Austin – Misc postings from Nick Wallingford

Beekeeping…

I’m going to be a beekeeper again, for the first time in about 20 years.

When the varroa mite got to NZ in April 2000, I still had one hobby hive. I wasn’t a very good hobbyist, as I was not driven by the more commercial attitude of “got to get the work done”. And I lost my hive to varroa, in that first year or so.

But now I’ve bought some new equipment, and will be receiving a nuc hive in a few weeks.

So I’ll maybe keep this blog going as a sort of apiary diary of my first year of beekeeping – again. I guess my first real year beekeeping was 1973, with a hive my Dad gave me. I bundled it bee-tight and took it from Houston to Austin in the back seat of my car!

No knead bread…

I’ve baked bread on and off, hobby and commercial, going back to the early 1970s – starting from The Tassahara Bread Book back in Austin.

I got a book from the library not long back – see http://breadin5.com for details.

Basically, it involves getting the yeast to really working and adding that to all the dry ingredients, barely mixing it together. Just enough to take up the moisture. Then, letting it rise until it falls, an unorthodox approach when viewed from my breadmaking background.

The messy dough can either be refrigerated at that point, or you can try to scrape out a 500gm chunk to make into bread. Still no kneading, but a very quick forming into a round, pulling the dough from the front to the back, turning the ball as you go. And a long rising again before baking.

The baking added one important touch – putting water in a pan with the baking bread to ensure a very steamy atmosphere for it to start baking in. That gives it a real boost in growth…

I toasted some sunflower seeds, and ground them. Added that to a soy milk wash before cutting some slashes in the top (so it wouldn’t split unevenly). When it came out of the oven, it was very very hard in the crust. When it was almost cooled, I covered it with an upside-down stainless bowl. Crust is now approachable with a knife!

I’ll maybe someday post a recipe…