weight - volume conversion?

trashheap

Hi All,

I've just gotten the bread making bug(bug is probably the most apt word as some of my attempts have been pretty sickening!!)

But, I've found a great, easy looking, recipe that I want to try out...only problem is, I'm a bit confused by the ingredients. All the solid ingredients are in grams - no problem. But the liquid ingredients are in grams too...do I weigh the water???
I'm generally pretty good at cooking but this one has me stumped!! Do I need to convert these grams to ml's? How?

Just so you know what I'm talking about, the starter calls for:
packet of yeast
350g warm water
300g flour
50g rye flour

Another bread, but not thread-tilte, related question...is it better to have cold or warm hands for bread making? Or is that pastry where hand temperature counts?(sorry, this ones just out of a curiosity that popped into my head!)

the beer revolu

1 litre of water weighs 1KG (on earth at sea level).
So 350 gms of water + 350 ml of water

trashheap

Wow! Thanks for the quick reply!
So a straight conversion then...I think I can manage that!

Alun

Actually, if you have a pair of digital scales and adding the ingredients one by one zeroing the scales in between, then you can literally add 350g of water and avoid having to use another measuring implement. I do this when adding the ingredients to my bread maker container for example.

trashheap

Digital scales? that's a bit gadgety for my kitchen!!

nesbitt

trashheap wrote: »

Digital scales? that's a bit gadgety for my kitchen!!

I got one of these last year and use it all the time, cos it accurate and easy to use. win/win. Got a Salter digital scales in Argos for about 30 yoyos. I find the fact that I can add different ingredients to the one bowl and accurately weigh them by reseting to zero so convenient. I'm not gadgety, make my own bread at the moment by hand.:)

Mellor

It's a direct conversion with water, others liquids aren't going to be too far off to make much of a difference either

huskerdu

trashheap wrote: »

Another bread, but not thread-tilte, related question...is it better to have cold or warm hands for bread making? Or is that pastry where hand temperature counts?(sorry, this ones just out of a curiosity that popped into my head!)

I think thats all a bit of a myth.

Pastry should be cold going into the oven, you dont want the butter to melt, so a cold room, cold ingredients, cold surface and cold hands are recommended, but you shouldn't over handle pastry anyway, so your hands being warm shouldn't matter.

You knead bread for 10 minutes and the mixture is luke warm to begin with, so warm is better, but I don't see how it can make much of a difference.

trashheap

Yeah, I think I'm coming around to the idea of digital scales...all the bread recipes seem to be very specific about weights...another thing to add to the list for my pennies jar!

Huskerdu, thanks for clearing that up

trashheap

Oh yeah, tried three breads this weekend.
The first was a no knead bread cooked in a cast iron pot...total disaster! had to try and soak a very hard flat pancake of a bread off the bottom of my good Creuset pot!
Second attempt was a basic brown soda bread...which tasted lovely...once you managed to bite through the rock hard crust!! The recipe called for the first 15 mins to be at 250 degrees, my oven only goes to 230...i dread to contemplate the state of our teeth if the crust had set at 250 degrees!! I'll try sticking it in at 200 the next time(it was a real 'the way granny used to make it' type of brown bread and the smell was divine!)
Third attempt was a basic white loaf...which was decent enough. The dough was a bit dense though, so next time I'll use slightly warmer water and knead it a bit longer(or knead it less, do you think?) But this is the recipe I'll stick to until I have it perfected.
Going to make a starter this week and then try a recipe using that...

This whole bread making thing could become quite a hobby!!

huskerdu

trashheap wrote: »

Second attempt was a basic brown soda bread...which tasted lovely...once you managed to bite through the rock hard crust!! The recipe called for the first 15 mins to be at 250 degrees, my oven only goes to 230...i dread to contemplate the state of our teeth if the crust had set at 250 degrees!! I'll try sticking it in at 200 the next time(it was a real 'the way granny used to make it' type of brown bread and the smell was divine!)

I made this mistake too. Some recipes call for much higher temp than is necessary.

15 minutes at 210/200 and then 20/25 minutes at 180 is perfect for brown soda bread. Depends on the size of the loaf and your oven.

trashheap

So, tried the basic brown soda again this morning...worked out really well, thanks to Huskerdu's suggestion of lowering the oven temperature...200 for 15 mins, then 180 and covered it with some baking paper for the last 20/25mins.
Threw in a handful of sunflower seeds and milled flaxseeds, and put the whole thing into a loaf tin to stop it from spreading flat.
Very pleased with myself...also stuffed full of bread! :rolleyes: