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A scheduling tool for bread baking

276 points by catacombs 7y ago

moultano 7y ago
This is really cool, but to complete these recipes successfully on schedule you'd have to account for the ambient temperature of your house and adjust accordingly. A rise overnight at 65 degrees is going to take ~twice as long as one during the day at 75.
- gdubs 7y ago
  I’m pretty new to bread making (like many I’m sure) but today realized I could use the oven to help rise, as our house is kept cool. Basically turn on the oven at its lowest setting for a few minutes and then turn it off, and let your dough rise in the warmer atmosphere of the oven.
  - pfranz 7y ago
    If your oven has an incandescent light, often that's just warm enough. Just leave it on. Same with gas ovens with a lit pilot. I recently noticed mine has a "proof mode" I had been meaning to test out.
  - Lynbarry 7y ago
    You can also fill water bottles with hot water (I usually use two) and put them next to the dough in the oven. My oven gets slightly too warm if I turn it on to the lowest setting / light only.
sneak 7y ago
This is amazing! Great juice on the animations, the halving checkbox is a lovely touch. You might want to proofread the recipe steps, check the temps update with metric/imperial switches, and add a TLS redirect.
cheerlessbog 7y ago
I picked Sour Dough, changed start time to tomorrow morning, the diagram went blank and the schedule now shows Invalid Date.
mikedilger 7y ago
I hope this works for somebody, but I'm going to have to critique the whole concept of "timing' when baking sourdough bread. After years of baking sourdough I find that I cannot predict precisely the timing. I have to judge the dough at each step and not proceed until it is ready. This is especially true in that I like trying new things, making tweaks, fermenting at different temperatures, and this alters the timing. The timing depends highly on temperature, where in the refresh cycle the starter is at (still rising? fallen and foamy?), but also very much on your particular starter. Some starters run slow (especially newly created ones). Others are fast. Using someone else's timing just never seemed to work for me. Early on when I started baking sourdough I made some absolute bricks because I followed the timing that the recipe specified, even though their descriptions of the dough seemed very different to what I was seeing. And if they said two hours, then eight hours must certainly be enough... but it wasn't enough. Yes, it really can be off by that far (especially with a new weak sourdough starter that wasn't refreshed properly). Nonetheless, you have to have some sort of plan. Turns out that I can always make it work within a certain set of bounds if I am home all day on some given day. And that has driven me into the following pattern: 1. Remove sourdough starter from refrigerator the night before, and refresh. 2. Build dough in the mid morning with active starter 3. Bulk ferment (with stretches and folds) in a proofer until it is ready 4. Pre shape. Then shape. Then refrigerate in bags. 5. Bake the loaves (I always do two boules) early the next morning. This is by no means the only pattern that can be made to work, but it's robust and flexible enough for anything I've ever thrown at it.
- thendrill 7y ago
  I like how seriously you take the lorem impsum of a front end programmer
- joshvm 7y ago
  One thing that really made a massive difference for me was making a proofing box. It's a large EPS container (similar to the ones that market sellers use) with a seedling heating mat inside. I control it with a cheap (like < $10) thermostat from Amazon. It maintains around 26C quite easily and is pretty efficient. I've never bothered to check the accuracy of the thermostat, but I imagine it's within a degree or two. You can also use it for fermentation, Noma have instructions on how to build one. My only suggestion is don't do what I did and go nuts on the size. You can get away with a much smaller box (e.g. I bake 500g loaves mostly, and I use a 4L graduated polycarbonate container - it's dwarfed by the size of the box). Temperature control makes an enormous difference. I live in a cold house, hence why I built this. To make things worse, my kitchen has marble worktops. So if you use cold or tepid water and then knead, you end up cooling the dough even more on the counter. It's a bit different with Tartine because you don't really knead the dough, but still - yeast is optimally active around 25C or so and if you have to wait for the dough to come up to temperature, that can easily add an hour or two. So you can control this by measuring the temp of your water and using a climate controlled box (which costs about a tenth of one of those pop-up Broder ones). I do agree about starter refresh cycles though, as well as what hydration you put in, how much you put in, what exactly the flour is. I don't climate control my starter except during the winter when it sits by the boiler. Most of the time my routine is identical to yours. Feed the starter overnight Friday, make the dough Saturday morning and bulk it during the day. Refrigerate overnight and bake on Sunday. Strongly recommend watching Chad do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4dyWZZVeWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4dyWZZVeWI It answered a lot of questions I had from reading the book.
Alextigtig 7y ago
I love it!! Thanks for making!
angrygoat 7y ago
This is cool. One minor thing, at least on Firefox it's not possible to open the links to different breads in a new tab. It'd be nice to have that, just so the user can open the breads that interest them in tabs and then sort through them.
jerzyt 7y ago
For those of us working in tech, it can be extremely satisfying to bake your own bread. I did that a few years ago, starting from scratch, making my own sourdough starter, and baking daily. It's rediscovering what a typical family did centuries ago. Your starter becomes a pet. I had to stop it due to a lot of travel, but I still have a packet of my starter vacuum sealed and frozen. Maybe I should try again. Travel certainly won't be an issue for a while.
- jfim 7y ago
  Not to forget the amazing smell of freshly baked bread!
  - jerzyt 7y ago
    Yes. My bread never lasted long enough to reach the room temp.
- danieldk 7y ago
  I just like fresh bread without all the work ;). With a good bread machine, you only have to mix the ingredients (or purchase a nice mix) and the machine does the work for you. Ours never failed baking a good bread (except for the one time where I forgot to add yeast ;)). We rarely buy bread at the store anymore.
- tjomk 7y ago
  You don't need to keep it in the freezer. Making a good started takes about a week. Then off to the races :-) Here's a good process: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredible-sourdough-starter-scratch/ https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredibl...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jonahhorowitz 7y ago
This is super interesting. I tried my first bake yesterday, and it... did not go well. Second try is currently forming. Fingers crossed.
- awild 7y ago
  What were your breads' problems?
  - jonahhorowitz 6y ago
    Sorry I didn't see this until just now, but the bread didn't rise at all. Just a cold lump. The second loaf came out great though.
mattswoop 7y ago
Love it!!!
sleavey 7y ago
This is great! What I miss though is some search or filtering of flour type. I only use spelt and rye.
yegle 7y ago
I discovered yesterday that loaf pan is mostly sold out in Target, Walmart. Guess people really have more time to do bakery due to the WFH.
- 01100011 7y ago
  Flour and sugar have been sold out everywhere I've gone since the quarantine started in the bay area.
georgeoliver 7y ago
It's a good idea for a tool, but it could use a dough temperature and automatic schedule adjustment based on a modified temp.
guidedlight 7y ago
