On 5 Oct 2003 Larry T <the.casual.baker@att.net> asked
>Do bread recipes need to be adjusted for high altitudes?
Yes.
>Every year I cook Satuday dinner for a week-end dance camp up in the
>mountains, at about 6000 ft. elevation.
I'm not sure how much adjustment 6,000 feet requires.
>Next year, since the dinner I'm thinking of preparing is simpler that what
>I usually do, I'm thinking of baking fresh bread for the 40-or-so
>participants. I'm thinking of using either the pan de campagne or ciabtta
>recipes from The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
Good, that will give you lots of time to practice!
>What I want to do is
>
>1. Make the pre-ferments at home.
>
>2. Mix the final dough at home, and place in the fridge. They don't have
>any mixers at the lodge, and I don't want to lug my Kitche-Aid up there.
>Nor do I want to have to hand-knead it there. There are other, more fun
>things to do.
>
>3. Try to keep the dough cool during transport, and refrigerate at the
>camp until Saturday morning, when I'll take it out and let it warm and
>rise, then bake it.
>
>Does anyone have any suggestions re the altitude or the prep? Should I
>shape the loaves at step 2 or Saturday morning?
I think you're going out of your way to make things hard for yourself.
I'm at 7,700 feet. I usually cut the riser by about 1/3, lower the oven
temperature by about 25F, and bake a little longer than called for.
You didn't mention at what altitude your kitchen is situated. As a result,
it's hard to guess what will happen when you take the dough from a lower to
higher altitude. As people approach Leadville, Colorado, they hear strange
explosions in their cars... it's the potato chip bags exploding. Our local
health food store often samples chips because there's always a sack or two
that burst when they are brought up here. So, what will happen to the
dough? I suspect you'll get extra rise.
My suggestion? Go back to the camp sometime during the year. Practice
taking dough up with you, if you just have to do that, to see how it
works. And then bake bread from scratch to see how that works. When the
dinner rolls around, you can always recruit help from the 40 some odd
people to get help kneading.
As a final comment, with sourdough, it's rare that I knead more than 10 to
15 minutes.
Mike
--
Mike Avery
MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com