Someone knows how to use cold winter days!

Nice winter day hobbies! I will start some of my seeds in February. How did the bread taste using the lee from the wine? Have you tried using wild natural yeast from the air? During the winter I get my ideas if what to grow and trade or purchase seeds. My garden list so far;

three types of beets, red, Egyptian, and sugar

Malabar spinach

Mexican cucumbers aka sour gherkins

cape gooseberry

chocolate habanero

zucchini

two kinds of lettuce green and red

I will be adding more peppers but have not fully decided on the varieties.

I can not really tell it's made from lees and not packaged yeast. It yields a mild and pleasant yeasty flavour like most homemade breads I've had.

Wild yeast from the air? Not quite yet, but wouldn't lacto-bacteria take over and make it sourdough? I made a starter sometimes last year, but used 100% whole wheat flour and it acquired a strange smell, which I found out can happen with whole wheat, so next time I'll go with none or partial whole wheat.

I am getting ready to start my onions and soon after leeks, followed next month by artichokes and c. chinense, if I decide to grow any. I can't wait to plant something! I was thinking of trying some early lavender and rosemary if I can find seeds.

I think you are supposed to make sourdough starter with rye flour. I've only made it once, and that was by accident. Anyway, I had trouble keeping it alive. I would love to make my own kimchee and have not done that yet, but at least it is easy enough to buy here.

No cold weather here today, and since the rain let up, we decided to barbecue, and I also smoked a bunch of Chocolate Habanero chilies that I will make into a sauce. I still have dozens and dozens of chilies to harvest, and I only picked the ripest ones today. My slow season comes later in the year. I did also bake bread today, but it was my standard Pain de Mie recipe with half whole wheat flour. Yesterday I picked a bunch of mint from my yard for taboulleh, and I noticed that slugs had resurfaced, due to the recent rains, and so I will have to put new snail bait out. The slugs will also attack my orchids, if I do not put snail bait out around them.

Isgen,

I've only used wild yeast to make alcohol, and figured if I could do that then yeast for bread making should be fairly simple or the same? Guess I will have to experiment. I've read that wild yeast is more prevelant around fruit trees and on fruit. Also I've read to capture yeast using flour mixed with pineapple juice seems to have the greatest success. Maybe I will give it a try soon.

I planted a couple hundred sweet onions and a couple hundred garlic - 3 different varieties. I have swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, carrots, celery growing now from seed. I'm overwintering a few varieties of rocotos this winter and a few varieties of Aji peppers. It looks like I have a few Aji plants that have survived the frost so far outside which are my Bishops Crowns/Hats.

A hobby that I'm passionate about is roasting my own coffee. I don't think I could ever go back to buying roasted coffee from a store again.

habjolokia,

I suppose one would indeed have to find a way to specifically encourage yeast over lacto-bacteria in a flour-based culture. In any case, I'm attempting a sourdough starter with white flour only.

I'll have to try a wild yeast wine at some point. I could go out and pick some more highbush cranberries in the coming weeks, the only fruit left on trees in the winter around here.

Nick,

Roasting your own beans sounds cool, I'll have to look that up someday.

isgen, thanks for the inspiration. I did a workshop last winter on micro greens and should be growing some now. I originally tried to make my own sourdough starter using grapes but I wasn't sure if I was doing it right. I started up again this time with purchased starter from King Arthur Flour. I have decided that the instructions are a little too fussy and surely the original "sourdoughs" didn't feed their starter so often. I did use half whole wheat flour for one feeding and didn't have a problem.

I do not have to buy any hot pepper seeds this year because I bought and grew too many last year. I think I made about 5 hot sauces which I am slowly using. The current recipe used peaches. I originally got infected with hot pepper growing frenzies because I loved Aleppo pepper but couldn't find it (ordering from Penzey's was too easy). I decided to grow my own and here it is late January and I still haven't ground any and used it in a recipe. (I have a great yogurt marinade for chicken).

I donated my surplus pepper plants to a gardening friend and have promised to share saved seed with him. I just found out he helps with one or two community type gardens. So far, all I have done is purchased some coin envelopes at Staples to package up some seed. Since I did not isolate any of the plants, I'm not sure what kind of peppers I will get from saved seed. This will be interesting. I tried to photograph both plants and harvested peppers so I will have something to compare with. I bought Aleppo pepper seeds from two different sources and got two different plants/peppers.

Also, if you grow your own hot peppers, you can "treat" the cheeky young guy who claims to love hot peppers. I gave him some and apparently, Lemon Drop aji was too hot for him. The look on his face amused his friends and being a tough guy, he refused a glass of milk.

I've made and maintained a sourdough starter for the last couple of weeks, mostly on white flour, with a bit of rye at the beginning and once every 3-4 feedings. I've only baked twice with it and while it does not raise as much as my pure yeast breads, it's still decent and pleasantly tangy. Perhaps I need the starter to be a bit more active yet or to revise my raising/baking method.

The King Arthur recipes I have been using still require yeast so I'm slightly confused. I think it became more active after several weeks and has a nice alcoholic smell now. Rises after being fed. I need to try some recipes that don't require yeast, just starter.

All a good sourdough recipe calls for is 4 ingredients- water, flour, salt and sourdough starter. That is it.

I haven't even bought my seed starting mix yet! The bread looks delicious.

Here is my scotch bonnet mash I started a month ago. Still quite vigorous but slowly winding down.

https://vimeo.com/201551682

Thanks defrost, it's almost time for us to get cracking on our long season peppers isn't it?

Isgen, your stuff looks great! Mead is on my list too, I have some old honey I put away in a bumper season that I want to make it with. Maybe I will tackle that in Feb once my carboys are empty.

Hey hobbyartisan,

Cool stuff you have going there. So you have bees, that's pretty cool, I'm not there yet. Still some nice bubbling in your mash, how long do you keep that going usually?

I've been making fruit wines for a few years now but have not gotten around to mead until these past Xmas holidays. I've three 1 gallon batches going on, different varieties. I'm also making so-called Short Mead; I have it ready to drink in less than a month. I keep the abv low on that one, 4-5%. I start it around specific gravity of 1.045-1.050 and ferment down to 1.010 or so as to keep it a bit sweet. The trick is that I pasteurize it to stabilize and clear it with bentonite. Making cider is on my radar too.

I've fallen behind on my microgreens and have none growing at the moment. I should plant some more, perhaps time for one batch or two before the pepper and tomato seedlings start taking over the space under my shop lights.

I'm having mixed success with my sourdough, probably has to do with my process more than the starter, it's pretty active by now. The bread is always tasty, but sometimes does not rise much once in the oven. I have to research this topic some more, I'm only starting out in bread-making.

Hi Isgen, this is the first time my mash has been going this long! It's been a month already and it is still bubbling. It took about 2 weeks to really get going though. Usually I only let it go for a week but if it is still fermenting I thought I would let it go for a while longer. I will taste test this weekend and see.

I am very new to alcohol fermenting so I am very interested in your projects, they sound cool! Keep us posted. That reminds me I better get bottling myself this weekend too. Then I can have a taste test of my cider.

I do have a bit of kahm yeast on top of my wild cider which I'm not too happy about, I hope it hasn't ruined it. We shall see on the taste test! Have you ever run into that? Let me know your fix if so. Because I wanted to do a "wild" batch, I obviously didn't kill off the natural yeasts hence the kahm I guess.

Yes succession planting on the greens has never been my forte either :). I always forget, it is also time for me to plant a new batch now. Also on the list for this weekend!

Sourdough is very tricky I agree, it is very hard to get consistent results every time. My everyday loaf is very bombproof but that is because I add a bit of yeast to it to get a quick rise. The long, slow rise artisanal loaves like yours give me inconsistent results too. My artisanal loaves like yours don't rise much in the oven either, they get most of their rising from the final proof. Do you do a cold, long first proof? I find that works best.

Yours looks a bit light in colour, do you have the oven super hot? Also I have the traditional la cloche bread pan and lid and it makes all the difference in creating the perfect crust. Check it out!

nice bubbly mash there, Hobbyartisan! Yes, last year I started longest season peppers on 2/16. I only had one plant that didn't mature in time but it was also a surprise that came in one of my seed packets. I did a microgreens workshop at an organic farmers conference last year or the year before and I haven't started any since.

I've been making sourdough recipes but they all use some yeast. I have a batch of starter I was going to gear up for a non-yeast roll recipe. It requires an 8-12 rise before going in the oven. I keep forgetting to do a discard and feed. My starter batch got down to 1/2 cup so I also had to build it back up. Today is family dinner but I have to go to town so I'm not making any rolls today, just going to buy some.

We have a cold, overcast day so the high tunnel is cold again but Mon and Tues were sunny and temps got up to 70 deg F inside the tunnel. Certainly warm enough to get out there and clean out the dead pepper plants and check on the rosemary and variegated sage. Who knows, some claytonia and kale might be growing. They self seed.

hobbyartisan,

I've never done a wild alcohol ferment, so never had an issue with kahm yeast in my booze. I did get some on one or two lacto-ferments though. I suppose trying to skim it off with a fine sieve or something is about as much as can be done. I know the kind of funky flavour it can impart to food and can't see it as being too pleasant in wine or cider.

The bread I have pictured up there was not a sourdough, but leavened with the lees of a fruit wine. That one rose well enough but the colour is indeed a bit on the pale side. I should have left it to bake a tad longer. I think that one baked at 425°F IIRC. I use a dutch oven for all my breads so far, usually covered for the first half, to trap the dough's own moisture, then uncovered for the remainder to build the crust. My crusts turn out pretty crisp so far, it's the rise and internal texture that are a bit inconsistent.

When you say a cold first-proof, do you mean fridge-cold or just in a cool room? I actually tried the opposite by placing my dough in a bowl over a folded towel on a heat mat, which really puffs it up good, 3-4x in size. I now understand that heat might lead to more lactic acid production and a slacker dough, making loaf-shaping difficult, almost impossible in my case.

I've been trying several hydration levels and wheat/rye flour mixes, rise times and baking temperature, but I have to experiment more scientifically and only vary one parameter at a time until I find what works for me. At least the bread's always tasty, I just have to hit the texture I like.

I have a 333g/67g wheat/rye dough, plus 100g starter, global hydration about 55% proofing at room temperature since last evening. I'll be shaping it very soon to bake tonight. Fingers crossed.

I've ordered a banneton to help the last proofing stage before it goes in the oven. Can't wait to get it and try.

Ah, I finally have a decent-looking sourdough loaf!

The interior "flesh" isn't very holey, but likely normal considering the low-ish 55% hydration level. The crust is thick and crunchy. The room temperature rise and more modest hydration made shaping a breeze and it had swollen by almost 2x again by the time I put it in the oven. 450°F for 30min in the covered Dutch oven, then 20min uncovered at 400°F.