Newsletter April 2017 Sourdough and a Bad Dog

Email from a Reader

Hello Sharon,
Thank you so much. We received the Baker’s Sampler yesterday.

So far, we sampled the chocolate bread (yay dessert), gingerbread (I really enjoyed the clove) & English muffin-cinnamon (toasted- cut in half as disks, slathered in yes, pasture-raised butter).

Your newsletter post about including animal fat in the bread was super-inspiring. The fat lends a singular satisfying element.

When I was a child, we would visit Argentina and have "factura" which are tea time pastries made of bread and tallow and sugar topped with quince jam or a custard. OMG

In my most recent baking exploits, 2 sourdough & 1 bread event slowed things down:
1. Jasper my redbone coonhound dog got into a batch of sourdough
2. I neglected to feed a starter and got mold :(
3. Jasper ate a full pan of bread.

Jasper is the quintessential "bad dog" when it comes to food.
Worse than a chocolate lab.



I finally baked a loaf again. This loaf was a full-on buckwheat starter with milk kefir whey, coconut flour, salt, eggs, bacon drippings & chicken schmaltz (chicken fat). I forgot to add both chia and flax seeds. It was still a success.
Half is frozen, half is high above out of any possible dog reach.

My prior successful bread batches consisted of:
teff starter made with milk kefir whey
coconut flour
olive oil
flax & chia gels
bacon drippings

I baked these uncloched (uncovered) and they became very DENSE biscuits.

The next trial, Round 2, baked up softer, given that I used a cloche (cover).

On another note,  I am using Milk Kefir to boost my starters because it seems to be beneficial for me. Also, I have not had great success with water kefir. Also, my kombucha seems too sugary.

Joyous, delicious baking to you :)
C.

Hello C,
Thanks for your feedback of my Baker’s Sampler so far. Also thanks for the interesting and humorous stories of your baking adventures. It is obvious to me that Jasper is a well educated dog as he truly enjoys the benefits of sourdough starter as well as the finished bread.

Sorry to hear your starter got mold. Gluten-free starters are more delicate than wheat or rye starters and need to be fed regularly to prevent spoilage.

I’m so glad you found my animal fat post inspiring. I hope more people will come around to the possibility that animal fat builds health rather than hurts it. It is a good source of energy that digests slowly, reducing hunger. Using animal fat is also a good way to rotate your diet rather than eat the same fats all the time. (Food rotation is important for people healing leaky gut. Everything in moderation, of course.)

One questions about Factura, the Argentinean tea time pastries made of bread and tallow? Could you taste the tallow or did it blend into the pastry? I never noticed a tallow or lard taste in my breads or cookies when I use it. However, sometimes when I use a soup fat that had been heavily seasoned, the taste of the seasonings goes into the fat, and then into the bread, giving it some delicate, savory spice.

I found your buckwheat-coconut flour bread very interesting as far as flour combinations. I always think of buckwheat making a very spongy bread that tends to be dry without enough water in the starter. I also think of coconut flour as a super absorbent flour with a tendency to be dry without enough oil in the finished product.

In my experience, using those flours together might make a severely dry bread. However, the oil, bacon fat and eggs would help balance any density as would chia and/or flax gel.

I must try this combination the next time I experiment. The bonus is that I could use up a trifle of the enormous amount of fat in my freezer.

Sometimes I use a “cloche” or cover for the breads during baking and really appreciate the soft top it gives. Other times I like the slightly crusty tops. Cloches can be oven-proof glass, clay, (sometimes people use clean flower pots), or a simple metal baking pan placed over the bread pan.

I’m glad to hear the milk kefir is working well for your starters. For those who are unfamiliar with milk kefir, it is a culture that will ferment milk into a yogurt-like product. The actual combination of bacteria and yeast are different than yogurt cultures so the taste and texture are different than yogurt.

In my early gluten-free sourdough experiments, I used it as a booster and saw that it gives a bit more lift than water kefir-boosted starters. Unfortunately, I had to give it up because I couldn't tolerate it. I continued making it for my family, though, making milk kefir liquid for morning hot cereal as well as milk kefir cheese. I would snitch a bit as I made the cheese. I really loved the sour, creaminess of the milk kefir cheese.

I would make the milk kefir, which means adding the kefir culture to the milk and let it sit on the counter until it separated. For cheese, I would pour it into a strainer lined with a cloth, tie up the cloth and let the whey (water) drip out.  Depending on how long it hung and how much whey dripped out, I could make yogurt, cream cheese or farmer cheese. The whey was excellent for boosting starter or just drinking as a probiotics tonic.


 Milk Kefir separating
   
Milk Kefir strained with a metal strainer for cheese. The whey drips into the bottom of a bowl for other uses.
If you are interested in trying Milk Kefir, here's a link to an excellent company to purchase the culture. Cultures for Health

Thanks again for your feedback and sharing!
All the best,
Sharon

I received a follow up from C about how the taste of the animal fat blended right into the factura pastries from Argentina.
 

The Art of Self-Regulation

                                           
Recently, I received some feedback from a woman who said she would never buy my cookies again because she ate a 1 pound bag in 3 days. Her email was full of bold letters and exclamation points.

A different woman sat on her couch eating her 1 pound bag of cookies like chips, one cookie after the other. Three quarters of the way through the bag, she knew she had seriously over eaten! She called me and described her experience. Here are the highlights of her description: "seriously stuffed" and then she made a grunting sound. Besides the feeling of having eaten too much, she realized the cookies had a high nutrient content because she did not feel hungry again for many hours.

She really loved the cookies and strongly suggested I package them in single portion sizes so that she could self-regulate her consumption of them.

I have to admit that when I don't eat my cookies for awhile and then have some, I feel that old familiar addiction response kick in. I want to eat as many as I can, for like forever!! But now I know that If I exercise my self-regulation skills, I can enjoy them without feeling like grunting afterwards. When I'm baking large amounts of them, I am surrounded by cookies that seem to be whispering "Eat Me", Alice-in- Wonderland-style, but I just glare at them and walk away. I reward myself with 1.5 ounces after my weekly Friday afternoon swim. And then don't feel like eating again till 7:30 pm.

These cookies have very high nutrient dense food value. I make them with sprouted, dehydrated almonds, fermented chia gel, shredded coconut and coconut oil. They are really power packed and one doesn't need much of them to satisfy.

It's similar with the baked breads and bread mixes. I think that when we have a taste of gluten-free bread that is "real food", we want to consume a lot of it to make up for the absence of good bread for way too long. I must confess that I gorged on each bread recipe as I perfected it but now I've found that one Muffin Top works well for a snack, one English Muffin is great for a meal and 1/8 of a bread mix flat bread is really enough. We just need to listen to our bodies about when we're truly satisfied and give ourselves a chance to self-regulate.

Last summer I brought some cookie experiments to my brother's house where his wife, 2 kids and I plowed through a lot of cookies, tasting and critiquing as we ate. I had to hide some away for my parents, who were next on my itinerary. There were cinnamon cookies, ginger cookies and my original recipe, vanilla spice. My young nephew said "Aunt Sharon...is chocolate gluten-free?", whereupon I said yes...whereupon he said "then I think you should put chocolate chips in your cookies".

I've been tinkering again and believe I have perfected the ginger cookies. The cinnamon cookies are close to perfection. Of course, adding mini chocolate chips to anything makes it better so the chocolate chip cookie doesn't need any more work. I used a chip that was dairy, soy and nut free. Alas, it has evaporated cane juice in it also known as sugar, but I think it's okay for the occasional treat (rather than consuming massive quantities at once). There's that self-regulation idea again. 
                                
                                Cookie dough ready to bake
                              
                                       Cookies baked
If my price points seem high, please remember that I invest in high quality organic ingredients rather than fancy packaging.

I really need some feedback on the cookies so I will happily include some free samples in any orders I ship out in April. If you are interested in receiving samples, please check "Yes" on the shopping cart contact info page. Please let me know any and all feedback about them.

 
Chocolate Chip

  
Cinnamon  

 
Ginger          

Customer sales update:
The woman who swore she would never buy them again has just purchased a 3 oz pack!

Click Here to Check out my products!

Tips for Growing Sourdough in a Cold House

    As I write this from New England, we are receiving a huge major snowstorm. We have received nearly 3 feet and the snow is only now beginning to slow down after 24 hours of continuous snowing. The outdoors is like a marshmallow fantasy land with its billowy white shapes. I love the beauty of the snow but 3 feet is really challenging! We've also had many days of frigid temperatures. My little house is well insulated and toasty warm but my bake shop, located in an old mill building, is drafty and hard to heat.

During this period of arctic temps, It has been challenging to grow my starters and in this newsletter I share the tricks I've learned to help my starters ferment properly in a chilly space.           

                                                                          
Happy sourdough starter.
top, Rice, left Sorghum, right Teff

When we regularly buy a food product, we expect it to have the same taste and texture as the ones we bought in the past.  One of the challenges of making fermented products is being able to maintain a constant product from batch to batch. If you purchase my baked breads, you may have noticed some variation from batch to batch.
If you bake my bread mixes or breads, you may notice some differences in how they grow in warm weather versus cold weather. Alas, there are so many variables that can be difficult to control.

My bake shop is in a drafty old mill building. Some of the suites are well heated but mine is not. In order to really get my starters going, I have needed to get creative about getting them some supplemental heat. If you have a cold kitchen, my tips might help you:

1. Use room temperature flour rather than chilled flour
2. Use warmed water rather than chilled or even room temperature water
3. Place your bowl of starter in sunny window
4. Place your bowl of starter near a gentle heat source such as:

• on top of the fridge or freezer
• near a pot of simmering soup
• near a crock pot
• near a wood stove
• in a warm oven
• in a warm dehydrator
• near a radiator

Keep in mind that too much heat may kill rather than energize the bacteria and yeast. You just want the bowl itself, and the sourdough starter, to be warm rather than cold. With practice and experience you can gain a feel for what the starter needs.

If you buy my breads, I ask for your understanding if batches are not exactly the same each time. I do my best to work with Mother Nature as well as with the billions of bacteria and yeast I have the pleasure of raising.
5% Discount Coupon Code on all orders $50 or more (excluding shipping). Type RC5 into the coupon box on the shopping cart.
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Can't You Just Knock Off 5 Pounds?

I know someone who is very focused on her weight and is always in the process of trying to knock off 5 pounds. She sees weight loss in very black and white terms: eat too much, put on weight; eat less, lose weight.

When I was still ill, I was carrying about 15 extra pounds. Every time I tried to "go on a diet" and eat less, I became sick. This person would say " can't you just go on a diet and knock off 5 pounds?"

When I learned I had systemic candida I began to understand that there was an overgrowth of a certain type of yeast in my body that was quickly reproducing. These multitudes of yeast were basically eating the food that I was ingesting. They happily fed on the wheat, sugar and dairy products that I was eating and made more of themselves who, in turn, needed to eat more wheat, sugar and dairy products.

The food I ate was feeding them instead of me making my body think it was starving. A starving body won't give up any of its precious fat stores. Also, because I was eating less food, some of the yeasts were starved and subsequently died, causing what is known as "die off". They die off results in cold and flu-like symptoms as the body tries to rid itself of that dead material. Now I understand why I got sick every time I tried to knock off 5 pounds. What was going on was much more complicated then simply eating less food.

It took many years to find the right balance of practitioners, healing modalities, treatments, and diets (not the weight loss kind) to heal the candida and leaky gut. Even when those ailments were mostly resolved, I still wasn't quite well. By that time I no longer trusted that doctors could understand my situation. However, at the suggestion of my husband, I saw a holistic MD, who diagnosed the gluten intolerance and other food sensitivities.

Changing my diet, yet again, yielded incredibly healing results and to my surprise, I lost those 15 pounds and without dieting. The way I see it, the foods I tested sensitive to, and had been eating, were stressing my body. Taking them out of my diet eliminated the stress and allowed my body to come back to a natural and balanced place. Only then was my body able to easily let go of that extra weight.

Now, nearly 10 years after the gluten intolerance diagnosis, I'm baking breads and cookies for sale. When I was perfecting the Sprouted Almond Cookie recipe I had to taste it, a lot, yum yum! These power cookies gave me so much energy that I had some after swimming exercise as well as for my midday snacks as well as for dessert after lunch and dinner. Course, I wasn't used to eating dessert, just occasional treats. Sooooo, by the end of this summer I put on 5 pounds!

                                           Sprouted Almond Cookies

Those words came floating back to me: Can't you just knock off 5 pounds?
I knew I had been eating more than I needed, so step 1 was to stop eating more than I needed. I also slightly shifted the proportion of grains to veggies in all my meals. (a bit less grain, a bit more veggies). It was an easy change and the weight came off in a month.

Then I developed my Chocolate Sourdough Bread and had to repeatedly taste-test until perfection. Yum again! Whoops again! another 5 pounds.

                                        Chocolate Sourdough Bread

Back to eating what I need and the pounds are getting knocked off, 2-3 more to go.

