Well I love Mr. Reinhart's books, and the percentage system will
give me the freedom to scale my own recipe's, once I get it in my head.
It's awesome that he shares the professional method, & I want to learn it
so I can use smaller amounts, and not throw 6 cups of flour out the window
when I destroy one. But I abhor math, and have to say I got a real headache
from 4 hours of re reading the formula over and over, twice. I felt like
Woopie Goldberg in Jumping Jack Flash and kept repeating, "Peter Peter
speak english"! But I know the problem is mine, because I am stupid lol. I
like, forgot how to divide 10 years out of high school. Thank god for
calculators. But I believe that when I finally figure this out, a light
will go off, and I'll achieve nirvana, or at least be able to make great
bread in any size I choose.
His formula is like the philosophers stone, and I really want to
master it. I'll buy another scale, but I also realized I was making it
harder than it seems. It was the conversions from decimal to fractions that
really messed me up, (because my scale only has fractions), and again it's
my fault. I had better luck figuring out the water, than the yeast and
salt, and I think at the small batches I am trying to use, the latter 2 are
a big problem. And my scale won't measure that low. I had to use half and
quarter spoon sizes. I'll figure it out, though I wish Mr. Reinhart would
have drawn out each ingredient formula completely. He does the water to
flour percentage for you, and converts it into ounces, but so far that I
can find, he only gives you a percentage for the yeast and sugar, and the
size difference is so great I can't use the water example to figure out the
yeast and salt in ounces, (or fractions of). If I had a beef that would be
the only one. But if I wasn't lousy at math it would be enough. But I
treasure the books.
Linda, I played with using beer in bread not long after I
started, last summer. But I think my lack of experience made it difficult
to tell how well it worked. A couple of them came out great though. I just
substituted Bell Haven Scotch Ale, (the bottle), for most of the water, and
also in the poolish. It's a sweet malty beer, (yum). I brew all grain beer
once in a while, and want to try some of my own in a recipe eventually.
David.