Bev, I almost always make highly hydrated doughs. I made another batch of this dough today and used it to make pizza, increasing the water from the 720g called for in the recipe to 820g. I used a portion of the dough to make two pizzas. The rest of the dough is in the fridge and will be used in a couple of days to make either bread or another pizza. One plain And one with homemade Italian Sausage and Black Olives. The crust was amazing. Partly, the dough and partly the way it was baked. I baked it on a preheated stone, but instead of the stone being on the bottom rack, it was on the second from the top rack. Preheated for an hour to 550ðF, the pizza was baked for five minutes, and then another two minutes under the broiler. ~Ann

I agree with Ann T, I keep my yeast in a quart jar in the refrigerator because I buy it two pounds at a time at Sam's Club. I seldom measure, I just dump it in. If you add more yeast than the recipe calls for you might get a slighty more "yeasty" flavor which most people wouldn't notice. Too little? If you're even close, your bread will still rise. Heck, sourdough bread is made without any yeast at all. I've run out and made batches with whatever I have left and it still rises. Plus, if you bake a lot of bread, your kitchen will have "wild" yeasts which can help out when you're baking bread. Don't worry about it, bread is not an exact science. Ratios of wet to dry depend on the humidity, the brand of flour, how long you've stored that flour, lots of things. The rate of rising for your dough depends on temperature, on the yeast, on the type of flour used. Every day and every loaf will be a bit different, and it'll all be good! Annie

Sue- Is it the wisdom of the ages or science from the experts? This is what I've read from "experts" - I'm just the person sitting behind the keyboard typing after I've gathered a stack of books by my side. According to Shirley Corriher in "Cookwise", salt plays three roles in dough: It enhances flavor, controls bacteria, and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. She even suggests if the water you are using in your breads is soft (low mineral content), you'll want to be sure to add high-mineral salt - which are natural sea salts, not table salt. The minerals in natural sea salt also play into yeast activity. But what is too much salt... As little as 1/3 t. of salt per cup of flour can be enough to noticeably slow yeast growth. Salt can be added intentionally to slow yeast growth. More salt may be added to dough, such as in a bakery setting when you would want to slow down fermentation until the next shift of workers comes on. The small amount of salt we add to yeast and naturally-leavened breads doesn't really give a salty taste, nor does it contribute largely to the daily sodium intake in a normal diet or normal sodium amounts for people who aren't watching sodium intake, but salt helps to bring out the flavor of the fermentation. As anyone who has ever left the salt out of a recipe can attest, bread without salt is somewhat insipid - but that's because our taste is often trained to like salt and salty flavors. Then there's all the hub-bub about when to add salt. I wait to add salt towards the end of the kneading, along with the fat. I only add the fat early if I want a close crumb - or an almost cake-like texture (for sandwich bread as an example - breads that need to hold together when held in your hands and keep spreads from dripping through). The gluten will have an easier time developing, and will develop quicker (meaning you will need to spend less time mixing and kneading) when you wait to add the salt after gluten development. Once you add the salt, the gluten really tightens up. You can actually feel the difference in the dough. Peter Barham in "The Science of Cooking" says "...the salt acts to modify and control the action of the yeast. Harold McGee in "Keys to Good Cooking A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes" and "On Food and Cooking": Salt contributes to a balanced taste and intensifies aroma in bread, but it also affects structure and texture. Salt makes a dough less sticky, and gluten more stretchy, and the finished loaf lighter. In sourdoughs, salt helps control the growth of acid-producing, gluten-weakening bacteria. [So there's that bacteria mentioned by Shirley Corriher as well.] Salt isn't a leavening agent, but it helps control the leavening agent, as you thought. You can make perfectly good bread with very little or no salt at all (other than the naturally occurring salts in water, other ingredients, etc. - there is always a source for some sodium, even without added salt). But as one book pointed out, when it came to taste tests, people liked breads with more salt than less salt. As a person who doesn't use a lot of salt in their diet, I'd choose less salty flavor - so flavor is subjective. When using less salt in breads, you just need to watch the rise because it will be faster than normal. Peter Barham, in his book, intentionally made bread with lower salt amounts to see how little it could actually be, and he came to the conclusion you didn't need salt at all and that the bread tasted fine. "Fine" isn't what most people expect homemade bread to taste like, however. So you can use a long cold rise to develop flavors, instead of adding salt, or as much salt. And there is the old rule of thumb... If you reduce the salt in a bread recipe, be sure to reduce the yeast as well. So if you cut the salt by 50%, reduce the yeast by 50%. I was also taught in cooking and baking classes that a little salt makes sweet things taste sweeter, hence the ever-present "pinch of salt" in things you wonder what difference did that small amount actually make? There are a lot of factors to keeping bread fresh. Choose enriched breads and sourdough, instead of lean doughs. If you want your bread to stay fresh longer add fenugreek or rosemary because these ingredients are antioxidants, "they prevent oxygen in the air from combining with compounds in the dough, thus acting as a preservative by preventing chemical changes in the dough." I add an acid ingredient to whole wheat breads in the form of ascorbic acid, which is another antioxidant you can add to aid keeping bread fresher longer, but also counteracts the effects of Glutathione in wheat germ, which can damage the gluten strands. Yeast also works better in a mildly acidic mixture. But don't add an acid to naturally-leavened breads because they are already acid enough. My personal favorites for keeping bread fresher longer are coconut oil, agave nectar, and chia seeds - and you won't find these ingredients discussed in any books by "experts". Coconut oil was used in commercial baked goods until the mid-20th century because it helped lengthen shelf-life. As a medium-chain fat, coconut oil doesn't go rancid as quickly as polyunsaturated oils. When pressure was put on the market to use hydrogenated fats and polyunsaturated fats, the shelf-life was shortened, foods went rancid quickly, and they had to find new stabilizers and chemicals to use instead of coconut oil. Coconut oil was used for popping corn at the movies and sports stadiums. They popped large amounts long before it was needed and packed into containers to be used later, and using coconut oil in it kept it fresher longer. Nobody likes stale popcorn.... Coconut oil aids in slowing down mold growth as well. Agave nectar does an excellent job of holding moisture in baked goods, as does chia seeds. Both keep moisture in the crumb of breads from migrating through the crust, so they slow staling - which is an interesting read in and of itself. If you are going to freeze your bread, there is a lot of science about using honey in your breads instead of sugar. The honey will aid in keeping the moisture in the crumb, and I suspect agave nectar has a similar quality. Hope the experts have given you the answers you were looking for. -Grainlady

Re-post the info. I posted in June. Today Old Port is a BS-fest & doing nothing as of today, August 30. Last month I scraped off red-lava-rock, and replaced with horse manure plus high-phosphorus NPK 4-10-7 (blood meal, fish bone meal, sulfate of potash, and kelp meal) . I should had done what I did in spring: chicken manure NPK 5-3-2, plus red-lava-rock for potassium. Lesson learned, I find that minerals (in rock dust, or Azomite, or red lava rock) is great to INCREASE the yield in crops. The problem with MG-potting soil is it's not rich in minerals like clay or rock dust. Here's an excerpt from below link: http://remineralize.org/2007/11/soil-remineralization-and-the-climate/ " Remineralization also enhances and speeds up the process of composting, so if you are composting for your garden, consider putting on some rock dust. Remineralizing by adding rock dust to compost is a very practical way to apply it to soils. For Forests The results of long term experiments released in 1986 showed that in a forest where pine seedlings were remineralized, after 24 years the wood volume was four times higher than in the untreated area. Remineralization trials of a dying forest on Mt. Mitchell by Dr. Robert Bruck, Ph.D., showed that twelve weeks after application of rock dust, height of growth of red spruce was increased by 27% over non-treated controls, and height growth of Fraser fir was 19% greater than the untreated controls. (Forestry Research packet) The Men of Trees organization in Australia is doing remineralization trials with many species of trees in Australia with phenomenal results, such as five times the growth of trees seedlings of one variety of eucalyptus, over the untreated controls. (See Forestry Research packet) For Agriculture The best source of soil minerals is simple crushed gravel dust. In 1976 John Hamaker spread gravel crusher screenings on part of his ten acres in Michigan. The following year, in an area of sparse rainfalls and dry summers, with no irrigation, his corn produced 65 bushels per acre, compared to yields of under 25 from other local farms. Moreover, when independent analyses were done, Hamaker’s corn was found to contain 28% more protein, 47% more calcium, 57% more phosphorus, 60% more magnesium and 90% more potassium than the same type of corn grown with chemical fertilizers nearby. - See more at: http://remineralize.org/2007/11/soil-remineralization-and-the-climate/#sthash.3RNlqfTo.dpuf Here's the result of my top-dressing Old Port with red-lava-rock, the free-sown snapdragons go beserk. Old Port got winter-killed to 4 inch. tall early April. Pic. taken June 8: