The Second Pass At Pretzels

by A.J. Coltrane

The malt powder arrived today. Time for a 2nd attempt.

The recipe from the 1st attempt: 200g bread flour, 102g water (51% baker’s percentage), 6g (3% bp) salt (does not including the finishing salt), 1/2 tsp yeast.

Tonight’s recipe: 200g bread flour, 110g water (55% baker’s percentage), 5g (2.5% bp) salt (does not including the finishing salt), 2g diastatic malt (1% bp), 10g unsalted butter (5% bp), 1/2 tsp yeast.

TLDR; Less salt, more water, and I added malt and butter. The recipe is now sort of an aggregate of Beranbaum and Hamelman.

The Beranbaum recipe calls for 400F. Hamelman calls for 450F. I decided to make two batches, one at 425F and one at 450F:

The two on the top were baked at 450F for 16 minutes. The two on the bottom were baked at 425F for 14 minutes. The lower temperature and shorter time was enough to cook the pretzels, but the color still wasn’t as deep as I’d like. Even the 450F batch darkened quite a bit in the extra two minutes it was given.

The other mini-experiment was an egg white wash vs a “whole” egg wash. The two on the left got the egg white wash, the two on the right used “whole” eggs. I couldn’t really tell a difference either in appearance or texture (bite).

All in all, every change seemed to be an improvement. Now it’s time to try making some really large pretzels and see how that goes.

The First Pass At Pretzels

by A.J. Coltrane

The first pass at pretzels:

It’s a variation on the Preztel Bread recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Bread Bible. I didn’t use malt or the optional butter, and I used egg white instead of lye. (I didn’t and don’t feel like messing with lye.) The I may go out tomorrow and find malt — I doubt the finished color will be as dark as I’m looking for without it.

The “recipe”: 200g bread flour, 102g water (51% baker’s percentage), 6g (3% bp) salt (does not including the finishing salt), 1/2 tsp yeast. Knead for eight minutes. Let rest for 20 minutes then cut the ball into two pieces.

Roll each piece out into a 22″ log. Shape into preztels. Cover and let rise 30 minutes.

Combine one egg white with 1/2 tsp water and brush on the pretzels. Brush again with the egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt.

Preheat the oven and a sheet tray to 400F, add three ice cubes to the preheated tray for steam, and bake for 20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack.

I need to try this again using malt and butter. I may also raise the temperature to 450F on the next attempt in the quest for better browning.

Container Garden Mini Update — October 2, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

October 4, 2015 post here. October 4, 2014 post here. October 7, 2013 post here.

This post is a follow-up on last week’s harvest post. For reference, here’s last week’s harvest:

Look how much most everything ripened:

Historically, at least for us, the final harvest hasn’t really ripened after coming inside. This feels like a lot of ripening to happen in a week.

So what changed?

It could be that the final harvest has always been done later in the year, meaning that the house was cooler, which slowed ripening. (See the Note below – this idea may be at least partly right.)
This year we left them on a counter in the kitchen next to a window that faces partly south. The little bit of sun getting through the blinds provided some good warmth and encouraged ripening.

There may be something that impacted ripening, though the two explanations above probably cover most of it.

Note:

Final 2013 harvest — October 7.

Final 2014 harvest — September 28.

Final 2015 harvest — October 4.

Final 2016 harvest — September 26.

GNOIF: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Zepplin?!

by A.J. Coltrane

GNOIF #23 recap — GNOIF: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Zepplin?! (Steampunk and Transportation themes.)

Games That Got Played: Fluxx (Firefly), Forbidden Island, Get Dr. Lucky, Lost Cities, Rocketville, Steampunk Rally, Ticket To Ride Europe.

Games That Didn’t Get Played: Catan (Starship), Galaxy Trucker, Hanabi, Infernal Contraption, Pirate’s Cove, Power Grid, RoboRally, Ticket to Ride Card Game.

Really, the theme was based around our newest game – Steampunk Rally. A brief description from BoardGameGeek:

Using a unique dice-placement mechanism, players take on the roles of famous inventors from the turn of the last century like Nikola Tesla and Marie Curie, constructing fantastical contraptions that make use of steam, heat and electricity in an attempt to win a no-holds-barred race through the Swiss alps.

