce

I got put into the smoke house there doing a couple of thousand smoked hams for Christmas. No masks or eye protection - the guys used to complain that they had to go all around the way to the back of the factory for a cigarette. I inhaled so much wood smoke in there I could taste it each morning in my lungs when I woke up for months after I left.

CB

[Steve2UK]

I did a stint in a bakery as a part time job and was told part way that they didn't need me anymore. I had just spent a couple of hours inside an industrial oven scraping and cleaning it so was really impressed. My next and last job was to slice and wrap all the bread. Loaves get fed into one end of the machine that has a set of reciprocating saw blades (like a multi blade jigsaw cutter) and then slid into the wax paper wrapping machine. From there they are sold to customers. Instead of cutting the loaves transversely (ie across the loaf) I sent them down lengthways. It was more difficult getting the loaf into the wrapping machine but I soon sorted that out. Did the whole days bread at the shop all cut this way. Collected my pay and left with a couple of bags of cakes from the bakery staff. A week later I saw one of the bakers and he told me to never go near the shop because the boss was going to kill me and turn me into meat pies. He had to replace all the loaves when screaming customers came back calling him an idiot. Does that count?

CB, maybe we're related or it's true that great minds think alike. As a spotty student doing vacation work in a bakery in Sheffield (North England), I pulled the same stunt at the end of my last shift. As you say, getting the long-cut loaf into the wrapping part of the machine was do-able.......... but I already had my mind set on grabbing the cross-cut loaf to put it through a second time for the long cut - so as to make "bread fingers". If I had only mastered that............ next step would have been to put the loaf through a third time on its side. Voila - instant croutons!

I managed to do some with the second cut - the best was was to do the long cut first and then put it back for the cross cut. Doing it the other way round the blades couldn't do the long cut without tearing up the loaf. I never managed to get the machine to do the third cut - it would had simply shredded the bread. With stale bread it is easy to do but fresh bread moves around too much. The problem was it took too much time so I figure the one long cut was enough to make my point

The bakery boss was seriously angry and if he had caught me would have beaten me up - I have no doubt about that. I did it because I was doing a regular four hour shift starting at 4am and he told me half way through without any notice. I had just finished the worst job and wasn't very happy. I am sure you know what it was like crawling inside the oven and using a scraper to remove the carbon and burnt on sugar etc. You get burns from the still hot oven and bang you elbow on sharp corners. Rotten job. I had a normal job as well but the extra money was paying for my car so I needed the work.

I worked at a place called Harndorf in Australia where they make preserves (chutney, sauce, pickled onions etc) that was a wild job - you don't want to know what goes into tomato sauce

I got put into the smoke house there doing a couple of thousand smoked hams for Christmas. No masks or eye protection - the guys used to complain that they had to go all around the way to the back of the factory for a cigarette. I inhaled so much wood smoke in there I could taste it each morning in my lungs when I woke up for months after I left.

CB

I hope others will forgive while we reminisce.......... Yep, I know about scraping out still-hot ovens . At least it wasn't as bad as the ultra-macho job in Sheffield at the time - de-coking steel works blast furnaces that had been taken offline the day before. For sure, I still can't look a jam-filled doughnut in the face after a week on that machine. Agreed it's just not a good idea to work in any kind of food factory (p1p's establishment excepted!!!) if you're likely to also consume the product; as they say about about pork sausages, the makers put in everything except the squeal.........

I better stop now - before this turns into a re-run of that Monty Python sketch............... "Handful of cold gravel for supper? Eeeee, that were luxury to us - in our house we just had........" etc etc

[Crow Boy]

OK back to breadmachines and bread making

This morning I made a Crow Boy special fruit loaf. I reduced the amount of bread and increase the amount of fruit so that it looks more like a block of fruit with some bread around it.

This is a bit tricky to make right because:

1) the dried fruit still contains moisture which adds to the "wetness" of the mix

2) dried fruit is a lot heavier that the bread, well is "should" be heavier. If it isn't then there is something wrong with your bread mix

3) the sugar content makes the baking different and it can burn

Normally with the bread mix I set it up and leave the machine overnight but with this one I need to be up and next to the machine ready to pour in the fruit and nuts. My machine has an automatic dispenser but in my opinion it is not big enough to make a decent fruit loaf so I add it by hand. After that it is make pot of tea and check the Thai Visa until baking has finished.

This is the first time in ages I have made this loaf and the girl has never tried it. She came out this morning and said "what is that smell?" "Fruit loaf" I replied. "What's that?" she asked. "It is bread made with dried fruit and nuts, I made it specially for you" Ok that's a bit of a lie but hey what is a relationship without guilt and manipulation? Despite this obvious attempt to corrupt her she said "I don't like it" "well how would you know? Have you ever tried it?" "no but I know I won't like it" Amazing woman but she said the same thing about me Anyway after a bit of guileless tempting she agreed to try "just a little bit". The verdict? Well she has managed to polish of nearly the whole of my &^%$ing fruit loaf. I think I may have made a mistake by introducing her to the wonders of fruit bread.

CB

[xerostar]

Thanks for your candid and funny stories.

We enjoy reading about your experiences.

My wife is just like that.

After 2 years of refusing to eat peanut butter when I offered it,

now she has discovered it for herself and thinks it's yummy on fresh bread.

Oh .. and she discovered fresh bread is great too!