Onebyone

For Sourdough I bake in a stream pan for French loves. It has a crispy crust and lots of big holes. I use Baparoma Steam Baking Master Bread Pan. You can find the pans on Ebay or sometimes new online. I have two of them and they are the best.

fruitloop

Oh my aunt had a set of these pans and made the best bread I have ever had. I have no idea what happened to them, I guess got sold in a yard sale. I never knew the name of them.

fruitloop

I found the link to the instructional manual. It's free from the company that makes the pans for anyone to read or download.

Grace creates

I tried making my own starter with flour and water. Every day discarding some and adding more flour and water. I was told it would be ready when it doubled in size from rising and that never happened. I do make a slow rise bread with a cast iron pot and it's pretty good. Nice big holes and crispy crust.

Irishrose2

I make a faux sourdough with yogurt and a very small amount of yeast. It takes at least six hours to rise. The person I make for says it's very good, but I've never had any - I'm gluten free.

Onebyone

I got a lot of PMs thanking me for the bread pan manual. If you do a search for steam baking pans then it will be easy to find the free manual. Any covered pan will work just follow the instructions.

Stitchnripper

Ladies y’all are describing my perfect binge! Fresh baked really good bread with a nice crust and good texture on the inside, a pot of good coffee and a stick of butter. I would eat myself into oblivion. I can resist anything else. Fresh baked good bread is irresistible. Hence, I will never bake it. At some point the family would have to take a wall out and call the “my 600 lb Life” folks!! All sounds so yummy.

tropit

Ha ha! "600 pound life"
I laugh, but I'm the same way. I could eat a whole loaf of fresh, hot bread in one sitting.

If anyone is interested in making their own starter, it's easy. Just flour and water in a jar left out on the counter for a few days. If it doesn't get bubbly and yeasty, just add a little bit of active, dried yeast to it. Sometime a tiny pinch of sugar will help it along. Once it's going, put it in a covered glass, or crock container in the refrigerator. You're supposed to feed it more flour and water on a regular basis, but honestly, I never do and it still works fine.

When I use it, I put the entire starter in the mixing bowl, add white flour (I never used WW flour because it adds unwanted "roughage" to my starter,) and some water and give it a whirl in the mixer. It should be the texture of a very thick pancake batter. Let it sit for a few hours, or overnight then pour the replenished starter back in the clean jar and use the rest that is in the bowl for the recipe. Only then, do I add WW flour and other ingredients needed to make WW bread.

~ C

tropit

BTW...sourdough starter also makes for a good base for sourdough pancakes. Make extra starter and add a couple of cups of starter, a couple of tablespoons of sugar, about a tablespoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda, plus salt to taste. You don't even need eggs, but I suppose that you could add them if you wanted to. They bubble up very nicely and hold together well.

~ C

tuckyquilter

I make sure I don't add to much flour to start with. Flour will be added during the kneading. I also make sure the rise is long enough to make the bread fully baked through.

You can pick up a razor blade anywhere they sell paint or tools. I keep several around for just such cuttings.
And post a photo - to make us all hungry.