Contraptions like so:

The red dice represent “heat”, the blue dice are “steam”, and the yellow dice are “electricity”. The purpose of the Contraption is to generate resources, exchange one resource for another, and to convert the end product into (fast) forward motion through the Alps. It’s probably my new favorite game and should receive a “Recommended Game” post soon. (The metal cogs don’t come with the game. Those were a gift from SeattleAuthor. They’re way more fun to look at and handle than the cardboard pieces that do come with the game.)

Fluxx was played — I won one game entirely by accident. (I was getting a beverage when I won.) Rocketville went over well with a group that was mostly new to it.

Lost Cities was played — the winner was the person who didn’t try to start four expeditions. (I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone win when attempting more than three. To quote a 2010 post: Players must use caution — initiating an expedition has a steep price, and a “money-sink” venture can end the chances of winning.)

Get Dr. Lucky had the usual screw-your-neighbor finish. I didn’t see who won the Ticket To Ride Europe, though it occupied a good-sized group for a couple of hours.

Next up will be the Horror/Zombie/Vampire night around Halloween. Games will include Last Night On Earth (B-movie style horror game), Zombie Fluxx, Betrayal At The House On The Hill, Bang! (A Spaghetti Western, though there’s plenty of death in that game), Guillotine (Off with their heads!), Deadfellas (undead mobsters), Ultimate Werewolf (peasants getting killed by werewolves), and a handful of others.

Thanks to everyone who played!

Container Garden Update — September 26, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

September 27, 2015 here. September 29, 2014 post here. September 30, 2013 post here.

The last of it:

That brings us to 194.3 pounds — well short of 2015:

2013 total: 228.0 pounds

2014 total: 269.4 pounds

2015 total: 282.5 pounds

2016 total: 194.3 pounds

To be fair, we didn’t weigh any of the salad greens, garlic, or scallions that weren’t part of the “main season” harvest. I’d estimate that would amount to around 10-15 pounds.

Overall the summer was too cloudy and cool for the garden to really go gangbusters. Certain plants, such as the Sun Gold tomato and Tromboncino were way off their previous levels. Most of the other plants were “off” at least somewhat. I’ll go into the details in upcoming “Recap” posts.

As for the “Winter Garden”: Five of the EarthBoxes now have garlic that I planted last week. Another whiskey barrel has shallots and mache. All of those are securely covered with bird netting to keep out the squirrels. The salad table is status is shown in the previous post here. I’m pretty certain it’s too late now to consider starting anything else — October is next week. Still, I think we did a better job this year of timing the salad table with the onset of cold weather.

Both freezers are completely jammed full of veggies, and today’s harvest is still on the counter. I’m going to declare this season a low-maintenance non-failure, despite the sub-par productivity.

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

Container Garden Update — September 18, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

September 20, 2015 here. September 21, 2014 post here. September 22, 2013 post here.

In the coming week it’s supposed to be getting into the 40’s at night — that meant that it was time to harvest in earnest, and we pulled 73 pounds of stuff in the last seven days.

It would be fun to watch the harvest in time-lapse, but photos will have to do.

September 15th, “before”:

September 15th, “after”:

The harvest for the 15th:

[Left sheet tray – Paul Robeson, Valencia, Tigerella, other assorted tomtatoes. Taxis in the center. Cherokee Purple on the right.]

We did another big harvest on the 18th:

[Around a dozen different types of peppers, including Serrano on the top left, Anaheim center left, tomatoes on the top center, and tomatillos on the top right.]

The “after” picture:

[Back Left – Tromboncino and Lemon cucumber. Front Left – the last of the tomatoes. Back Center – Tomatillo, Right – Cucumber.]

You can tell it’s late in the year because tired plants do weird things, such as this “double” Tromboncino. There’s a normal fruit below it:

I sort of rebooted the salad table:

[Arugula on the bottom. Parsley left side, 2nd shelf. New Zealand spinach and Miner’s Lettuce on the right side of the 2nd shelf. The top shelf has lettuces, cilantro, and a bunch of other little things that I hope size up before the weather turns ugly.]

