Sous vide coffee 1

Yeah. Ok. People have made coffee using a sous vide cooker. I looked it up because I didn't like the coffee I made using really hot water from 160 to 200 degrees F and an Aeropress. Those temperatures produced coffee that had very little flavor, because the extraction time was too short at the lower end or the flavor was burned off at the high end. I've read, 2 hours at 150 F--tried it and it wasn't as bad as before. Another account related that one hour at 180 F made  more bitter coffee, but with the flavor that 2:00\150 made. Maybe dark roasts require different numbers than medium or light roasts.
Today's trial involved a medium roast Seattle Coffee brand cooked for three hours\140 F. Following filtration through the Aeropress, it gets my vote for flavor without bitterness--the taste did justice to the smell of the ground coffee in the bag.

Thanksgiving dinner, last night

We set off the smoke alarms last pm while searing the turkey! 😎 At the table: Grandma, Uncle Tom, Aunt Jennifer and her friend Sharon, Kam Yoon, Arley et moi. I made a turkey and bone-in rib steaks (all sous vide), chia seed bread and a baked tray of delicata squash, beets and onions. Sure the expensive beef was tender and moist, but the turkey was.
Un. Believable. I'd cooked steaks for everyone, minus myself, and offered turkey morsels to everyone at the table. Shockingly, almost everyone asked for another, larger slice!
Sharon had adopted Aunt Jennifer's meal plan (we didn't know she had one) and claimed to have lost 50 lb--wow. She raved over my chia seed bread (of course, it's not on her schedule!). Uncle Tom brought a burnt loaf of bread--a result of baking while distracted--he ate a slice, but thankfully broke no teeth. Sharon brought Brussels sprouts. Aunt Jennifer made a salad. In a musical mood, I'd bought (parsley) sage Rosemary and thyme, but only used the sage and Rosemary.  Instead of thyme I should've bought time 😎--I'd use that. I used sage to season the turkey and rosemary to season a tray of roasted squash, onions and beets.

Much credit goes to daughter Phoebe for mentioning sous vide this year!

A new bread just came to my life

Yesterday, I started a new batch of dough at 9:30 in the morning. I wanted it to be ready to bake by 4:30, so I preheated the oven to 170 degrees and turned off the oven. I mixed the dough as follows:

3/8 teaspoon yeast, more than the usual 1/8 to 1/4 tsp.
1.5 teaspoon salt
300 grams of Trader Joe's all purpose flour
150 grams of Trader Joe's white whole wheat flour
405 grams of water (90% water weight:flour weight ratio)

I preheated the oven to 170 degrees and placed the mixed dough into a covered three quart saucepan big enough for it to expand to triple its size. I turned the oven off and put the dough inside.
At about 3 p.m. I took the dough out of the still warm oven, wet my hands and stretched it out and folded it. I covered it for 30 minutes.

The dough after the first stretch and fold

I stretched and folded the dough again, covering it again for 30 minutes.

The dough after the second stretch and fold

I stretched and folded it one last time and put the dough on a large sheet of parchment paper. I put the dough back in the saucepan. I didn't want to bake it just yet. Since we were going out to dinner, I put the covered saucepan in the cold garage { 50 degrees F)

At about 8:15 p.m. (now almost 9 hours after mixing the dough) I uncovered the dough to see it almost pushing up past the rim. I lifted the dough and lowered it into a preheated Dutch oven, covered it and set it into the 450 degree oven. After 30 minutes I removed the cover and baked it for 15 more minutes. I set it out to cool. We cut it in the morning to enjoy the fluffiest bread I've ever made with whole wheat flour.

This also works with 360 gm of water (an 80% water weight:flour weight ratio). Read on:

 I baked a loaf of half Trader Joe's white whole wheat and half all purpose flours. Same amount of yeast and salt. 360 gm of water. Same fermenting conditions. Mixed at 7:30 a.m. covered and put into a 170 degree oven, turned off.

5.5 hours later, at 1255 I laid the dough into a wetted baking pan

 Where I pushed it out to the edges with wetted hands

 and stretched and folded each short edge 2/3 of the way to the opposite edge. I then stretched and folded the top edge down. Back out went into a covered saucepan

 At 1400, another stretch and fold. Back into the saucepan. At 1510 another stretch and fold, then back into the saucepan. At 1540, a final stretch and fold after which it went onto a piece of parchment paper and into a shallow bowl, the purpose of which was to keep the dough from sticking to the paper in a deeper container.

At 1745, I put my 5-quart cast iron Dutch oven into the oven, set the temperature at 450 degrees and let it preheat. At 1815 I picked up the dough using the parchment paper and laid it into the hot Dutch oven, covered it and let it bake for 35 minutes. I removed the cover reduced the heat to 400 degrees and let it bake for 10 + 2 plus one minutes looking into the oven in between to prevent the bread from getting too dark.

Here is the bread above.