SC - Trenchers Oh my!

[Jenne Heise]

> > 2 c. hops tea
> > 2 c. German wheat beer (Hacker-Pschorr in this case)
> > 1 c. spelt flour
> > 1 c. barley flour
> > combined and left to sit, uncovered (for five days in this case) until it
> > begins to bubble.
> I wonder about this mix.  The hops and wheat beer would make it fairly
> bitter while the ratio of liquid to flour would make this a batter.  Since
> Ed Wood has obtained a continuous sourdough starters from Russia and
> Scandinavia, I suspect this may be a bad modern "mock-up" of Polish
> sourdough.

Actually, it's a strange combination of modern sourdough and what he must
think 'thick beer' is. I suspect that if he used a beer with a live
culture, or did his sourdough capturing in Poland, he might have gotten
closer than we will get in our kitchens. Because of the information in
Dembinska's part of the text-- leavening specifically being called 'thick 
beer'--, I suspect that trying to find a documented
beer yeast from Poland would be the way to go, rather than using a
starter.

I just finished reading Ed Wood's book, and I'm very excited about the
Russian culture myself, as well as the Austrian one. However, I think he
tends to exaggerate the documentablity of his cultures just a bit.

> This 50/50 maslin mix produces a common rye.  For trenchers, I would have
> expected something closer to 75/25 rye to wheat.  The fact the mix was very
> sticky suggests that there was too much liquor to the volume of wheat, as
> does the fact that you made it kneadable by adding more flour. 

Hm. Well, actually, I'm confused again. Wouldn't maslin be regular wheat
mixed with rye, rather than spelt? (Also, I thought maslin specifically
referred to greain harvested from fields where wheat and rye were planted
intermixed-- was it also used to refer to mixing the grain together
afterward, or are you just using the term generically?)

I would love to get a copy in English of the Wroclaw bread regulations
referred to in the text of this recipe, since supposedly they specify how
much of each grain went into each type of bread. *grumble grumble*
 
One thing I've noticed and meant to ask the list about: every time I'm
baking bread (here in the Lehigh Valley, PA), I'm adding more flour than
the recipes call for in order to make a kneadable bread. With breads made
from a starter, I have to add a LOT more flour. The bread rises fine,
though a little slow in the wintertime, and is good, but i get a very
tough crust unless I bag the bread when it is still warm or paint it with
butter.

By the time I finished with that bread, it would have been 2/3 rye, 1/3
spelt and barley flour.

> The yeast is added to insure a rise.  This is a modern trick used by bakers
> who must have rise (usually in commercial kitchens) or by people who know
> very little about sourdough baking.  This further suggests the "thick beer"
> is a modern approximation.

It's definitely a modern approximation. I decided to try his way to see
what happened, and when I do it again, I will use all starter and no
yeast. I am just concerned about the additional liquor.
 
> Okay.  I think you will find your 3 to 1 flour to liquor mix by volume is
> about 2 to 1 by weight, which is a fairly common ration for bread making.

*nod*

> > +I don't know if tops of the loaves were slashed in medieval Poland, but I
> > recall pictures of medieval breads with slashed tops. Weaver says that
> > bread stamps or signs of the cross were used (Dembinska, p182)
> Probably not for a trencher.  Table loaves are a different matter.

That makes sense. (One of my books suggested slashing bread dough inorder
to direct the rise, so that the bread would spread out one way and not
another?)

FYI: I hope I'm not coming across as a gadfly. I've tried my first
experiments on my own, and I'm trying to make sense of the advise I'm
getting, which I'm sure is very good.
 -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's managerial 
hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker