I have always craved a wood-fired oven outside, but frankly, my
backyard is too small...it is covered in decking and taken up by a
vegetable garden. The thing below looks manageable, though.

I saw these things in the Costco catalog and they say they can be used
for cooking. Cooking be damned - I want to BAKE BREAD!

I have written to the company, but until I hear back, does anyone know
anything about them?

http://www.miragestone.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.home/index.htm

Boron

Found these while browsing on links from rec.food.sourdough

http://www.myplot.org/oven/gallery.php

Are dough scraps as in cleaning bowls and utensils dangerous to a
plumbing system. They're tough to get out of the sink; I'm wondering
what they're doing to the pipes.

I have heard of the addition of ascorbic acid to dough. I believe it is to
improve the yeast performance. This recipe has vinegar in it:

http://www.cookitsimply.com/recipe-0010-04d399.html

Does vinegar have any purpose in baking?

Tim w

We went to the Wheat Montana Bakery and Deli yesterday at about 11 a.m. The
outside is a plain entrance door just as you have seen in the web pictures.
The door takes you into a little vestibule that contains the sacks of flour
and the baked items on display. The baked items area was a disappointment
to me because I had been anticipating a baker's dream of loaves upon loaves
snuggled together on wooden racks. Not so. The bread was displayed much as
you would find it in your local grocery store, all wrapped in the cellophane
bags. This isn't a very big place -- the former huge Blockbuster facility
has been cut into two lease spaces and the other half is still empty.
Still. . .my husband pointed out to me that the vestibule was really
designed as a silo complete with corrugated metal and the cone shaped roof.
The inside of the store is basically a sandwich place. You go to the front
and order at a counter. The under portion of the counter is glass cases
containing the sweet baked goods all of the kind for an individual to order
to go with their coffee or sandwich. The walls are painted in the Wheat
Montana colors and are decorated with large -- maybe 36 inch -- color photos
of the farm and surrounds and family history. The seating was chairs and
tables or benches and long sturdy wooden tables. Roomy and nice. The
sandwich menu was fairly extensive although every-day fare. You could build
your own to order or choose from the wall menu. Prices were $6.45 for a ...

Either my flour or my math is playing tricks on me. But lately I've
been getting a very wet dough, actually it's little more than a
batter. It simply cannot leave the mixing bowl. My question is what
can I do with it and when. Last time I promptly added an ounce and a
half of flour which may theoretically have lowered the hydration level
from somewhere in the 90's to somewhere in the 80's. The dough was
still too wet to trust on the counter so I transferred to another bowl
for it's 12 hour chill.

After, it was still too wet to shape. Should I have added more flour
earlier or after the chill?

I ended up pouring it into a parchment paper lined pan for the proof,
then transferring to a hot dutch oven for bake.

The loaf had great crust, good crumb, good flavor but it was flat as a
flinder.

So should I have kept adding flour early on, until the dough was
sticky but manageable?

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Although she had some Usenet accomplices. I was about to buy a new
KitchenAid stand mixer, probably a six-quart one, until Boron and
others convinced me that there were other, perhaps better
alternatives.

I just unpacked my Magic Mill DLX 2000, which I bought from Pleasant
Hill Grain (again at someone's recommendation). I've been reading the
instruction manual and trying to identify all the parts. I'm really
excited about this and will be making bread tomorrow.

Unfortunately, Boron also got me interested in no-knead, highly
hydrated breads, which takes a little of the gloss off the Magic Mill.
She also send me her sourdough starters, so I have quite a lot of
choices to make.

It's been in the 80's here and I've been using my gas grill, out on
the back patio, with a pizza stone for baking bread. The grill has
three burners and can produce a very good temperature range. I still
haven't worked out adding steam to the process, though.

I would like to thank everyone here, particularly Boron, for their
considered remarks on stand mixers and everything else. I promise to
think of all of you with every bite of bread.

I only caught the end of "How It's Made", but apparently the entire program
was entitled 'Bread.' The last part was about the artisan movement and the
bakers/bakeries involved. Some other parts showed commercial bread making.
I'm hoping for a rerun. Check for it in your local listings. The parts I
enjoy seeing are actual human beings scaling and shaping dough and making it
look so effortless.
Janet

I got a hold of some white wheat flour. Everything I read said to use it
just like whole wheat flour. I made my ww bread and noticed some
differences. The dough was definitely wetter and stickier than I am used
to. I added more flour than normal, but it was still stickier than normal.

Anybody have any experience with it?

Thanks,
Harvey