very first loaf

Ahhhh. Well, tell us how it turns out!

alrighty

Why's it outside, though?

need to let the dough rise

Can't you do that indoors? Just cover the bowl with a damp handtowel.

recipe called for a hot place to let the dough rise

like 90 degrees fahrenheit outside rn

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I use my over on the "warming" setting.

Hm. Well, alright.

*oven

i don't think my oven has that setting

Whatever it's lowest temp is is probably fine.

I just stick mine near the window, or by an open convection oven.

I guess it depends on the oven, mine is pretty nice.

The open convection overn seems sharp. Doesn't it heat up the room really bad though?

Depends how much you open it, and in winter I turn off the heater when I make bread, use the convection oven and bread oven to make the house smell nice and be warm. In summer I can just leave it by the window.

I'm talking one of those lil toaster ovens you make fish sticks and stuff in. Not the full-size oven.

Yeah. I have one.

I find that active heating produces better results.

Lot's of factors there though.

Winter's the best time to bake. Makes the whole house smell like a home, and there's nothing like warm bread and good butter.

And yeah, I can see that. My state's just so warm, I hardly ever need to bother more with that.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/309843229719789569/362730403024338955/IMG_20170927_184045.jpg?width=355&height=474

bread is risen

time to bake

You don't double-rise your bread? Interesting.

double rising?

Should lightly knead or punch it and re-rise. Prevents the bread from looking like swiss cheese.

i'll take that into account next time i bake

The gluten strands form more completely with a second rise.

oh nice

Gives more structure, and prevents the bread from being too crumbly.

oh okay

well we'll see how it'll turn out lmao

And as I said, prevents large air holes from forming.

mhm

They say it's best to lightly reknead it, but I just punch down on it a few times and then throw it back in the oven for second rise. Seems to work fine.

If I baked with no bread pan, I would probably knead it instead.

thanks for the advice @Rin

Sure.

bread was a success

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/309843229719789569/362745813627174933/IMG_20170927_193741.jpg?width=355&height=474

crispy, buttered outside

nice and airy/spongy inside

Looks a little uh.... handmade^^

lmao yeah

Good first run though.

Next time, before you put it in the pan, knead it in such a way that the folds are on the underside and the top has a sort of smooth skin on it. Like an elongated pizza dough before rolling. It will be much more aestetically pleasing as an end product and will give you the familiar "bread form factor".

ok

The trick to the whole process in understanding how gluten forms and behaves. If you do a little research on that specific point, it wil give much better insight into what's really going on, and as a result, more control over the end result.

mhm

duly noted

thanks for the info

What would you guys reccommend I grow first to learn the basics of gardening? My parents grow a few vegetables, but I wanted to start a small garden in my home (preferablly a small indoor one).

Depending your climate, tomatos generally are pretty forgiving.

I have a pretty good sized garden, melons, tomato, cucumber, beets, carrots, peppers, etc... Most of it isn't very tempermental. The melons are especially "aggressive" growers.

How are the carrots growing? I would be interested in growing those

Some of the peppers I've not had luck with. And birds can be an issue.

They taste great, but don't look anything like what you see in the store.

Much more imperfect. I think it's cool myself.

A little variety seemse like it would be nice

@Polak It really depends on your growing zone and annual rain amount.

I have 8 chickens too, they are suprisingly easy to care for and they function as pest control and a garbage disposal.

Indeed, highly climate dependant. I happen to live in a good area for it.

We get ~50in of rain here. I have a decently sized yard, but currently renting. So i would need to do it inside or build something in the backyard

A greenhouse is actually fairly simple to construct.

Not much to it at all.

@Polak I live in Wisconsin. This means that some vegtables like watermelon and sweet potatoes are off the table.

Sometimes mine get so much water they burst.

They are so prolific though, it hardly matters.

@Rin if you don't care about it lasting more than a few years you can make a greenhouse from $50 worth of pvc and painter's plastic.

Yeah, I've seen small ones made with PVC.

I'll look into making one, will only be here for two years so dont mind it if doesnt last much longer than that

That corrugated fiberglass stuff is not really expensive anyway.

I like the pvc ones because they are super easy to move and cheap to make.

Yeah.

I had one with really thick plastic over a plastic tube frame, I got it for starters until they were big enough to plant.

Was maybe 6' tall and 5' wide.

It lasted until the first good storm.

I weighted it down with bricks, but then the wind just shredded it.

if you're willing to buy 8 or 9mm plastic it should last a few years.

But this was a small shitty one, you could build something way better.

With real PVC.

And something more substantial for the walls.

No duh. The real problem is that the larger diameter pvc doesn't bend well. I suppose you could use pex tubing instead.

If you used the thicker walled PVC it would probably be fine here, the plastic that one was made of was junk.

any idea what thickness it was? I'd guess 3 or 4mm.

It's the walls that are tricky because most materials strong enough to withstand a good storm don't let enough light through.

Other than glass and acrylic of course, but that's kind of expensive.

Light shouldn't be a problem if it doesn't have to compete with shade.

This stuff was maybe a 6 mil plastic clear sheeting.

I was hopeful but it just didn't hold up.

How was the plastic attached?

the frame was mostly okay though, even being made of that shit plastic tubing.

I'm talking about the plastic sheeting.

So the frame built just like PVC would, and then the walls were essentailly a huge clear bag with a zipper around the front.

Wrapper? I dunno.

Hard to describe, like a skinn I guess.