I’m from Australia, and this site uses a weird imperial mix and metric measurements. Weights are in grams, but temperature is in fahrenheit (I think, doesn’t actually say). Please use one measurement system make it consistent, as well as switchable. Thanks.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  This is weird. Though at least it uses grams for all the ingredients and doesn’t use cups or some other horrible measure.
- rexarex 7y ago
  It’s Canadian style
  - eps 7y ago
    Reverse-Canadian then. In Canada the temp is in C, but some weight measurements are in lbs.
    - phonypc 7y ago
      Room temperatures and the weather are usually in Celsius, but I find cooking temps more often in Fahrenheit. We're just all over the place.
- rmetzler 7y ago
  I‘m from Germany. Thanks for having ingredients in grams and making it switchable. But how much is 425°F in Celsius? :)
  - arkanciscan 7y ago
    More than 350° but less than 450°
  - jjgreen 7y ago
    Easy way to remember: 32F = 0C, -40F = -40C, and the relation is linear
axaxs 7y ago
Thanks for this. I'm extremely blessed to have a wife that enjoys making bread, and makes the best sourdough I've ever tasted. It's mostly in her head but from the notes I've pieced together it seems close to the weekday sourdough. Bread is so easy to make and so delicious if you have patience, I really hope this leads to more people making bread. Store bought tastes like paper in comparison. Protip to any future breadmakers: buy a cast iron Dutch oven. It's the real game changer.
- 01100011 7y ago
  I've been wondering about that. The last time I baked bread was 10+ years ago. At the time, I got professional results with just a pizza stone and a spray bottle of water. The water replaced the steam oven and did a great job of gelatinizing the crust. Unfortunately I don't think I can get a dutch oven during the lockdown.
  - axaxs 7y ago
    So, my wife has been making bread a while and it was always 'chewy'. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but there was no crust to the bread. After researching, the consensus was that the lid helped keep the steam in and brown the bread. You only leave it on for half the bake, typically. But the difference between bread on a stone and bread in a proper enclosure is truly night and day. Thinking through not having access to a proper dutch oven, water would probably work but I'd think you'd still need a cover of sorts, even if makeshift foil.
  - kaibee 7y ago
    > Unfortunately I don't think I can get a dutch oven during the lockdown. ymmv and I don't know where you live, but I was able order one off Amazon and get it in about 4 days about a week ago. Just mixed up the dough for my first bread a few hours ago :)
  - wiredfool 7y ago
    A pasta pot with a metal oven safe lid is 90% as good. Shaping isn't quite as good, and the side crust is less browned, but overall it's night and day better than on a tray/stone. (Doing it now, cause my dutch oven isn't here, and the pasta pot is.)
tomduncalf 7y ago
Great idea! Made my first sourdough bread yesterday after a couple of weeks of trying to get a starter going, the process is a fun and interesting project, especially while staying at home, and you don’t need much to get started (flour, water, ideally a cast iron pot, scales). Tastes amazing and reduces social contact of having to go to the shops/bakery too :)
- lostlogin 7y ago
  For something easy and delicious, try the below - half the recipe though, as it makes masses. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/audio/2018620256/french-flatbread-fougasse https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/audio/20...
  - tomduncalf 7y ago
    Looks great! Thanks
juanbyrge 7y ago
I have been baking sourdough for 2+ years and I don't think people should take the timing too seriously. Yes it's good to loosely follow a schedule but if you don't the bread will still turn out fine. I don't think I've ever followed the exact same schedule twice. A few times I flat out forgot about the dough and shaped it hours after I was supposed to, and it still came out amazing. Sourdough is very forgiving. The most important thing in my opinion is mix it thoroughly in the beginning and to do the stretch and folds properly so the dough has strength and can hold it's shape for the later bulk rising.
- atomi 7y ago
  Yes! I think it's also important to remember that you're cultivating a living organism. It's an art, and you should adjust your schedule based on what the dough is doing.
  - nimrody 7y ago
    That's the most difficult part for me. We need more than a schedule - we need instructions how to modify the schedule and perhaps ingredients based on what we get. The "Quarantine bread" receipt was wonderful last week. This week, for some reason it turns out terrible (dough very sticky, bread burnt on the outside, etc.) No idea what went wrong and what I should have done to fix this.
    - joshuaduffy 7y ago
      Water temperature is best around body temperature, any higher or lower and you'll have issues as you described. Leaving it for ten minutes/waiting for the flour to hydrate then mixing again can help out when the temperature is off.
    - i_am_proteus 7y ago
      As someone who's been baking for a while (both sourdoughs and breads made with commercial yeast), there's a lot of learning to be done through trial and error, and it's difficult to communicate the nuances of how the dough feels or looks via instruction. Temperature and humidity can change day-to-day (and certainly week-to-week) in a residence. Same with the temperature of "cold" water coming out of your tap. A thermometer and a kitchen scale go a long way towards consistently implementing recipes (and therefore getting consistent results). Some general tips: - If the dough is too sticky, add flour! Check the stickiness before bulk fermentation. - Check the dough during the rise. If it has risen a lot and "domed" early, punch it down or give it a fold. If it's time for a fold but it hasn't risen much yet, let it rise longer! - If you find your rise times are shorter than the recipe, use cooler water. If your rise times are too long, use warmer water. - If you don't have a baking stone, baking steel, or dutch oven, you can use an inverted cast iron pan as a baking steel. - Preheat your oven for an hour or more. Residential ovens often have substantial internal temperature variations. I use dutch ovens to bake bread, but also keep a baking stone on the lowest oven rack as a way to regulate the oven's temperature.
Xcelerate 7y ago
Anyone know a good recipe for a real French baguette? I haven’t yet been able to find a baguette in the Bay Area that tastes like they do in France (lived there for three years). And honestly, good butter is hard to find too, although I did locate a little store in San Mateo that carries Echire.
- evgen 7y ago
  Finding a flour that is close to French type 55 is going to be the biggest problem for getting a baguette that is close to authentic. Try King Arthur for some of the custom blends that are close to what you need; US “all purpose” flour has too much protein and the lower protein “cake flour” has a grind that is too fine.
danielovichdk 7y ago
So funny how tech people must have such a detailed recipe for baking with sourdough. It's the same with coffee. Listen. Dough is a living organism. You cannot set a timer to it. It must be nursed, especially based on what flour you use, freshness of the flour, the climate, the moisture etc. If you want to be really good at baking, then bake at least 100 loafs and see what you learn. Then try to change the flour brand and bake again. Then you will se a different result. You cannot time food. Get it.
- jerzyt 7y ago
  Yes, you're right. It really doesn't take a genius to make a sourdough. But you're misunderstanding the tech people. They will take tying shoelaces to the genius level. Same with baking bread. And it's a lot of fun for a lot of us.
  - samizdis 7y ago
    Perhaps slightly off topic, but I have for years admired the cooking schematics on Cooking for Engineers. Here's the recipe for meat lasagne - scroll to the bottom and admire the schematic and the bonus layer diagram: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/36/Meat-Lasagna http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/36/Meat-Lasagna Edited to add: Oh, and you mentioned shoelaces, so the venerable Ian's Shoelace Site is a must: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
- 01100011 7y ago
  The internet psuhes this idea that you can quickly be an expert in anything, you just need to read a few websites or watch a few YouTube videos. It's nice to have those resources, but the advanced info is often useless without the context of experience. Doing things is often the only way to attain ability.
technocratia 7y ago
This is nice! I have been baking my own bread for a while now in a large masonry oven, it takes a while to learn when the temperature in the oven is right and the dough is good. Baking bread is more an art than science IMO. You learn it by doing it, this is a nice starting point.
esquire_900 7y ago
I've recently been making very low effort bread, which takes less then 10 minutes overall, and is (in my novice eyes) exactly the same as bread that has been kneaded with the "proper" schedule. Perhaps one of the experts here can shine a light on why something simple like below creates (almost) the same quality as a mixture that has been processed with much more effort? - Put everything in a bowl, and mix it until it's consistent. Usually takes 2-ish minutes. I find a simple, non-sharp knife to work best. - Cover it with cloth and let it sit for 12-20 hours depending on the mixture and temperature. - Get the mixture out, en cover with flower on all sides. Don't knead or overly touch (it will lose volume). - Preheat the oven with an iron cast over pot, once it's hot (250C), take out the pot, put in the mixture, and put on the lid. Halfway into the baking time, take off the lid.
- revertts 7y ago
  > Put everything in a bowl Care to share your measurements? I’m aiming for something similar, but having trouble getting my ratios dialed in.
- lqet 7y ago
  This is exactly my recipe, which I have been using for 5 years now with great success. It's foolproof. The bread will usually look like shit after you dump it into the iron cast pot, but will have a nice and smooth and tight surface after the first baking round with the lid on. The bread will look like this: https://holycowvegan.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/no-knead-sourdough-bread-7.jpg https://holycowvegan.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/no-knead... If you stop the baking without the lid sooner, it will look like this: https://joyfoodsunshine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/dutch-oven-no-knead-bread-recipe-1.jpg https://joyfoodsunshine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/dutch...
- girzel 7y ago
  Gluten development can happen through two mechanisms (usually both are in play), once water is added to flour: either physical stretching (kneading), or just time. The stretch-and-fold method balances these two. But if you're letting the dough sit for 12-20 hours, that's achieving the same effect.
thendrill 7y ago
This is the exact type of tooling that current electronic media needs to leverage itself beyond just.... "news paper on a TV screen". Great job great execution, and very nice and clean design!
barry27 7y ago
"3:38am Cut and Enjoy " Honestly this site is everything that's up with the world these days. Just bake the bread, for crying out loud.
flr03 7y ago
Does someone has a plan to find T65-like flour in UK/London? Everything looks sold out now.
- renw0rp 7y ago
  I'm in the same situation. I still have some (finely ground) wheat flour, but can't get any bread flour nor rye flour :/
jwr 7y ago
Or you could also learn how to make mixed 4/3 rye/wheat sourdough with a natural starter, which requires no scheduling at all. Just mix it in the morning and put it in the oven some time in the late afternoon/evening. I've been doing it for years and it's the only kind of bread that I can make on a regular basis. It's something you can actually do daily, not an additional hobby. Ingredients: * 400g full-grain rye flour * 300g wheat flour * 10-15g salt * 600ml water * 50-80g levain starter (rye based) mix, wait 6-8h, bake at 210C for 1h05. This is a very popular kind of bread in Poland, while I found that in the US people don't really know what to do with full-grain rye flour. I've read books that said it can only be used to make dark pumpernickel breads, and I never found the recipe above (or similar) in any bread-baking books I've read. Also, the rye starter is fairly stable, forgiving and easy to maintain in a fridge.
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  Most of my breads use a mixture of rye and wheat with a wheat sourdough. I'll have to give the rye sourdough a try. Finding rye at retail stores in the USA is very difficult. I have to order mine directly from a mill.
  - jwr 7y ago
    Yes, when I was in the US I used to order "Hodgson Mill Organic Rye Flour, 30-Ounce (Pack of 6)" through Amazon sellers, and later had trouble getting the stuff. The organic version was better than non-organic. It's difficult to get because nobody knows how to use it :-)
  - HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
    FWIW, if you're in Minnesota, it's in every Cub Foods supermarket. Then again, Minneapolis is AKA the Mill City!
  - scruple 7y ago
    We do rye and wheat sourdough at home, as well. Prior to the lockdowns I had no problem finding 5 pound bags of wheat flour and 3 pound bags of rye flour. Now, though... Can't even find it online.
paganel 7y ago
Next step is to better schedule yeast procuring in stores around the world, I have been looking for it at stores close to me for two weeks now with no success, I've read that the situation is similar in other European cities.
- jmiserez 7y ago
  Yes, but while dried yeast is sold out completely here, locally produced fresh yeast is still available. There's also other forms (freeze-dried, liquid, etc) you can look for.
Theodores 7y ago
Few appreciate what has gone wrong with regular store bought bread. Regular store bought bread is created with the Chorleywood process, whereby substandard wheat and carbon dioxide can be mashed together to make some dough that can be baked into something that resembles bread. These loaves of bread-style-wheat things are not made with just the basic ingredients needed for bread. There are the E numbers for preservatives and whatever else is 'needed'. Often the additives are added to the flour rather than the dough and therefore do not have to be listed. Stuff derived from human hair can get in there as an 'E number'. Often people self-diagnose themselves as having gluten or other allergies when there could be problems with the additives rather than the core product of what bread is supposed to be. Chucking out store bought bread and joining the sourdough club is a popular reaction to the industrial nonsense that poses as 'bread'. However, there are economic factors at play here. Sourdough keeps and it can be sold at a premium. Actual fresh bread made with yeast and zero additives does not keep and cannot be sold at a premium. It is also less trendy and not on the radar of the hipster crowd. However, if one is sorting out one's bread properly then a bread machine and the ingredients for bread making is a shrewd investment. It takes five minutes to load the machine with 500g of flour, 360 ml of water, 25g of some type of fat, a teaspoon of yeast, a teaspoon and a half of sugar (to make the yeast do its thing) and a teaspoon and a quarter of salt. You can then press the start button to have the freshest bread you could wish for in four hours. Or you can set the timer so it is ready in the morning or when you are back from work. By taking this approach you have the benefits of pure, fresh bread with none of the downsides of lengthy preparation times. You don't need an app to manage your sourdough. It is also energy efficient as a bread machine is a small rather than large appliance. The Panasonic machines are best as you have recipes based on that machine plus you can get spare parts and the beginners manual uses metric rather than obscure 'cup sizes'. With home-machine, properly bakes bread you don't need to be chewing on some sourdough rusk that is essentially stale, you can fire up the machine and keep the fresh loaves coming every 2-3 days. You can mix and match the flours to keep your bread varied. You can also focus on what you eat your bread with rather than try to forever by adding ingredients to the bread such as tomatoes, olives, nuts etc. If you can maintain the routine then you never need join the sourdough club, you can cut your own way with the innovative 'yeast' ingredient used properly rather than thrown out.
- 7y ago
fxtentacle 7y ago
I feel like that website is slightly counter-productive, because it puts a very strong emphasis on timing, whereas for producing high-quality bread, things like dough handling techniques, dough and oven humidity, or baking temperature have a much stronger effect than timing.
- crispyambulance 7y ago
  You're right that it's important to observe the dough and modify timing as needed. I think, however, that for many folks who are trying out baking sourdough for the first time, it helps them a lot to start with a fully detailed recipe that includes timing. The instructions on that bread scheduler will AT LEAST get you to the right ball park (assuming you use similar flour to the instructions). For those starting this out, I would recommend following one of these detailed recipes, do it several times or more, and that way develop some sense of what factors to tweak. Taking a closer look at the instructions, I see they're not emphasizing dough temperature during bulk ferment. Household kitchen temperatures can vary quite widely and this temperature is an important factor in how long the dough takes to ferment. That's why it's valuable to press the dough with your finger and gauge readiness prior to shaping steps.
  - fxtentacle 7y ago
    I believe what most newcomers will want to bake is not a large bread - because then you're stuck with it if it turns out so-so - but rather smaller bread rolls. Those are based on instant yeast and prepared rather swiftly, so then the kitchen temperature becomes a major success/failure factor.
- gen220 7y ago
  Also ambient temperature and dough temperature! My dough was a full 10 degrees F warmer than normal after mixing recently, and it finished rising 1/6 faster (about 2 hours). Temperature strongly impacts the fermentation stage (warmer means the yeast works faster).
  - fxtentacle 7y ago
stormdennis 7y ago
Don't buy sourdough bread from supermarkets, they don't make it right. I heard that every time you buy one from them a hipster dies.
rusbus 7y ago
At least personally, when my sourdough is ready (by appearance and feel) for the next step corresponds to the "time" from the "recipe" so infrequently that I'm shocked when it does Following a schedule exactly is a great way to make Frisbees (short dense loaves)
arkanciscan 7y ago
Unlike the rest of the readers of HackerNews I'm not an expert on breadmaking. So, to me this looks like a very cool resource that could make me feel confident enough to try. It also looks real nice, and plays well on mobile! Nice work!
swah 7y ago
Not sure if intentional but I really loved seeing Recipe.vue open and with comments and logs... I'm trying to learn how to generate charts with SVG and D3, this is helpful.
nyxtom 7y ago
This may be the first recipe list I’ve ever seen that doesn’t include a 20 page essay on family history followed by half a dozen ads. I like the design
- Breza 7y ago
  I totally agree! Most recipe sites don't focus on what I want: recipes. I'm a pretty good home cook and I've been trying to get better at timing. Getting all elements of a big dinner party ready at the same time is tricky. This website is terrific. I wish this approach were applied to more complex multi-dish meals.
sampo 7y ago
I have found that a minimal version of no-knead bread is already good: 700ml flour, 350ml water, 1 to 1.5 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp instant yeast. Mix in bowl, cover, let stand for 12-16 hours. Put dutch oven in oven, heat to 250C. Take out the hot dutch oven, sprinkle some bran or flour or cornmeal on the bottom, scrape dough from the bowl into the dutch oven, sprinkle some bran on top. Bake 30min with lid, remove lid, bake 20min more. I am sure extra steps (autolyse) and extra work (folding, shaping) would improve it, but even this minimal procedure makes tasty bread.
- rand_r 7y ago
  Does the bread rise while it's baking in the oven? I've tried to do this no-knead recipe and the bread came out pretty flat.
  - sampo 7y ago
    The dough bubbles and more than doubles in volume in the bowl when the yeast is slowly working. If you wait too little, it hasn't risen yet. If you wait too long, it will rise and then start to flatten back. You can see this from the sides of the bowl, that the dough has reached a higher level earlier, and started to contract, but left some marks up to the maximum where it was. I guess the timing depends on how much yeast you added exactly, and the temperature in your kitchen. You don't need to get it perfectly right, but it you wait way too little or way too long I guess the bread comes out dense. You just scrape the risen dough from the bowl into the dutch oven with minimal disturbance, so you don't disturb the air bubbles too much. And your oven and the dutch oven need to be hot at this point, so the dough goes right into a hot oven, the heat expands the air bubbles and gives you some oven spring. Other recipes make you sprinkle flour on a working surface, fold and shape the dough into a loaf, and then leave it, giving the shaped loaf a second rise.
  - awinder 7y ago
    The Dutch oven basically acts as a little mini steam oven which contributes a lot to the rising. Also the walls for it to rise up.
- tjomk 7y ago
dthul 7y ago
Are the amounts on the website broken or am I slightly dense? The "Overnight Weekend Bread" recipe (http://www.breadscheduler.com/#/recipe/5bac85f720211052e0b703f1 http://www.breadscheduler.com/#/recipe/5bac85f720211052e0b70...) instructs you to create 500g-550g of levain (the amounts in the overview and the step-by-step instructions don't quite match for me). Then, in the "Mix Dough" step it tells you to use 108g of the levain. What happens to the rest? Are you supposed to throw it out or keep it as your sourdough starter? Also, the "Autolyse" step tells you to use 402g of white flour while the overview specifies 804g. (Judging by the hydration they must certainly mean 402g).
- eps 7y ago
  Also times of all steps in "Step by step instructions" are 9:14.
dewey 7y ago
Small bug report, I'm seeing "Invalid date" here: https://imgur.com/rdcKJgw https://imgur.com/rdcKJgw I just set the start time to "right now". Safari Version 13.1 (15609.1.20.111.8)
Hackbraten 7y ago
Very well designed and implemented! Would you mind adding a 12h/24h switcher? I’m in the EU and I can’t figure out what 12am means vs. 12pm even though I keep looking it up.
- jfim 7y ago
  It's super confusing. The easiest way I've found to understand it is to think of 12 as being zero, so the times go 11am (11) -> 00pm (12) -> 1pm (13) -> 11pm (23) -> 00am (24) -> 1am (25).
awinter-py 7y ago
love the gantt charts
mstaoru 7y ago
Neat! I agree with the commenters above that we geeks try to take bread making (essentially, a free art form), and quantify it somehow and make it into and algorithm. And cheers to that! Feature request: adjust timing automatically given a humidity + temperature measure. Feature request 2: fetch ambient humidity and temperature automatically from users' GPS and time of day. ;-)

276 points by catacombs 7y ago

This is really cool, but to complete these recipes successfully on schedule you'd have to account for the ambient temperature of your house and adjust accordingly. A rise overnight at 65 degrees is going to take ~twice as long as one during the day at 75.

gdubs 7y ago
I’m pretty new to bread making (like many I’m sure) but today realized I could use the oven to help rise, as our house is kept cool. Basically turn on the oven at its lowest setting for a few minutes and then turn it off, and let your dough rise in the warmer atmosphere of the oven.
- pfranz 7y ago
  If your oven has an incandescent light, often that's just warm enough. Just leave it on. Same with gas ovens with a lit pilot. I recently noticed mine has a "proof mode" I had been meaning to test out.
- Lynbarry 7y ago
  You can also fill water bottles with hot water (I usually use two) and put them next to the dough in the oven. My oven gets slightly too warm if I turn it on to the lowest setting / light only.

sneak 7y ago

This is amazing! Great juice on the animations, the halving checkbox is a lovely touch. You might want to proofread the recipe steps, check the temps update with metric/imperial switches, and add a TLS redirect.

cheerlessbog 7y ago

I picked Sour Dough, changed start time to tomorrow morning, the diagram went blank and the schedule now shows Invalid Date.

mikedilger 7y ago

I hope this works for somebody, but I'm going to have to critique the whole concept of "timing' when baking sourdough bread. After years of baking sourdough I find that I cannot predict precisely the timing. I have to judge the dough at each step and not proceed until it is ready. This is especially true in that I like trying new things, making tweaks, fermenting at different temperatures, and this alters the timing. The timing depends highly on temperature, where in the refresh cycle the starter is at (still rising? fallen and foamy?), but also very much on your particular starter. Some starters run slow (especially newly created ones). Others are fast. Using someone else's timing just never seemed to work for me. Early on when I started baking sourdough I made some absolute bricks because I followed the timing that the recipe specified, even though their descriptions of the dough seemed very different to what I was seeing. And if they said two hours, then eight hours must certainly be enough... but it wasn't enough. Yes, it really can be off by that far (especially with a new weak sourdough starter that wasn't refreshed properly). Nonetheless, you have to have some sort of plan. Turns out that I can always make it work within a certain set of bounds if I am home all day on some given day. And that has driven me into the following pattern: 1. Remove sourdough starter from refrigerator the night before, and refresh. 2. Build dough in the mid morning with active starter 3. Bulk ferment (with stretches and folds) in a proofer until it is ready 4. Pre shape. Then shape. Then refrigerate in bags. 5. Bake the loaves (I always do two boules) early the next morning. This is by no means the only pattern that can be made to work, but it's robust and flexible enough for anything I've ever thrown at it.

thendrill 7y ago
I like how seriously you take the lorem impsum of a front end programmer
joshvm 7y ago
One thing that really made a massive difference for me was making a proofing box. It's a large EPS container (similar to the ones that market sellers use) with a seedling heating mat inside. I control it with a cheap (like < $10) thermostat from Amazon. It maintains around 26C quite easily and is pretty efficient. I've never bothered to check the accuracy of the thermostat, but I imagine it's within a degree or two. You can also use it for fermentation, Noma have instructions on how to build one. My only suggestion is don't do what I did and go nuts on the size. You can get away with a much smaller box (e.g. I bake 500g loaves mostly, and I use a 4L graduated polycarbonate container - it's dwarfed by the size of the box). Temperature control makes an enormous difference. I live in a cold house, hence why I built this. To make things worse, my kitchen has marble worktops. So if you use cold or tepid water and then knead, you end up cooling the dough even more on the counter. It's a bit different with Tartine because you don't really knead the dough, but still - yeast is optimally active around 25C or so and if you have to wait for the dough to come up to temperature, that can easily add an hour or two. So you can control this by measuring the temp of your water and using a climate controlled box (which costs about a tenth of one of those pop-up Broder ones). I do agree about starter refresh cycles though, as well as what hydration you put in, how much you put in, what exactly the flour is. I don't climate control my starter except during the winter when it sits by the boiler. Most of the time my routine is identical to yours. Feed the starter overnight Friday, make the dough Saturday morning and bulk it during the day. Refrigerate overnight and bake on Sunday. Strongly recommend watching Chad do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4dyWZZVeWI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4dyWZZVeWI It answered a lot of questions I had from reading the book.

Alextigtig 7y ago

I love it!! Thanks for making!

angrygoat 7y ago

This is cool. One minor thing, at least on Firefox it's not possible to open the links to different breads in a new tab. It'd be nice to have that, just so the user can open the breads that interest them in tabs and then sort through them.

jerzyt 7y ago

For those of us working in tech, it can be extremely satisfying to bake your own bread. I did that a few years ago, starting from scratch, making my own sourdough starter, and baking daily. It's rediscovering what a typical family did centuries ago. Your starter becomes a pet. I had to stop it due to a lot of travel, but I still have a packet of my starter vacuum sealed and frozen. Maybe I should try again. Travel certainly won't be an issue for a while.

jfim 7y ago
Not to forget the amazing smell of freshly baked bread!
- jerzyt 7y ago
  Yes. My bread never lasted long enough to reach the room temp.
danieldk 7y ago
I just like fresh bread without all the work ;). With a good bread machine, you only have to mix the ingredients (or purchase a nice mix) and the machine does the work for you. Ours never failed baking a good bread (except for the one time where I forgot to add yeast ;)). We rarely buy bread at the store anymore.
tjomk 7y ago
You don't need to keep it in the freezer. Making a good started takes about a week. Then off to the races :-) Here's a good process: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredible-sourdough-starter-scratch/ https://www.theperfectloaf.com/7-easy-steps-making-incredibl...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jonahhorowitz 7y ago

This is super interesting. I tried my first bake yesterday, and it... did not go well. Second try is currently forming. Fingers crossed.

awild 7y ago
What were your breads' problems?
- jonahhorowitz 6y ago
  Sorry I didn't see this until just now, but the bread didn't rise at all. Just a cold lump. The second loaf came out great though.

mattswoop 7y ago

Love it!!!

sleavey 7y ago

This is great! What I miss though is some search or filtering of flour type. I only use spelt and rye.

yegle 7y ago

I discovered yesterday that loaf pan is mostly sold out in Target, Walmart. Guess people really have more time to do bakery due to the WFH.

01100011 7y ago
Flour and sugar have been sold out everywhere I've gone since the quarantine started in the bay area.

georgeoliver 7y ago

It's a good idea for a tool, but it could use a dough temperature and automatic schedule adjustment based on a modified temp.

guidedlight 7y ago

I’m from Australia, and this site uses a weird imperial mix and metric measurements. Weights are in grams, but temperature is in fahrenheit (I think, doesn’t actually say). Please use one measurement system make it consistent, as well as switchable. Thanks.

lostlogin 7y ago
This is weird. Though at least it uses grams for all the ingredients and doesn’t use cups or some other horrible measure.
rexarex 7y ago
It’s Canadian style
- eps 7y ago
  Reverse-Canadian then. In Canada the temp is in C, but some weight measurements are in lbs.
  - phonypc 7y ago
    Room temperatures and the weather are usually in Celsius, but I find cooking temps more often in Fahrenheit. We're just all over the place.
rmetzler 7y ago
I‘m from Germany. Thanks for having ingredients in grams and making it switchable. But how much is 425°F in Celsius? :)
- arkanciscan 7y ago
  More than 350° but less than 450°
- jjgreen 7y ago
  Easy way to remember: 32F = 0C, -40F = -40C, and the relation is linear

axaxs 7y ago

Thanks for this. I'm extremely blessed to have a wife that enjoys making bread, and makes the best sourdough I've ever tasted. It's mostly in her head but from the notes I've pieced together it seems close to the weekday sourdough. Bread is so easy to make and so delicious if you have patience, I really hope this leads to more people making bread. Store bought tastes like paper in comparison. Protip to any future breadmakers: buy a cast iron Dutch oven. It's the real game changer.

01100011 7y ago
I've been wondering about that. The last time I baked bread was 10+ years ago. At the time, I got professional results with just a pizza stone and a spray bottle of water. The water replaced the steam oven and did a great job of gelatinizing the crust. Unfortunately I don't think I can get a dutch oven during the lockdown.
- axaxs 7y ago
  So, my wife has been making bread a while and it was always 'chewy'. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious, but there was no crust to the bread. After researching, the consensus was that the lid helped keep the steam in and brown the bread. You only leave it on for half the bake, typically. But the difference between bread on a stone and bread in a proper enclosure is truly night and day. Thinking through not having access to a proper dutch oven, water would probably work but I'd think you'd still need a cover of sorts, even if makeshift foil.
- kaibee 7y ago
  > Unfortunately I don't think I can get a dutch oven during the lockdown. ymmv and I don't know where you live, but I was able order one off Amazon and get it in about 4 days about a week ago. Just mixed up the dough for my first bread a few hours ago :)
- wiredfool 7y ago
  A pasta pot with a metal oven safe lid is 90% as good. Shaping isn't quite as good, and the side crust is less browned, but overall it's night and day better than on a tray/stone. (Doing it now, cause my dutch oven isn't here, and the pasta pot is.)

tomduncalf 7y ago

Great idea! Made my first sourdough bread yesterday after a couple of weeks of trying to get a starter going, the process is a fun and interesting project, especially while staying at home, and you don’t need much to get started (flour, water, ideally a cast iron pot, scales). Tastes amazing and reduces social contact of having to go to the shops/bakery too :)

lostlogin 7y ago
For something easy and delicious, try the below - half the recipe though, as it makes masses. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/audio/2018620256/french-flatbread-fougasse https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thiswayup/audio/20...
- tomduncalf 7y ago
  Looks great! Thanks

juanbyrge 7y ago

I have been baking sourdough for 2+ years and I don't think people should take the timing too seriously. Yes it's good to loosely follow a schedule but if you don't the bread will still turn out fine. I don't think I've ever followed the exact same schedule twice. A few times I flat out forgot about the dough and shaped it hours after I was supposed to, and it still came out amazing. Sourdough is very forgiving. The most important thing in my opinion is mix it thoroughly in the beginning and to do the stretch and folds properly so the dough has strength and can hold it's shape for the later bulk rising.

atomi 7y ago
Yes! I think it's also important to remember that you're cultivating a living organism. It's an art, and you should adjust your schedule based on what the dough is doing.
- nimrody 7y ago
  That's the most difficult part for me. We need more than a schedule - we need instructions how to modify the schedule and perhaps ingredients based on what we get. The "Quarantine bread" receipt was wonderful last week. This week, for some reason it turns out terrible (dough very sticky, bread burnt on the outside, etc.) No idea what went wrong and what I should have done to fix this.
  - joshuaduffy 7y ago
    Water temperature is best around body temperature, any higher or lower and you'll have issues as you described. Leaving it for ten minutes/waiting for the flour to hydrate then mixing again can help out when the temperature is off.
  - i_am_proteus 7y ago
    As someone who's been baking for a while (both sourdoughs and breads made with commercial yeast), there's a lot of learning to be done through trial and error, and it's difficult to communicate the nuances of how the dough feels or looks via instruction. Temperature and humidity can change day-to-day (and certainly week-to-week) in a residence. Same with the temperature of "cold" water coming out of your tap. A thermometer and a kitchen scale go a long way towards consistently implementing recipes (and therefore getting consistent results). Some general tips: - If the dough is too sticky, add flour! Check the stickiness before bulk fermentation. - Check the dough during the rise. If it has risen a lot and "domed" early, punch it down or give it a fold. If it's time for a fold but it hasn't risen much yet, let it rise longer! - If you find your rise times are shorter than the recipe, use cooler water. If your rise times are too long, use warmer water. - If you don't have a baking stone, baking steel, or dutch oven, you can use an inverted cast iron pan as a baking steel. - Preheat your oven for an hour or more. Residential ovens often have substantial internal temperature variations. I use dutch ovens to bake bread, but also keep a baking stone on the lowest oven rack as a way to regulate the oven's temperature.

Xcelerate 7y ago

Anyone know a good recipe for a real French baguette? I haven’t yet been able to find a baguette in the Bay Area that tastes like they do in France (lived there for three years). And honestly, good butter is hard to find too, although I did locate a little store in San Mateo that carries Echire.

evgen 7y ago
Finding a flour that is close to French type 55 is going to be the biggest problem for getting a baguette that is close to authentic. Try King Arthur for some of the custom blends that are close to what you need; US “all purpose” flour has too much protein and the lower protein “cake flour” has a grind that is too fine.

danielovichdk 7y ago

So funny how tech people must have such a detailed recipe for baking with sourdough. It's the same with coffee. Listen. Dough is a living organism. You cannot set a timer to it. It must be nursed, especially based on what flour you use, freshness of the flour, the climate, the moisture etc. If you want to be really good at baking, then bake at least 100 loafs and see what you learn. Then try to change the flour brand and bake again. Then you will se a different result. You cannot time food. Get it.

jerzyt 7y ago
Yes, you're right. It really doesn't take a genius to make a sourdough. But you're misunderstanding the tech people. They will take tying shoelaces to the genius level. Same with baking bread. And it's a lot of fun for a lot of us.
- samizdis 7y ago
  Perhaps slightly off topic, but I have for years admired the cooking schematics on Cooking for Engineers. Here's the recipe for meat lasagne - scroll to the bottom and admire the schematic and the bonus layer diagram: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/36/Meat-Lasagna http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/36/Meat-Lasagna Edited to add: Oh, and you mentioned shoelaces, so the venerable Ian's Shoelace Site is a must: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/
01100011 7y ago
The internet psuhes this idea that you can quickly be an expert in anything, you just need to read a few websites or watch a few YouTube videos. It's nice to have those resources, but the advanced info is often useless without the context of experience. Doing things is often the only way to attain ability.

technocratia 7y ago

This is nice! I have been baking my own bread for a while now in a large masonry oven, it takes a while to learn when the temperature in the oven is right and the dough is good. Baking bread is more an art than science IMO. You learn it by doing it, this is a nice starting point.

esquire_900 7y ago

I've recently been making very low effort bread, which takes less then 10 minutes overall, and is (in my novice eyes) exactly the same as bread that has been kneaded with the "proper" schedule. Perhaps one of the experts here can shine a light on why something simple like below creates (almost) the same quality as a mixture that has been processed with much more effort? - Put everything in a bowl, and mix it until it's consistent. Usually takes 2-ish minutes. I find a simple, non-sharp knife to work best. - Cover it with cloth and let it sit for 12-20 hours depending on the mixture and temperature. - Get the mixture out, en cover with flower on all sides. Don't knead or overly touch (it will lose volume). - Preheat the oven with an iron cast over pot, once it's hot (250C), take out the pot, put in the mixture, and put on the lid. Halfway into the baking time, take off the lid.

revertts 7y ago
> Put everything in a bowl Care to share your measurements? I’m aiming for something similar, but having trouble getting my ratios dialed in.
lqet 7y ago
This is exactly my recipe, which I have been using for 5 years now with great success. It's foolproof. The bread will usually look like shit after you dump it into the iron cast pot, but will have a nice and smooth and tight surface after the first baking round with the lid on. The bread will look like this: https://holycowvegan.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/no-knead-sourdough-bread-7.jpg https://holycowvegan.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/no-knead... If you stop the baking without the lid sooner, it will look like this: https://joyfoodsunshine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/dutch-oven-no-knead-bread-recipe-1.jpg https://joyfoodsunshine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/dutch...
girzel 7y ago
Gluten development can happen through two mechanisms (usually both are in play), once water is added to flour: either physical stretching (kneading), or just time. The stretch-and-fold method balances these two. But if you're letting the dough sit for 12-20 hours, that's achieving the same effect.

thendrill 7y ago

This is the exact type of tooling that current electronic media needs to leverage itself beyond just.... "news paper on a TV screen". Great job great execution, and very nice and clean design!

barry27 7y ago

"3:38am Cut and Enjoy " Honestly this site is everything that's up with the world these days. Just bake the bread, for crying out loud.

flr03 7y ago

Does someone has a plan to find T65-like flour in UK/London? Everything looks sold out now.

renw0rp 7y ago
I'm in the same situation. I still have some (finely ground) wheat flour, but can't get any bread flour nor rye flour :/

jwr 7y ago

Or you could also learn how to make mixed 4/3 rye/wheat sourdough with a natural starter, which requires no scheduling at all. Just mix it in the morning and put it in the oven some time in the late afternoon/evening. I've been doing it for years and it's the only kind of bread that I can make on a regular basis. It's something you can actually do daily, not an additional hobby. Ingredients: * 400g full-grain rye flour * 300g wheat flour * 10-15g salt * 600ml water * 50-80g levain starter (rye based) mix, wait 6-8h, bake at 210C for 1h05. This is a very popular kind of bread in Poland, while I found that in the US people don't really know what to do with full-grain rye flour. I've read books that said it can only be used to make dark pumpernickel breads, and I never found the recipe above (or similar) in any bread-baking books I've read. Also, the rye starter is fairly stable, forgiving and easy to maintain in a fridge.

i_am_proteus 7y ago
Most of my breads use a mixture of rye and wheat with a wheat sourdough. I'll have to give the rye sourdough a try. Finding rye at retail stores in the USA is very difficult. I have to order mine directly from a mill.
- jwr 7y ago
  Yes, when I was in the US I used to order "Hodgson Mill Organic Rye Flour, 30-Ounce (Pack of 6)" through Amazon sellers, and later had trouble getting the stuff. The organic version was better than non-organic. It's difficult to get because nobody knows how to use it :-)
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  FWIW, if you're in Minnesota, it's in every Cub Foods supermarket. Then again, Minneapolis is AKA the Mill City!
- scruple 7y ago
  We do rye and wheat sourdough at home, as well. Prior to the lockdowns I had no problem finding 5 pound bags of wheat flour and 3 pound bags of rye flour. Now, though... Can't even find it online.

paganel 7y ago

Next step is to better schedule yeast procuring in stores around the world, I have been looking for it at stores close to me for two weeks now with no success, I've read that the situation is similar in other European cities.

jmiserez 7y ago
Yes, but while dried yeast is sold out completely here, locally produced fresh yeast is still available. There's also other forms (freeze-dried, liquid, etc) you can look for.

Theodores 7y ago

Few appreciate what has gone wrong with regular store bought bread. Regular store bought bread is created with the Chorleywood process, whereby substandard wheat and carbon dioxide can be mashed together to make some dough that can be baked into something that resembles bread. These loaves of bread-style-wheat things are not made with just the basic ingredients needed for bread. There are the E numbers for preservatives and whatever else is 'needed'. Often the additives are added to the flour rather than the dough and therefore do not have to be listed. Stuff derived from human hair can get in there as an 'E number'. Often people self-diagnose themselves as having gluten or other allergies when there could be problems with the additives rather than the core product of what bread is supposed to be. Chucking out store bought bread and joining the sourdough club is a popular reaction to the industrial nonsense that poses as 'bread'. However, there are economic factors at play here. Sourdough keeps and it can be sold at a premium. Actual fresh bread made with yeast and zero additives does not keep and cannot be sold at a premium. It is also less trendy and not on the radar of the hipster crowd. However, if one is sorting out one's bread properly then a bread machine and the ingredients for bread making is a shrewd investment. It takes five minutes to load the machine with 500g of flour, 360 ml of water, 25g of some type of fat, a teaspoon of yeast, a teaspoon and a half of sugar (to make the yeast do its thing) and a teaspoon and a quarter of salt. You can then press the start button to have the freshest bread you could wish for in four hours. Or you can set the timer so it is ready in the morning or when you are back from work. By taking this approach you have the benefits of pure, fresh bread with none of the downsides of lengthy preparation times. You don't need an app to manage your sourdough. It is also energy efficient as a bread machine is a small rather than large appliance. The Panasonic machines are best as you have recipes based on that machine plus you can get spare parts and the beginners manual uses metric rather than obscure 'cup sizes'. With home-machine, properly bakes bread you don't need to be chewing on some sourdough rusk that is essentially stale, you can fire up the machine and keep the fresh loaves coming every 2-3 days. You can mix and match the flours to keep your bread varied. You can also focus on what you eat your bread with rather than try to forever by adding ingredients to the bread such as tomatoes, olives, nuts etc. If you can maintain the routine then you never need join the sourdough club, you can cut your own way with the innovative 'yeast' ingredient used properly rather than thrown out.