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

Container Garden Update — September 5, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

September 6, 2015 post here. September 7, 2014 post here. September 8, 2013 post here.

Well, we learned something about basil — holding out on the harvest is a very bad idea. Over the last ten days the weather has cooled, and the basil didn’t dig it at all. It went from almost totally healthy to dying off in that short span of time… On Friday I brought it all inside. Note the computer mouse for scale in the middle of the stack and the camera case at the bottom right:

Maybe 10-20% of the basil was “fresh” and not yellowing or turning purple. It’s a bummer, but it’s definitely a lesson. The plan for next year is to harvest 50% of the basil on August 1st and most of what’s left on August 14. We’ll probably also harvest more aggressively throughout the summer.

Basil really is a hothouse flower.

On the bright side, we harvested 30 pounds of stuff this week, not including the basil:

We’re at 85 pounds for the year. That’s waaaay behind last year’s 200 pounds on this date.

Over the next seven days the weather forecast calls for cloudy days in the 60’s with some rain. If the weather doesn’t improve we may be harvesting almost everything else over the next two weeks, regardless of ripeness.

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

Container Garden Update — August 28, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

August 30, 2015 post here. September 1, 2014 here. September 1, 2013 here.

Lots of sun this week — we finally got a chance to have a “tomato tasting” get-together. The Tuesday harvest:

(L-R) Paul Robeson, Sun Gold, Tigerella, Taxi, Oregon Spring, Black Krim. — Tomatoes (L-R) Paul Robeson, Yellow Pear, Sun Gold, Tigerella, Taxi, Oregon Spring, Black Krim.

Thursday was more tomatoes and a colander full of tomatillos. The tomatillos are starting to drop off of the plant in earnest, which I’m assuming means they’re ready. A thick layer of Sun Golds is hiding under the other tomatoes:

It seems like the Sun Golds always look like this, no matter how many we harvest:

The only really large Tromboncino. We may be getting near “done”:

Oregon Spring:

The “late” tomatoes are now ripening too. The first Romas:

Cherokee Purple (and Taxi):

Valencia:

It’s supposed to be cooler this week. (70’s and cloudy/light rain). I think fall is starting, so hopefully everything ripens quickly…. or else it’s just one of those years. There’s a reason basically all of our tomatoes varieties are “early”.

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

Container Garden Update — August 21, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

August 23, 2015 post here. August 24, 2014 post here. August 25, 2013 post here.

We had some nice sunny weather this week again. The garden ate it up. We’re now officially “in gear”.

To quote last year’s post:

47.1 pounds of produce this week, including 38.5 pounds of tomatoes.

The days are getting shorter, and the nights are getting cooler. The cucumbers are completely finished, and the Tromboncino may not be far behind. The tomatoes have begun to randomly drop fruit. If it’s not Fall already then it’s coming real soon.

…and 14.9 pounds this week. Roughly 1/3 tomatoes, 1/3 Tromboncino, and 1/3 cucumbers. On the bright side the cucumbers (and everything else) are still a long way from finished. And the weather has been much warmer lately. There’s still time for a late rally.

On to the pictures:

A Midweek Harvest:

Another Midweek Harvest:

Tromboncino, Sun Golds, Taxis, Tigerellas, and Lemon cucumbers.

Continue reading “Container Garden Update — August 21, 2016” →

Container Garden Update — August 14, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

Previous post here.

August 16, 2015 post here. August 19, 2014 post here. August 10, 2014 post here. August 18, 2013 post here.

It’s been relatively hot and sunny this week. We had a few 80-ish degree days and the garden is loving it.

Friday’s harvest being inspected by the boy cat:

In the box (L-R) — Oregon Spring tomatoes, Taxi, Sun Gold, Marketmore cucumbers, Lemon cucumber. A Tromboncino zucchini is in the foreground.

The Tromboncino plant is still going strong, with lots of fruit in process. For size reference, the netting squares are 8″:

As I mentioned in the last post, we recently cleaned up the bottom of the tomato plants (on the left, below). Peppers are in the center. Basil on the right:

In 2015 we did the first “tomato tasting” on August 12. We’re a little ways away still. Hopefully it will happen within the next 10 days. Most of the tomatoes are now starting to color up.

The Tigerellas: