the nice folks at novotel siam square agreed to my request for a visit to their bakery. 

i like their walnut-raisin rye and asked the bakery chef for more info on this. well it's a combination of rye + wholemeal + white flour. they use 25gm of instant yeast for 1kg of flour which is a higher ratio than the breads i do. 

but then i have the luxury of time, they don't! they have a strict schedule to meet so they rule out sourdough etc. you can't bake daily, at such volume, with a tight schedule using the sourdough method. 

i was there in the afternoon and they told me they usually knead/bake at 10pm every night. so i missed the kneadng part! but the chef told me there's nothing much to see as they use 2 big kitchenaid mixers to do the job.

so at that time, at 4pm, they were baking pizza doughs. i'm relieved the method i used, learned from kingarthurflour, is the same one they use here. read my other post on pizza. 

so all in all, it was a good trip, though i didn't get to use them knead. my appreciation towards the nice staff in this hotel!

too bad i didn't take any photos.