7y ago

fxtentacle 7y ago

I feel like that website is slightly counter-productive, because it puts a very strong emphasis on timing, whereas for producing high-quality bread, things like dough handling techniques, dough and oven humidity, or baking temperature have a much stronger effect than timing.

crispyambulance 7y ago
You're right that it's important to observe the dough and modify timing as needed. I think, however, that for many folks who are trying out baking sourdough for the first time, it helps them a lot to start with a fully detailed recipe that includes timing. The instructions on that bread scheduler will AT LEAST get you to the right ball park (assuming you use similar flour to the instructions). For those starting this out, I would recommend following one of these detailed recipes, do it several times or more, and that way develop some sense of what factors to tweak. Taking a closer look at the instructions, I see they're not emphasizing dough temperature during bulk ferment. Household kitchen temperatures can vary quite widely and this temperature is an important factor in how long the dough takes to ferment. That's why it's valuable to press the dough with your finger and gauge readiness prior to shaping steps.
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  I believe what most newcomers will want to bake is not a large bread - because then you're stuck with it if it turns out so-so - but rather smaller bread rolls. Those are based on instant yeast and prepared rather swiftly, so then the kitchen temperature becomes a major success/failure factor.
gen220 7y ago
Also ambient temperature and dough temperature! My dough was a full 10 degrees F warmer than normal after mixing recently, and it finished rising 1/6 faster (about 2 hours). Temperature strongly impacts the fermentation stage (warmer means the yeast works faster).
- fxtentacle 7y ago

stormdennis 7y ago

Don't buy sourdough bread from supermarkets, they don't make it right. I heard that every time you buy one from them a hipster dies.

rusbus 7y ago

At least personally, when my sourdough is ready (by appearance and feel) for the next step corresponds to the "time" from the "recipe" so infrequently that I'm shocked when it does Following a schedule exactly is a great way to make Frisbees (short dense loaves)

arkanciscan 7y ago

Unlike the rest of the readers of HackerNews I'm not an expert on breadmaking. So, to me this looks like a very cool resource that could make me feel confident enough to try. It also looks real nice, and plays well on mobile! Nice work!

swah 7y ago

Not sure if intentional but I really loved seeing Recipe.vue open and with comments and logs... I'm trying to learn how to generate charts with SVG and D3, this is helpful.

nyxtom 7y ago

This may be the first recipe list I’ve ever seen that doesn’t include a 20 page essay on family history followed by half a dozen ads. I like the design

Breza 7y ago
I totally agree! Most recipe sites don't focus on what I want: recipes. I'm a pretty good home cook and I've been trying to get better at timing. Getting all elements of a big dinner party ready at the same time is tricky. This website is terrific. I wish this approach were applied to more complex multi-dish meals.

sampo 7y ago

I have found that a minimal version of no-knead bread is already good: 700ml flour, 350ml water, 1 to 1.5 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp instant yeast. Mix in bowl, cover, let stand for 12-16 hours. Put dutch oven in oven, heat to 250C. Take out the hot dutch oven, sprinkle some bran or flour or cornmeal on the bottom, scrape dough from the bowl into the dutch oven, sprinkle some bran on top. Bake 30min with lid, remove lid, bake 20min more. I am sure extra steps (autolyse) and extra work (folding, shaping) would improve it, but even this minimal procedure makes tasty bread.

rand_r 7y ago
Does the bread rise while it's baking in the oven? I've tried to do this no-knead recipe and the bread came out pretty flat.
- sampo 7y ago
  The dough bubbles and more than doubles in volume in the bowl when the yeast is slowly working. If you wait too little, it hasn't risen yet. If you wait too long, it will rise and then start to flatten back. You can see this from the sides of the bowl, that the dough has reached a higher level earlier, and started to contract, but left some marks up to the maximum where it was. I guess the timing depends on how much yeast you added exactly, and the temperature in your kitchen. You don't need to get it perfectly right, but it you wait way too little or way too long I guess the bread comes out dense. You just scrape the risen dough from the bowl into the dutch oven with minimal disturbance, so you don't disturb the air bubbles too much. And your oven and the dutch oven need to be hot at this point, so the dough goes right into a hot oven, the heat expands the air bubbles and gives you some oven spring. Other recipes make you sprinkle flour on a working surface, fold and shape the dough into a loaf, and then leave it, giving the shaped loaf a second rise.
- awinder 7y ago
  The Dutch oven basically acts as a little mini steam oven which contributes a lot to the rising. Also the walls for it to rise up.
tjomk 7y ago

dthul 7y ago

Are the amounts on the website broken or am I slightly dense? The "Overnight Weekend Bread" recipe (http://www.breadscheduler.com/#/recipe/5bac85f720211052e0b703f1 http://www.breadscheduler.com/#/recipe/5bac85f720211052e0b70...) instructs you to create 500g-550g of levain (the amounts in the overview and the step-by-step instructions don't quite match for me). Then, in the "Mix Dough" step it tells you to use 108g of the levain. What happens to the rest? Are you supposed to throw it out or keep it as your sourdough starter? Also, the "Autolyse" step tells you to use 402g of white flour while the overview specifies 804g. (Judging by the hydration they must certainly mean 402g).

eps 7y ago
Also times of all steps in "Step by step instructions" are 9:14.

dewey 7y ago

Small bug report, I'm seeing "Invalid date" here: https://imgur.com/rdcKJgw https://imgur.com/rdcKJgw I just set the start time to "right now". Safari Version 13.1 (15609.1.20.111.8)

Hackbraten 7y ago

Very well designed and implemented! Would you mind adding a 12h/24h switcher? I’m in the EU and I can’t figure out what 12am means vs. 12pm even though I keep looking it up.

jfim 7y ago
It's super confusing. The easiest way I've found to understand it is to think of 12 as being zero, so the times go 11am (11) -> 00pm (12) -> 1pm (13) -> 11pm (23) -> 00am (24) -> 1am (25).

awinter-py 7y ago

love the gantt charts

mstaoru 7y ago

Neat! I agree with the commenters above that we geeks try to take bread making (essentially, a free art form), and quantify it somehow and make it into and algorithm. And cheers to that! Feature request: adjust timing automatically given a humidity + temperature measure. Feature request 2: fetch ambient humidity and temperature automatically from users' GPS and time of day. ;-)