No Knead Bread

[ChristinaS1]

I have been making plain white No Knead Bread on and off for several years. It is pretty easy. You can get pretty nice bread with very little effort, which is the part that appeals to me.  Anyone else making no knead bread?

I want to branch out into rye bread, and cheese bread, etc. but it has been hard to find good no knead recipes for them. Most are based on volume instead of weight, so they are pretty much garbage. If you have some good recipes, please post, or link. Thanks.

Cheers,

Christina

 

 

 

[ben 10]

35 minutes ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Anyone else making no knead bread?

I have made the no knead sour dough, still needs folds and a few turns.

 

What is your method?

[ChristinaS1]

9 hours ago, disgruntled said:

What is your method?

I mix the ingredients after supper, starting with the dry ingredients (flour, salt, instant dry yeast), then mix in the wet ingredients (usually just room temp water, and occasionally a bit of oil; the last loaf had a bit of beer in it too). I generally use 80-82% hydration. Then I cover the bowl and let it sit on the counter overnight, for around 12-15 hours. In the morning I stir it down with the handle end of a wooden spoon. A lot of no knead recipes say to just plop the dough into the baking dish at this point, where it rises for 2 hours and shapes itself as it does so, but I do a few folds and turns first, and shape it myself. Baking starts covered. The lid is removed near the end, to allow the crust to develop colour.

Ideally the dough should be baked in an enamel cast iron Dutch oven, which I don't own, so I have been improvising with other bakeware. I just ordered a Dutch oven, so expect my bread will be a lot better going forward. 

Do you make rye bread? What percentage rye do you use? Any other favourite grains?

Cheers,

Christina.

Edited January 27, 2022 by ChristinaS1

[ben 10]

6 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Do you make rye bread?

I have in the past but have not for a while.
Any beer grains work really well, either whole and soaked or crushed (well, prbably not crystal)

[stquinto]

On 1/27/2022 at 3:32 AM, ChristinaS1 said:

I have been making plain white No Knead Bread on and off for several years. It is pretty easy. You can get pretty nice bread with very little effort, which is the part that appeals to me.  Anyone else making no knead bread?

I want to branch out into rye bread, and cheese bread, etc. but it has been hard to find good no knead recipes for them. Most are based on volume instead of weight, so they are pretty much garbage. If you have some good recipes, please post, or link. Thanks.

Cheers,

Christina

 

 

 

Hello Christina,

Looks like you've found another rabiit hole to go down

There's a thread on sourdough in the Everything Else category. It qualifies as No Knead as @disgruntled says, it just needs a few folds. The biggest deal is to organise your day around the vaious rests etc. but I find if you need to slow the fermenting/rising down because of work commitments you can stick it in the fridge.

Wholemeal loaves can be more challenging to get a proper rise TBH. You can substitute 10% of the flour for wholemeal flour quite easily without it becomg a problem.

I have also tried a recipe with flx seeds - it ended up OK but in preparation the seeds get really slimy. If you are interested I can post a couple of recipes from a book I got.

I came across this flour in neighbouring France which has plenty of grains in. It works a treat. I'm sure you can find something similar. Good luck !

 

[ChristinaS1]

12 hours ago, stquinto said:

Hello Christina,

Looks like you've found another rabbit hole to go down

Hey stquinto. Yes indeed, I have. It is quite a rabbit hole! It will keep me busy for a while. Sounds like you do a fair bit of bread making. Cool. 

I made a no knead rye bread with yeast today, with one of the few recipes I found in grams. It turned out pretty well, although it is a bit soft and hard to cut without squishing it. I followed the recipe except for one thing: I increased the water from 72% to 80% as I found the dough too dry. Maybe that is why it is so soft? Perhaps I should have baked it longer? The recipe said to bake covered for 30 minutes and then another 10 minutes uncovered, to colour the crust, to a temp of 205F. I pulled it out when the temp was 206F, but it had only been uncovered for about 3 minutes. Flavour is pretty good though, in spite of only being 20% rye. Apparently, if you want to use a higher percentage of rye you really need to use a sourdough starter. Personally I am not interesting in taking care of a sourdough starter and will be sticking to yeast. 

Kind of you to offer to post a recipe. Do you have one that combines rye and spelt? What is your favourite bread recipe?

That multigrain mix looks interesting. I will look around for something similar here. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by ChristinaS1

[ben 10]

8 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Personally I am not interesting in taking care of a sourdough starter and will be sticking to yeast. 

Mine does not require any care at all.

I use some, replenish and return the the fridge where it waits until needed.

When I went to Sri Lanka it sat in the fridge for 5 weeks unused and worked just fine when I returned.

[stquinto]

21 hours ago, disgruntled said:

Mine does not require any care at all.

I use some, replenish and return the the fridge where it waits until needed.

When I went to Sri Lanka it sat in the fridge for 5 weeks unused and worked just fine when I returned.

I second @disgruntled on that one: I feed mine (I have three different mothers on the go) once a month. Just pour off the black liquid and feed ‘em, and they’re ready to bake with in about 6 hours. Sometimes you might have to feed them twice but so far (2 years) it’s worked for me. 
Anyway @ChristinaS1, here’s a cuppla recipes: they’re for sourdough but I’m sure you can adapt them. The sourdough is worth it though, honest

[ChristinaS1]

Thanks a bunch @stquinto.  I will try making sourdough someday. I will think about it.

Edited January 30, 2022 by ChristinaS1

[Pezzza]

Hi @ChristinaS1.

Good thread.  Am off the carbs for a bit - but up till a week ago was making me own Rye bread regularly. 

I think that the best thing you can do is to get hold of the below book by Jim Lahey which is a good read in general and has lots of good ideas in it.

I originally got it from our local library. 

Key things are - cool temp slow long first rise - then bake in preheated screaming hot Dutch Oven first w lid on then lid off... and then MUST leave to sit for an hour at least plus before cutting.

I reckon a cuppla hours out of the pot to settle down for it to have a think and allow moisture within to equilibrate and once cool is best before cutting. 

Read Jim Lahey I think you will enjoy it greatly. 

I admire the good work the Sourdough experts like Sainter and Green Blob Benski do. 

 

I just use yeast - dry yeast - and works well. 

90% of the bread I make is Rye - which is the Rye and hard high protein Wheat blend.

Best is to get as high % protein wheat  - like 14% if possible. 

I have tried different % of Rye and pretty much believe the recipe and process configuration that Jim Lahey has come up with is the biz.  Think he spent a bit of time sorting it out. 

Hope that is of some help : )

Cheers Christina

 

 

 

[ChristinaS1]

Hey @Itinerant Peasant That bread looks great!

Any chance you could post or PM Jim Lahey's recipe by weight or baker's percentages? I would really appreciate it. 

When I Google, "how much does a cup of rye flour weigh?" I get all kinds of answers, ranging from 102g to 153g. Might have to do with the fact that there are many grades of rye flour. In the USA, where most of the info I get comes from, they seems to have: light, medium, dark, and whole grain. Which one does Jim call for?

In my area there is only one kind of rye flour available: organic stoneground whole grain, which is the least processed. 

Cheers,

Christina.