Susy, I also often add flour by hand after doing most of the kneading (or after sitting, for a no knead loaf), and don't have any trouble. I make sure that I have at least half of the flour in before kneading, so that I get enough gluten development for the bread to rise, and mix in the new flour well enough that I don't get flour pockets in the finished loaf. I think starting the recipe with all of the water and part of the flour is a helpful tool in several situations. If you're kneading by hand, it's almost impossible with a very stiff dough. You can go for 20 or 30 minutes and bruise your knuckles and the bread still won't rise. A wet dough (and wet hands!) is so much easier. If you've got sub-optimal tools, also. A cheapo hand mixer can't handle dough, but you can use it to whir up all the water mixed with half the flour and save yourself some elbow grease. As long as it's thick pancake batter consistency, you're getting some gluten development. Many stand mixers struggle with stiff dough. You can do most of your kneading with the loose dough, then knead in some extra flour toward the end. Adding different amounts of flour also allows you to use the same dough for a bunch of different uses. With my no-knead dough, I can add no flour and bake it in a loaf pan, add a little and make a free-form loaf or a pizza crust, or add a lot and make bagels. I'm not very familiar with bread makers, but I think over time you'll figure out the easiest method. If you've got a good strong motor on your bread machine and you prefer to measure your ingredients, once you iron out your recipe, putting everything in from the start may work perfectly for you. I'm more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal. I hope you'll come back and brag about your loaves, and maybe show us some pictures. We love that! :-)

This looks to be #150, so I'll start another sourdough thread with pie segue. :) Cathy, I know the liberated feeling you're talking about! I had it when I started these experiments with the discard. I do as I please with most baking recipes, usually to success. I don't have Grainlady's technical knowledge nor Ann's experience and expertise, but I know that if you control the basics, it'll come out. My mother's challah is so tetchy, however, that controlling it is enough without messing with it. A cousin did that when I was young, and tried using it as a base recipe for other breads, and they were breads, but I didn't really like them. You have to know how to not handle the challah (no typos there) to make it work out right. Add to that the old miseries of using cake yeast and I never messed with yeast dough before. I really liked the figgy loaf! Worrying about keeping the yeast alive rather than if I was going to ruin the bread was great. But that was one of those very soupy things, and if I try that again, I'll use less water/more flour. :) It's interesting that so many people think more hydration means lighter bread and more holes! That's the opposite to what I've experienced so far. Leader, like the ciabatta recipe, works the dough and develops the gluten. Controlled hydration seems to work better for me, and I definitely think the miche was too wet given how much better it got as it dried out. I had similar issues with the pizza recipe. One of the ones I tried, which was the result of much study in a pizza working group, was something like 90% hydration of whole wheat (though not soupy!). It was a very sticky dough and had to be made in a pan. It was not at all comfortable with toppings, though it was okay par-baked. Totally wrong for me, and it didn't have a good enough baked texture to stick with. It's not like my pizza recipe is low hydration. Just comparatively low. It's around 70% hydration. Cathy, I agree that inhaling pizza of any kind is frightening! Thank goodness for the widespread publicity for the Heimlich Maneuver! The miche is peasanty, as in plain old bread. I'd be happy to make the pain de levain for you! That has much more complexity even though it's mostly white. It's very yummy! The miche isn't as flavorless now, but it's not stand in line worthy, unfortunately. Next time. It was supposed to be record setting heat this weekend, but we're having monsoon influence, instead. Not the actual monsoons, which are farther South, but damp and cooler. Spaghetti and meatballs and ciabatta sounds delicious and decadent right now! (Decadent because two starches--my mother never served bread with pasta.) My favorite way to eat ciabatta, however, is with a goodly layer of good butter and an even thicker layer of powder grated good parmesan. This is the breakfast the Italian stewards on the ocean liner tempted my mother with when she was underfed and ill and returning home. I am not underfed, so I don't indulge, but the slightly salty, slightly sour bread with the sweet butter and salty, umami parm is just amazing. (Okay, I'm not underfed, but I haven't had breakfast...) Standing in line for the ciabatta... The gyros-ish meatloaf came out fine. It would have been better with more fat (who says that?), but the meat that needed using was very lean. I suppose I could have added some butter, but who does that? Not I. It's tasty, though. I didn't go full out on the seasoning (i.e., used the recipe) because I'd never made this recipe before. It could be kicked up a bit, but the flavor is about right. The leanness means I can be generous with the oil and grill some up later. :) No yoghurt sauce since since there are no pita either and my cucumbers and dill both bit it in the fridge. Tomatoes, onions and peppers will be fine. :) Ann, one lesson I learned best from you is to just put things in the fridge. Fermenting yeast things, that is. Just put it in the fridge. It's the most freeing thing I've learned recently. I've read all about it, of course, and the pizza recipe is one that's meant to develop in the fridge, but the way you just whip up a levain and throw it in the fridge until you're ready, or make up some do and go off to work, with instructions to Moe for when to take it out. Of course it's a given that cold retards yeast, but so much of my bread life until now has been about keeping yeast warm and cozy and encouraging it to rise, retarding the rise in the fridge to manage the slow process of sourdough is a revelation. Thank-you! Edited to add link and fix weird typo. This post was edited by plllog on Tue, Aug 5, 14 at 20:51

I'd recommend getting a starter from someone rather than trying to create your own. If you create a starter yourself, the starter is created by yeast and bacteria in the air, and that is the reason why everyone's sourdough tastes different, it's because of the natural yeast and bacteria in that local, that's why San Francisco is known for it's sourdough bread. If you make your own, you might get lucky and get a good flavored starter, you might just waste some flour and time. And even if it does taste decent, chances are, it won't taste like San Francisco's sourdough. If you get a starter from a good source, it will continue to grow the yeast and bacteria in that starter. King Arthur Flour's web site has a good starter. Here is a link that might be useful: King Arthur's Sourdough Starter

Here is a good recipe for Sourdough English Muffins Sourdough English Muffins from "Sourdough Cookin'" by Dean Tucker, 1 cup sourdough starter (after being fed and left to expand for several hours) 2 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour 3/4 cup buttermilk 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal 1 t. baking soda 1/2 t. salt Take buttermilk and starter from refrigerator at least 30 minutes before preparing recipe. When all ingredients are at room temp, combine and stir well. Turn dough onto a lightly floured board or work surface and knead until smooth or knead about 5 minutes in a heavy duty mixer such as a Kitchen Aid or Bosch, adding a little more flour if necessary. Roll dough to 1/2-inch thickness and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Cut with a floured 3 or 4-inch round floured biscuit cutter. You can use a very clean tuna can with both ends cut out if need be. Sprinkle 2 TB cornmeal on a sheet of waxed paper. Place muffins on cornmeal and press lightly to coat each side. Cover with plastic wrap and a clean towel and let rise for 1 hour. Cook muffins on a lightly greased griddle heated to 350 (or a medium low burner) for 20 minutes (or less-see my note), turning occasionally while cooking. When done, split and butter and toast, then spread with honey or your favorite jam, jelly, or cream cheese. Recipe makes 10-12 muffins. Note: you can sub 1 cup whole wheat flour for 1 cup of the unbleached if you want whole wheat muffins. I made a note that mine took only 6-7 minutes per side to bake on a lightly greased cast iron griddle. Teresa