I take pictures of the apartment periodically, usually because I’m planning on blogging about something and sometimes because I’d like to share the space via email or my Picasa gallery. Every so often, I go through these photos. What I enjoy about them is that they become this archive of our apartment… what it looked like before I got rid of my sister’s desk, what the wall looked like without such-and-such picture hanging there, etc.

This is a shot of our sink when we first moved in. Totally pristine.

Today I took down something I’d hung (I use the word hung loosely… in this case there was packing tape involved) in the kitchen and breathed a sigh of relief. Yes. It DID look better without that there. Tom’s take? “No comment.” This time, I could take it. I agreed.

A picture of the rice sack-like hanging in place…

Now for the sigh of relief…

As for the pot rack? So far I’m not looking back on that one. Hopefully I’ll have more to share about the sink soon… it was recently featured on Apartment Therapy Boston’s “Good Questions” as I’m working on a sink skirt and needed some advice. You’ll hear about it as soon as I find some suitable fabric!

Many factors affect the way bread turns out: what kind of flour is used, if and how long the bread gets kneaded, the amount of salt, natural yeast versus canned yeast, the ambient conditions, etc.  Of these, none is more influential than the ratio of water to flour. Bakers express this ratio as a baker’s percentage, which compares the mass of water in a dough to the mass of flour. For example, a dough consisting of 500 grams of flour and 300 grams of water has a baker’s percentage of 60%. The level of hydration of flour makes a big difference in terms of texture: dense bagels might be as low as 57% while chewy ciabatta with an open, airy crumb comes to 80% or more. A French-style baguette is around 65%. Although there are technical differences in how each of these breads are made, their varying water contents explain most of the difference in their texture.

Since water content has such a fundamental influence on bread, one of the most important ways to master bread making is to understand and manipulate the amount of water in your dough. With this in mind, I created a bread calculator as a tool for adjusting water content. One need only decide how much bread to make (the mass of the dough) and what percentage of water to use, which is where the fun experimentation comes in. Generally, the higher the percentage of water the bigger the crumb and the chewier the bread, but the dough will also be more difficult to work with and less shapeable. Going in the opposite direction makes denser breads that more easily hold their shape. I am always amazed at how varying the water even a little bit can make a dramatic difference.

Why a bread calculator, instead of say, a recipe? For most of my life, I have been told that while in cooking one can be fast and loose with measurements and improvisations, baking requires precision; slight variations in any ingredient amount could spell disaster. Taking this for truth, I dutifully made bread according to recipes in a few very good bread cookbooks. Sure, I noticed that most recipes were remarkably similar, but I assumed that there was some kind of alchemy at work and I should just follow the directions.

After working for three months in a professional kitchen and gaining a lot of confidence, I have come to rely on recipes less and less. This applied immediately to my cooking, where I had always assumed that improvisational ability would come with experience, but eventually spilled over into my bread baking. When I ran out of yeast and had to substitute some sourdough starter in a recipe, it began to dawn on me that there was also a lot of leeway in bread, if not quite as much as in a stir-fry. As long as I had water, flour, salt and some kind of leavener, bread would inevitably result. With this discovery came a new-found freedom: I knew what kind of bread I wanted to make, how its dough would feel when it was ready; I just needed to understand the influence of water content and experiment with it until I got what I was looking for. So I put the cookbooks away (I do not disparage cookbooks: they are what got me to this point) and got out a spreadsheet. After making many batches of bread based on ad-hoc calculations, I created this calculator to avoid having to remember the formulas I was using. And thus, bread math and the bread calculator were born. 

To be honest, I created the calculator mainly for my own use and understanding (there are others online). But if it is useful to you, feel free to use it as well. You can always make bread by feel, but working out the numbers gives a greater feeling of control, not to mention better consistency.

For those of you interested in what’s going on inside the calculator, here’s the math behind bread (please keep in mind that I was a liberal arts major and this is the best I could do):

In a bread using a starter, there are four known quantities we can input: the amount (mass) of the starter to be used, the percentage of hydration of that starter, the amount (mass) of dough we want to end up with and the percentage of hydration for that dough. We want to find out the amount of flour and the amount of water we need to add.

All this information about the bread is contained in these two equations:

Mass of Flour in Starter + Mass of Flour Added + Mass of Water in Starter + Mass of Water Added = Mass of Final Dough

and

(Mass of Water in Starter + Mass of Water Added)/(Mass of Flour in Starter + Mass of Flour Added) = Percentage Hydr. of Dough

The first thing is to deal with the starter, so we know how much flour and how much water the starter is contributing. The starter is represented in the following equations:

Mass of Flour in Starter + Mass of Water in Starter = Mass of Starter  or F + W = MS

and

Mass of Water in Starter/Mass of Flour in Starter = Pct Hydration of Starter or W/F = PS

We’re interested in solving for the two variables F and W, and since there are two equations it’s very simple to substitute one in for the other. 

Solving the first for W gives us W = MS – F, which plugs into the second as (MS-F)/F = PS. 

Solving for F:

MS-F = FPS

MS = FPS + F

MS = F(PS+1)

MS/(PS+1) = F

So using the given values for MS and PS we can calculate the amount of flour in the starter, F. With F known it’s easy enough to return to the first equation and calculate W. That takes care of the starter.

Back to the final bread: we know the mass of bread we’d like to end up with (M), the hydration percentage of that dough (P), the amount of flour in the starter (F) and the amount of water in the starter (W). We’re interested in the amount of flour to add (f) and the amount of water to add (w). Returning to the first two equations with these symbols we have:

W + w + F + f = M

and

(W + w) / (F + f) = P

Two equations and two variables! Solving for f:

w = M – f – F – W

(W + M – f – F – W)/(F+f) = P

M – f – F  = PF + Pf

M – F – PF = Pf+f

M – F – PF = f(P+1)

(M-F-PF)/(P+1) = f

Since we already know M, F and P it is easy enough to calculate f. And w is just M-MS-f! And there you have it!

This form allows you to calculate the amount of flour and water needed to make bread doughs at various percentages you choose. Please refer to the bread math post for a detailed discussion of why and how I got here.

If you are planning to use a starter, for Starter Mass enter the amount of starter you want to use and for Starter % the percentage of water (refer to Bread Math for explanation of baker’s percentage). If you aren’t planning to use starter, leave Starter Mass blank or enter 0. The final dough mass is the amount of bread you want to have; most loaves of bread I have seen seem to fall between 1 and 2 pounds. Dough % is the percentage of hydration of the final dough. This is where the fun comes in!  Try playing with various amounts and see what a huge difference it makes on the crumb of your bread. Remember, there is  no magic bread ratio but rather the ratio is the key to determining the kind of bread.

Example: Here’s my standard loaf of bread, and how I used these calculations to arrive at it. Because of the size of my oven and my household’s bread needs, I know I want to bake three 1.5# loaves of bread. This means I will need 4.5# of Final Dough Mass, which is 72 oz (16oz/lb * 4.5lb = 72 oz). I also make bread with a natural yeast starter. Whenever I refresh my starter, I add equal masses of water and flour, so I know my starter’s percentage is 100%. The Starter Mass I use varies depending on how much starter I have around, but I usually pick 8 oz. I have yet to determine the effects of drastic variations in starter use. With my Starter Mass, Starter % and Final Dough Mass decided, it’s just a matter of deciding on the Dough %. Although I continue to tweak this, I have had a lot of success with dough at 68% hydration, so I’ll enter that and hit calculate. The calculator tells me that my final dough will require 38.86 oz of flour and 25.14 oz of water. My scale’s smallest unit is 1/8 oz so we’ll call that 38 7/8 oz and 25 1/8 oz. So, in the kitchen, I measure my starter into the bowl, then cover it with 39 oz of flour and 25 oz of water. I also add salt. Salt can be factored into this calculation as a percentage of flour (bakers do this) but my scale is not accurate enough to measure this little salt so I always just wing it. I usually add about a Tablespoon to 4.5# of dough. With the salt added, you’re ready to mix, knead and otherwise proceed as normal.

Note that this form is unit agnostic, you can use grams or ounces or metric tons. Percentages should be in the 0-100 format, although you can go above 100%. Don’t type in any units or symbols, it will confuse the calculator!

Have fun! Bake bread!

• Starter Mass
  
• Starter %
  
• Final Dough Mass
  
• Dough %
  

• Use this much flour:
  
• And this much water:
  

The primary audience for Garrett Oliver’s The Brewmaster’s Table may be beer enthusiasts who are looking to find new flavors in their beers through the magic of pairings. I, on the other hand, approached the book as a food enthusiast and cheap wine drinker who had always been curious about beer but never bothered to “get into it”. So where most of Oliver’s readers might look up a beer they love in search of a food will heighten the experience of drinking it, I usually run into a food that I want to make and then seek out beer that will go with it. All credit to Oliver that this book can serve both approaches very well.

I have enough culinary curiosity to consider most of Oliver’s pairing suggestions, but it was as I was reading the chapter on Belgian-style ales that one dish in particular jumped off the page: pasta carbonara. This dish did not stand out to me because it is exotic or technically difficult; no, it appealed because of my long history with carbonara, going back to my youngest memories. There are certain dishes that, when I was younger, my mom would make with regularity and carbonara was one of them (at least until my dad rebelled). Although I don’t like to repeat dishes for the most part, in carbonara I take after my mom and make this at least every two months. I think it’s a great pasta sauce in its own right, but I am sure my childhood memories play some role in my regular enjoyment of it. 

And what’s better than nostalgia for youth? Nostalgia for youth with beer! Really strong beer. The beer that Oliver recommends specifically with pasta carbonara is one Golden Monkey, as brewed by Victory Brewing Company of Downington, PA:

…a bottle conditioned pale orange beer with an eager carbonation. The nose is rich and distinctly Belgian–oranges, spices and hops in a nicely meshed interplay. The American influences shows up front–a thin whack of hops wakes up the palate. Then Belgium takes over and drives this beer through a dry, full-bodied fruity center and a graceful dry finish.

I don’t know why but almost every beer I’ve been drinking lately has been pretty orange and this was actually not so crazy orange, but certainly somewhat orange:

I am still having trouble remembering to take a big pretentious whiff of my beer before tasting it, so I can’t comment on the nose. Otherwise, though, my own tasting notes agree completely with Oliver, although not expressed so precisely. This tasted first and foremost like an ale (surprise!), by which I mean it was fruity and floral and just a little hoppy, not very bitter and even with a light sweetness. There is definitely something citrusy in there too, but all the flavors were nicely balanced and subtle. Nothing overwhelming about this beer, and that is a good thing.

Since carbonara is so fundamental to my life experience it seems a little odd to describe its flavors, but for the sake of the uninitiated and the logical structure of this post I will try. The first thing you should know about carbonara is that it is bacony. Probably the original recipe called for guanciale, which isn’t smoked, but since this is America, damnit, I use smokey bacon that contributes its hazy, sweet porkiness to the dish. Beyond the bacon, the other flavors are perhaps more subtle; a slight sweetness from the bacon and the milk and a little bit of sour dryness from grated Parmigiano Reggiano (ok, Grana Padano). This is also a very rich dish thanks to: bacon fat, butter, whole milk and eggs. If this sounds like breakfast pasta that’s more or less correct; I would in fact happily take this over most breakfasts.

After my shrimp salad experience I was a little skeptical of Oliver’s pairing genius, but this combination redeemed him a thousandfold (maybe even a millionfold). It was PERFECT. The slight sweetness of the pasta was balanced by the very subtle bitter hoppiness of the beer just as the beer’s own sweet-fruitiness helped to enliven some of the musky flavors of the cheese in the pasta. All that fat in the sauce has a way of coating your mouth and a spritzy beer is great for cutting through that fat, refreshing your palate and getting you ready for more. The beer’s relative lightness was also a huge asset; carbonara’s sweet, light flavors would be overwhelmed by an intensely malty beer (or, God forbid, red wine) but this beer had just the right weight to stand up to the flavors in the pasta without overwhelming them. Each bite and the swallow of beer that followed it created a perfect balance such that one could hardly imagine one without the other. 

I have not yet felt so strongly after trying a beer with a food that I would say everybody needs to try it, but that’s how I feel now. Golden Monkey seems to be widely distributed, so you should be able to find it. Pasta carbonara could not be much easier to make and you probably have everything for it in the fridge. The recipe I use comes from Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet (in fact this is the only recipe I use from this book). I’m providing it here so you have no excuse not to try this. You’ll need:

• 1/4# Bacon, chopped or sliced thin
• 1/4# Butter (can use less if you are planning to see old age)
• 1 c whole milk (whole milk curdles less than skim when you add acid to it, which you are about to, so whole results in a smoother sauce. Skim can be used, however)
• 2 T Wine vinegar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese
• Salt and Pepper
• 1# pasta (spaghetti is best but almost anything works)

Bring a lot of seawater (or your closest imitation of it using salt and tap water) to a boil. While it’s heating, fry the bacon until it just starts to get crispy and heat the milk to just below a simmer in a small saucepan. At this point, determine your risk for heart disease and drain or do not drain most of that sweet, sweet bacon fat. Add the butter and let it melt. Add the butter and bacon to the milk. Add the vinegar, which will curdle the milk, and stir. Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes; hopefully it will become a little more smooth. When the water is boiling add the pasta and cook until al dente. Lightly beat the eggs together. When the pasta is ready, drain it, then toss it in a bowl with the sauce, the eggs, the cheese and salt and plenty of pepper. Serve it, passing the pepper grinder and additional cheese at the table.