Bake (b)log

 Rusty’s log: Stardate: -299633.37 Perth Ontario : temp 14 C humidity 89% Basic Kneads:  temp 28 C humidity 58% A cold and rainy day is August, no better day to invest in the future. But first, a big Basic Kneads welcome to Michael, our very first employee! Michael comes to us from Ghana, where bread is baked fresh using white flour with very little crunch to its crust. It is called Tea Bread and Yoshi and I look forward to learning to bake it for him and his family. Michael is learning the ropes of the bakery and picking up the rhythm of our days quite quickly. He is providing much needed help in our long evening mixing process and seems to have an endless supply of energy and enthusiasm. We are very glad to have him on the team.  Another team member has joined us today (that’s the investment I referred to). Today, Michael, Yoshi and I , along with help from a our new friend Brett and his truck and trailer, hit the road and headed to Westport to meet up with Hans and Ann...

 Rusty’s Log Stardate -299594.78 Perth Ontario: temp 22.6 C humidity 94% Basic Kneads: temp 25.7 C humidity 63% What a month it has been. Four straight weeks of bread, sold out everyday and a constant increase in production has resulted in two very happy bakers. Yoshi and I are thrilled with the response from the town, the repeat customers we are getting to know by name and loaf preference, the rhythm of our days and nights and getting used to the early mornings and long hot days in front of the ovens. Today is a Monday and we bake no bread. That doesn’t mean we have the day off. To prepare for the coming week there is lots to do. Raisins are soaking in our chai blend, olives are being chopped and herbs portioned for olive loaf, our seed mix is being blended for the topping of our country loaf.  Carl jr and Yuri are being carefully fed, as well as our newest creation and Carl’s cohort in crime: Rye-an, our rye sourdough starter. This past week we began testing out recipes for ...

 Yoshi's Log Stardate -299559.33 or July 23rd 2024 Inside 27'C and 59% Humidity Outside 24'C and 65% Humidity     Todays bake went flawlessly. We still haven't figured out a good name for the ovens and they continue to burn me when i drop my guard.      We got our new to us 20qt Hobart mixer (unnamed) that we will be able to increase the speed and/or volume of our production. We also placed our new display refrigeration unit in the entrance. The fridge will be used for dips and spreads that we will make in house and compound butters and tapenades and other things to go with bread. We are looking into some possible cold drinks and we have an electrician coming in this week to possibly install another plug so we can have coffee at the front entrance.      Next month we hope to have a Rye bread offering, but that wont start until we have our new routine down with the second mixer. We have an opportunity to offer a bread made with red fife f...

 Rusty Log Stardate -299546.26 Perth Ontario: temperature 24.5 humidity 54% Basic kneads : temperature 29.4 humidity 71% Another sold out day. It has only been 9 days since the official launch and we are exceeding expectations. The people of Perth have welcomed us with such enthusiasm and positivity that all the doubts I harboured over the past few months in preparation and planning seem to have faded away. We knew the town needed a bread bakery, but I didn’t know how bad it really was. We are close to producing twice my original forcast, what we called a Full Run during testing. Each day we have increased the amount of loaves baked and the quality of those loaves and batches are improving as well with fewer burnt bottoms and better proofs and springs prior to and during the bake. Our rolling is also getting faster and we have started to settle into a rhythm of Yoshi concentrating on the ovens as I hammer through the rolling and proofing. That is not to say we have reached my ideal...

 Yoshi's Log Stardate -299515.97 or July 17th 2024 23'C 95% humidity outside 27'C 65% humidity inside      Week 2 is a great success so far. The bakes have been amazing from start to finish. We have better communications with the oven entity. They seem to enjoy the sacrifice of corn meal we add to the bottom of all of our loves. It stops the random burns we were getting from the hot spots. Today a new piece of refrigeration equipment arrived and we hope it will soon find a place amongst our band of misfit toys.      I read yesterdays (B)log and Rusty got technical with temperatures and humidity levels and how they react to the bread process. I will only add that changing the temperature of the ingredients is another way that we can encourage the bread to do what we want it to do. If we need a longer Knead time but the room is very hot I recommend putting some, if not all of your ingredients in the fridge as to not encourage the fermentation proces...

 Stardate: -299540.7 Perth Ontario: temp 25.5 C humidity 87% Basic Kneads Bakery: temp 29.3 humidity 72% Hot and humid. It’s summer in the Ottawa valley. What does this mean for kneads bakery? And why do our posts start with a weather report? Well I’m glad you asked fellow bread enthusiast. It’s important to remember that bread is alive, or was alive before it became bread to be more exact. In dough form, prior to baking, it was a living organism, eating, breathing, growing and getting hungry as all living things do in one form or another. Bread is an amazing example of the cycle of life. The flour was once wheat, growing in a field, hungry for sunlight and thirsty for water and nutrients from the soil. Then it was harvested and died(1d6 slashing damage). Ground into flour it then sat, lifeless until it became food for another life form: Yeast.  For Yoshi and I yeast is an extremely important component of our business. It is a living thing, but it needs to be controlled, nurtu...

 Rusty’s Log Stardate -299526.8 Perth, Ontario: temperature 23 C humidity 95% Basic Kneads: temperature 29 C humidity 65% Cheese and bread, two of my very favourite things. Today we took dough that was designated for baguettes and instead made cheese sticks, cheese buns and a knotted something or other that I will not repeat in the future. It was delicious and the last thing we baked, and it sold out in minutes after a timely social media post by Yoshi.  The black spots taunt us still, and we are working on some solutions to having a more even bake and avoiding the hotspots in our metal beasts. I am hopeful that rearranging of the pizza stones and a health healthy dose of cornmeal under the loaves will make tomorrow’s bake burn free. We are arranging a weekly pick up of spent grains from Corden and Cathy at Perth Brewery that we have been adding to our country loaf the last few days with great success.  Our evening mix is still the longest task of our day and by the time ...