I feel fortunate and deeply blessed that I found a way through the maze of healing possibilities and now have a healthy body and lots of energy. One of the hardest challenges I faced was to maintain hope in the face of very slow progress. In the beginning and even the middle of these healing journeys, progress may be barely noticeable.

I wish everyone who is working through any health challenges:

• patience with yourself and your body
• to focus on what works for you, not what works for the masses
• to maintain your hope and faith that there is a path to your wellness and you will find it if you keep at it

View From the Other Side of the Table

Before I was a farmer's market vendor, I was a farmer's market customer, checking out booth after booth and sometimes balking at the prices of things. Imagine charging that much for homemade bread, chocolate, salsa, wine or produce! Not having yet been a vendor, it was impossible for me to know how much time, energy and resources went into the crafting of the product that seemed so pricey.

Now that I've been on the other side of the table, I really get it!! High quality ingredients, hand made beautiful products, long hours making the products and on market day (after working at a frenzied pace in the days before, then packing the car the night before)...up at 5 am, out the door carrying lunch, drinks, coffee (or in my case, vitamin powder drink), set up the tent, tables and products by opening bell.

It can be challenging to have a smile on one's face at that opening bell especially if it's cold and drizzly or burning hot or even if it's a nice day because the long week of preparations has left us with some real fatigue.

Yet we keep on keepin' on to build our businesses, try out new products, and best of all, to take part in the community spirit!

Market day is a happy day. Everyone is out with babies, kids, and dogs looking for beautiful food and crafts and connection.

My friend, Peggy, who helped me at the market a few times, pointed out the changes in people's faces upon trying my products. Of course, not everyone likes my products but most people did. When someone tried the Sprouted Almond Cookies or a Pumpernickel Muffin Top I watched their face move from neutral to pure joy and delight.


Comments like "these cookies are delicious and are not too sweet!" and "I haven't had pumpernickel in sooooooo long! Thank you!!" remind me that I am on the right path, bringing healthy delicious food to people like myself with food restrictions.

Peggy suggested that sometime we set up a video camera to document the facial changes. I think it's an interesting idea!

I learned so much from my first vendor year at the market. I didn't figure out everything, though. Some days I sold out of one product. The next week I'd bring lots more of that product but it would just sit there while something else would sell out. Baffling.

I felt a lot of solidarity and support with and from the other vendors. We shared business tips and supported each other through the season.

We have one last market, the Pre-Thanksgiving Market which will be indoors so no tent to set up. I'll be presenting  my newly perfected Chocolate Bread as well as my Ginger Bread. Hopefully, my new Cocktail breads, which need another week or so of testing, will also be ready.

               
        Ginger Bread                               Chocolate Bread

Being a farmer's market vendor was a fabulous experience and I hope to do it again, next year!!

Click here to learn more about and order products!

Video of my Bread Mixes!

A friend of mine, Wardeh Harmon, creator of Gnowfglins, a Real Food cooking site, made a video of herself making my Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread Mixes. I think she did a stellar job! 

Click here to Watch the video!

July Newsletter

This month's newsletter features an article on baking Gluten-free Sourdough Bread in the heat of summer!

Also a recipe and video for Marinated Tomatoes using home made Kombucha vinegar. Yum!

Click here to read! 

June Newsletter

Who is the Sophisticated Peasant anyway?
Read the newsletter to find out!!

Click here to read

May Newsletter

May Newsletter has photos of readers' baking creations and their personal variations!

Also a piece on getting ready to ferment vegetables as we move into the gardening season.

Click here to read newsletter!

April Newsletter

Free April Newsletter
Read about bread tips and a great recipe using parsnips!!
Click Here to Read

Free November Newsletter

November Newsletter Click Here to Read
This month's topics:

• Holiday Food
• Natural Antihistamine
• My article published in Living Without Magazine Dec/Jan edition!!
• My new website!

Free September Newsletter

September Newsletter is out!! Click here to read! This month's topics: Lacto-Fermented Cucumber Relish Whole Grain Sorghum Frozen Tomatoes Congestion Buster Bread Crumbs & recipe for GF meatloaf

May Newsletter!!

________________________________________________ HI All, The May Newsletter is here! Topics include Water Kefir Soda, Quinoa, Fermented Mackerel and Oven Baked Gluten-Free Pancakes. Click to read it!

A Letter from a Reader

Hello dear Sharon,

I am writing to report on my most recent gluten-free sourdough baking experiences. First, I want to thank you, Sharon, again for being so amazing and inventing GFSD baking, and all these amazing recipes. I love my new book too! It's already well covered with grease spots - looks well used and loved!:)

I have been trying all the new rice-free recipes, just thinking that I want to get rid of all the random flours I had in the pantry...well, it turned out I just loooooooove the new breads! It all started with the Corn Multigrain Mini Loaves, which I wanted to make for Thanksgiving. I ended up making mini muffins instead, which turned out great, but since I had made more then 3 cups of the starter I continued feeding the leftover starter.

When I had about 6 cups buckwheat/sorghum starter I made both Tapioca Bread #4 and Multi Carob#4. YUM! We had delicious sandwiches for days. The kids and hubby were super happy. At the beginning of the year I had fallen in the rice mini-muffins rut for months, then I took the summer off from baking. Now everybody in the house feels spoiled with all these new delicious breads.

Today I made my first Teff bread. This one is definitely everyone's fave so far...and it came with a bonus! When I was mixing the bread this morning I ended up with more dough then would fit in my bread pan, but not enough for two breads. So I took the extra dough and mixed in about 1 more cup of teff flour, 2 T. molasses, some coconut sugar, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and a bunch of butter (at least 2-3T). I left it out to rise.

When I got home from work (about 7hrs later), the bread was ready to bake. The cookie dough had only risen slightly, but I thought enough to give it a shot. Well, let me tell you, the cookies turned out amazing!!!!! I'm so happy! Gluten-free sourdough cookies. And sugar free, kind of, since there was barely any coconut sugar in the mix. I think those would also taste delicious with some choc chips. Next time, I'm going to try the cookies with more starter and less added though at the end. I also would like to try lemon butter cookies. Perhaps with a rice-quinoa starter?

Another experiment, though not as exciting as the cookies, but pretty delicious was the bread pudding. We can eat eggs, so I mixed a few eggs, some coconut milk and cinnamon with some crumbled leftover corn bread, stuck it in the oven for about 45min and voila!... yum!

That's it for now! I'm gonna try to take pictures one of these days - may be over Christmas break when I have more time.

Again, thank you and God bless you!
Love,
KG

Teff Sourdough Starter for Samples for Wise Traditions Conference

I'm in the middle of baking countless samples for the Wise Traditions conference where I will be presenting my bread technique.

I'm baking one of my favorite slightly sweet breads, Teff Carob Coconut.

Here are some photos of the very impressive looking starter.







I like the craggy surface of the top and the spongy holes seen through the sides of the glass.

Saturday Night, November 5, 7:00 pm EST! Live Internet Radio Interview with Vickilynn Haycraft!

Wow! Another interview! This time it will be a live internet radio show by Vickilynn Haycraft, who is an excellent interviewer. This will be a relaxed one-hour talk where we will delve into gluten-free sourdough baking as well as discuss some aspects of my own personal healing journey.

Click here for a direct link to the show page.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/doctorprepper/2011/11/05/get-real-get-prepared-with-vickilynn-haycraft-1

The show will be live Saturday Evening, Nov. 5, from 7-8PM EST, so you can tune in live via that link.

This link will be available after the show to access the interview On Demand, or to download as an Mp3.

If you would like to hear the show live via phone and not on the computer, the number is 1 (347) 326-9604

We will also be open to taking live calls on the air at the above number!

Make a cup of tea, toast a piece of gluten-free sourdough bread and join me for an easy going evening!

Pancakes! New Video!

Here is a pancake video demonstrating how to make pancakes that are free of gluten, dairy, eggs, soy and yeast. Being sourdough they do have a slightly mild-to-medium sour taste so in my opinion they are perfect as a savory grain accompaniment to a meal instead of bread.

Click here to see instructional videos!

Same Recipe-4 different results

A few people have written to me about how their gluten-free sourdough breads don't seem to rise properly. Come to find out that using different grinds of flour foster very different results.

I use home milled flour brown rice flour. When I first started home milling I ground it once on the finest setting on my Kitchen Aid Grain Mill attachment. It came out fairly coarse and gritty. Then I learned about grinding twice, once on medium and again on that same finest setting. The flour was finer but still on the coarse side. My initial recipes were based on this coarse and less coarse flour and produced excellent bread.

I learned that the people having trouble were using store bought flour which is much finer than my home milled. Some of them were able to switch to home milled and got much better results. But certainly there are many, many people who will never mill their own flour for all sorts of reasons. I figured I better do some trials with home milled flour to see if I could learn how to compensate for the much finer flour.

I made 4 starters using a different grind of brown rice flour for each:
1. Once ground
2. Twice ground
3. Bob's Red Mill with added rice bran
4. Bob's Red Mill

Here's a photo of the breads after baking. Look at the differences in height.


I'm analyzing the taste, texture, and crumb of these breads. Hopefully, I'll be able to make some recommendations in the not too far future. So much to learn...

Grandma's Honey Cake - Photos

Here is the finished Honey Cake for Dad's 85th birthday. I think it came out right although of course, I will not taste it on account of the ingredients I cannot have (gluten, eggs, sugar, honey, coffee). I used a dust mask on my face so I wouldn't breathe in the wheat flour and washed my hands about a million times. I baked it in my basement kitchen (a make shift kitchen consisting of saved old appliances and cheap cabinets) so my regular kitchen would stay gluten-free. I washed everything in the dishwasher as soon as possible. The cake smells right, looks right and we're ready for the celebration.



I love the rich dark color of this cake.

Gluten-Free Sourdough and Perfect Loaves, Yeah Right!

 

 

 

HI All,
Lately I've been asked many questions about various technical aspects of making my bread. It seems the universe decided to remind me of some of the challenges so I could answer your questions from the best experience possible.

I'm preparing to vendor at a conference in a few short weeks.

Let's set aside that I decided to revise my book so the books I sell will be the most current and needed to have that done in time to self-print many books.

Let's set aside that my editor had to let go of my project about 10 pages into the book.
(My wonderful daughter took over the editing while she was preparing to move out of my house. The first night in her new apartment she stared at her computer for many hours, faithfully editing my book. I owe her big time)

Let's set aside that the ink I bought, at a good price online, has been delayed. When it finally arrived, I wasn't home and the delivery people needed a human to sign for it so it is still in their truck. (got ink from different site, not the best price, no shipping, next day delivered. I'm printing books as we speak, or as I write)

Let's set aside the logistics of packing my car for the conference: books, bread samples, humans, our own food, (we're all on special diets) rice cooker, toaster, hot pot, special pillows.

Now we come to what I wanted to really write about: I'm making samples, Mock Rye Bread. I froze some starter last week, took it out on Friday and planned to bake on Monday. The starter was sluggish, minimal bubbles, not much ferment smell at all.
Gave it an extra dose of water kefir but it didn't really help. (someone just wrote to me about just that).
Then I had to be out for a whole day so fed the starter and refrigerated it. (someone asked about that recently).
Still sluggish, no smell. I kept feeding it worrying it wouldn't be ready or perhaps it was never going to ferment properly. (Now that it's Fall the ambient temp in the house is cooler, probably part of the problem) (3 cold aspects, frozen starter, refrigerated starter, cool house)

Monday morning comes, I hoped to have Peggy videotape a Mock Rye Bread demo for the online course but the starter is just sitting there. We switch gears and do a Feeding Technique #1 and #2 video.

Early Monday evening I feed it once more rather than dump the whole thing in the compost.
Late Monday night the starter starts rumbling and quaking and is in danger of overflowing its 16 cup bowl. (someone just asked about batters overflowing their pans)

I divide it into quart measuring cups, feed, cover and plan to bake on Tuesday morning. I'm left with 5 batches, a lot to do at once but hey, a baker's work is never done.

As I assemble the ingredients for the first loaf I see the starter is a bit too thick, so I add a little water to the next 4. They seem to be alright but instead of a slow pour into the pan, they plop in to the pan. Nowhere in my book do I mention "plop" as a batter texture.

Of course, my schedule for Tuesday does not allow for a proper rise. I will get home one and a half hours later than a 7 hour rise but I really can't get around it. As I'm driving home I visualize that the breads should stay nice and risen, hold their texture, be tall but when I come home they've fallen quite a bit. (someone just wrote about too short and too long rise times).

I bake them, they seem okay. I cut them open using a hacksaw (like someone just wrote about) Although they rose they're not fully cooked through on the top in the center of the loaf. (some wrote about that, too) I would have cooked them longer but they started to get a scorched smell.

A lot of it was usable, though, I cut off the uncooked pieces, hacksawed the rest into slices and froze them for the conference. I feel 99% sure they will be fine after thawing and toasting.
Luckily I also have some perfect loaves I made a few weeks ago.

I saved the uncooked parts and will see if they respond to double toasting. (more info for future questions)

So, All, if you thought I made perfect loaves all the time, you now know the truth. I'm still working with this fluid animal called Sourdough.
And Loving It.