"Dick Adams" > wrote in message
...
....
> they mean in that portion of the grand scheme of things
> within my ken. Then, when I _want_ an opinion, I form
> one.

Me, I do pretty much the same thing. Except the formed
opinion is usually wrong, but a place to start testing.
[I work at fleshing out the input. That often means doing ancillary
research and reading--as opposed to those that can only seem to manage to
use comics as input...(:-o)!]

As to storing bread, I came up eventually with this:

Interval A is the critical one: The loaves sit on the cooling
rack for this period.

Interval B is where the loaves are bagged in plastic, further
cooled when necessary, divided into portions which can be
consumed in a day, and frozen. Slicing before freezing may
have some advantage, esp. for single people living alone.
For slicing soft loaves, an electric knife is good.

Interval C is where the loaves are defrosted and eaten.
Defrosting in a microwave oven makes sense. There is
no reason to defrost more bread than can be eaten at a
sitting, but, for convenience, we defrost a day's worth.
A minute in our microwave is suitable for a half pound of
bread.

.... <good descriptions snipped for brevity>

No doubt purists of the various persuasions will resent these
mumblings, but I believe that my contention, that practically any
bread-storage situation can be emulated by this A-B-C routine,
cannot not be convincingly refuted.
[No. Actually you've summed it up pretty well. I'd not thought about the
issue in terms of intervals. But I think that you've pretty effectively
laid out the "natural" sequence of events.

I had hoped to get a more historic perspective on how this was done in years
past from our European readership. Ulrike pretty much outlined how to
impose a storage system over your defined "interval" concept. Tupperware &
linen seems to be the ticket. Although I'm pretty sure that my grandmother,
living in rural south German farm country--a century ago, didn't use
that...(:-o)!

Before I forget; I want to thank all of you for your replies both here and
off-line. Some have been very useful--some not at all. But that's not to
say that they weren't useful to others--so I'm grateful none-the-less. One
of the reasons I've worked so hard to recapture "the old days" in baking is
that retirement is finding me far from modern facilities--not, as my kids
tell me, just because I'm a contrary cuss and hardcore curmudgeon in
training...

At any rate, being "off-grid" all of the time does impact how one uses their
resources. When a freezer is the size of a shoebox, it's frightfully hard
to "just bag it and put it in the freezer". What do I do with next weeks
dinner in the mean time?

This is made even more difficult when you begin to appreciate that freezing
isn't free. It takes energy--a considerable amount. Too much to freeze it
one day, and then thaw it out in the "mikey" the next. Modern and efficient
as they are, it's still damned difficult to run a microwave oven on battery
power alone--at least not for long, even with the batteries and power system
that I developed.

Same goes for some of the purists posting here, you think nothing of heating
your ovens nearly hot enough to melt lead for 3 or 4 hours as you seek the
perfect stone temperature. I don't so much begrudge the gas necessary to do
that--that's cheap! It's the 300 mile round trip in a big truck over rocks,
through mud, and along road-less track to get the LP tank refilled that
makes it really dear! And, FWIW; I've found a cold start to be far more
effective than hot so far. This may not hold true for all types of baking.
But it has for the loaves I've been making.

Case in point: our friend "Wcsjohn" roped me into making high-hydration
breads (made me buy a power mixer and digital scale too, damn it! (:-)). A
wonderful change from the dense, dry, hand-made, rustic loaves I'd grown to
love. After making rave Ciabatta's from the recipe he posted here, I was
ready for more (yes, I know, a real glutton for punishment). Consequently,
I pulled a SD conversion of a Coccodrillo recipe out of the oven yesterday.
Due to a small oven, I had to bake it in two portions. I split the dough
(if you can call it that) into two relatively equal portions. The first
went into a cold oven, the second--with about 35 minutes more "rising"
time--obviously went into a hot one. The first loaf rose _nearly_ twice as
much as the second.

For me, that's: game, set, match! These results seem to track exactly with
*all* of my previous experiences. That some mixes, techniques, or recipes
fare better from different handling than mine is almost certainly a given.
And, if you're happy with your results (long, deep pre-heats), I'm happy for
you--keep doing them! But in my experience (albeit limited) I've not found
an advantage in doing so...]


Later all,
Dusty
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