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For many years we have been buying Shatzer Matzohs. They are absolutely delicious!!!
Recently we started buying Shatzer “Whole Wheat” Matzohs and they’re even better!
What Matzoh Bakeries do all of you buy from, and is it just for taste or chumrah?
Please share your reasons, maybe we can survey the most popular brand.
I make my own with supervised grain. I usually make two sorts, the classic round crunchy matzoh and Sephardic ones which are pretty much the same as chapatis – flat, flexible, cooked a little differently.
An excursion into food history came up with some interesting facts. What we call matzoh today isn’t what matzoh was a few hundred years ago. Certainly not what Hillel made his famous sandwich out of. That would have been more like the Sephardic version. Some time back the crust was considered a delicacy. The process for making matzoh was changed so that the good stuff became the whole thing.
And why do I do it? Taste or chumrah? Neither. I do it for enjoyment.
Lol. Cute thread.
Antone else goes for the montreal bakery? They’re pretty good.
We also eat chareidim bakery matzos.
Any brand of machine Shmurah made in E”Y……
1)Less chance of becoming chometz by machines
2)Support the yidden in E”Y that make them.
3)I happen to think hand matzos taste like cardboard
Yanky: depends very much on which machine. I fully agree with you regarding Yad Binyomin, however many other machine bakeries cannot be cleaned properly and are a serious problem.
Matza Balls.
here I blow my cover again. My very favorite matzos are the ones I bake myself. This started many years ago, I had no clue and grew the grain myself. It was rye which grew like a very beautiful weed in NY, and after the harvest, threshing, grinding and baking, I got these oh so ugly dark grey matzos that had jagged edges ( rye has little gluten, the protein that makes dough stretchy, we discovered at the seder that the matzos tasted like peanut butter. Fresh ground (+24hrs–halacha) whole grain matzo is a absolutely not cardboard experience. Ultimately I learned to get grain from Shatzer or the Spinka bakeries, Shatzer because they kept grain for meshugaiim like me, and Spinka because they grind on premises. Over the years I got good at it, and my legend spread to a chaver new to our neighborhood and together we built a full size oven. We did a hilchos matza seder for six months behabura, and then opened up the process to the community. This, I believe was the inspiration behind the new 5-Towns bakery( but we were non commercial) In the course of our studies we looked around at bakeries big and small( and family based) and we saw lots of things we didn’t approve of. I still make my matzos one or two at a time, and can give them hidurim that can’t be had otherwise. Now in EY, I was asked by my chaver to find a source for the stainless rolling pins. Based on some advice I sought out a bakery in Jerusalem that used them. This was a two table, continuous production facility, meaning there were multiple doughs worked on the crushing tables and at 18 minutes the rolling crews would switch tables. The baal habayis was fast asleep in a chair, so I waited for the 18 minute break to ask the mashhgiach. He was of no help, but I had come there for diferent limud. To my utter disbelief, they did not wash their hands between runs. I said to myself then that bli neder I will never again eat a commercial hand matza. I will end with these recomedations: Learn the halachot and see that they were written for a Mom and Pop operation, and in the Sh”ut of the Rogachover, you will find a piece on machine matzo, where he bemoans the commercialization of matzo.
Anuran: Beware, if you are ashkenazi, there is i think a KolBo referenced in the Tur that says you must stick to rekkin dakin (our hard matzos) because of Al titosh toras imecha. On the other hand, if your are of the Sfardi that used soft matzos, you should not use the ashkenazi crackers for the same reason. And tangentially, I have been looking for a way to get away from burning wood, and today a Mizrachi customer showed me the way. A skillet on the gas stove with an electric Saluf pan inverted over it is how she does thick pita, and she says if she gets distracted it burns to a crisp… perfect for a thin crunchy. Nothing as sweet as kibbutz galuyot. Chag kasher vesameach!
koma: Machtzis HaShekel writes that “rekikim dakim” is up to a finger thick, even Sfardi matzos are not that thick.
Thanks for the heads up, koma. My family includes Ashkenazim and Sephardim so even thought it might not be entirely correct we have a family tradition of eating both sorts of food. And, with all due respect, the Sephardim really are better and more adventurous cooks 🙂
Koma, didn’t wash their hands?!?!?! That’s supposed to be drilled into all food service workers until it’s as much a reflex as breathing.
When I have a little more money I’ll be building a brick oven in the backyard. MLOR says since it gets hotter than a self-cleaning oven and stays there long enough it can be kashered for Pesach. Or I suppose I could just whip up some thermite, coat the inside, toss in a match and duck 🙂
Pizza -> bread -> roasted meats -> cholent (for shabbos)
and this time of year
Matzoh -> calcined herbs (not for food) -> meat -> stew
We also use Shatzer Matzos, and started getting into the whole wheat as well. We finish so much matzo since it is so crunchy and its hard to calculate how much you are actually consuming.
we also use whole wheat matzohs. it tastes great and its healthy so why not? a good tip- if the matzoh is hard to chew, or even if its not, put it in in the oven for a few minutes before eating it-it comes out warm and crunchy and tastes so delicious!!!
Anuran: I think thermite lights with a spark or blasting cap. For a masonry oven in siman tav samech alef the accepted hechsher is that ‘ the coal go on its entire surface” taken to mean the whole baking floor. I found this much easier than cleaning the GE and some fun as well. The arch in my little oven would be over 1000f at the stage where I had enough coals to cover the floor. My floor was yellow firebrick about 17″ wide and about 48″ long, 14″ high walls and a shallow arch of red brick, and a second coat of brick on the outside and a hump of cement to seal my poor arch job. It stood on a table of three inch angle iron and a cement pad. I am sorry I didn’t take it apart and move it to EY with me. If you are a “stick it on the wall” baker, you should ask what the do to kasher the walls because in reality you cant fill the entire void with charcoal. Maybe try to build a clay or adobe tanduri and keep it for matza, but I found the matzo oven heated and with the fire swept out made the best chometz sourdough bread ( in about twenty minutes). If you go for the big rig, the one we did was supported on a base of seven courses of soda crates, 7×7 (crates) had walls hemmed in by standard blocks pinned with steel into a slab, so the wall were less high that the length of a block and the top of the pinned blocks held the outer edges of the arch. It had a low flat arch, and fire brick floor and sides. The beauty of this was it really held its heat, and with tossing some wood on at say, dayenu, at motzee matza you can go out and whip up some hot matzos. Its a great way to add some hitlahavut to the seder and also a good way to do two or three full size whole wheat pizzas.
Pupa tzalim has delicious thin matzos so we get that and a couple pounds of shatzur since pupa matzos crack easily and shatzur is thicker so we get it to make sure we have enough shlaimim
Shatzer Shmurah Matzos, the best! In the last few years even started getting the Whole Wheat ones & tastes so much like the Regular ones! So hey, we now get 1/2 our order WW & 1/2 Regular Matzah!
Shatzar Shmurah Matzah, mit asach zaltz (lotsa salt)+ chopped liver = a delicious meal!!!!
Getting hungry just thinking about it!!!! 😉 6 days till Seder night!!!! OH YA!!!! 😉
Asdf- its 6 nights plus a lot of hagaddah saying until that piece of matzah comes along!!
Koma, All sorts of questions since you’ve already done this…
Did you find your oven was adequate for one family? I’m guessing most people get a little over-ambitious about the size. “Why sure. You should be able to roast the whole fatted calf in there” 🙂
What did you use for a door? Sheet iron filled with vermiculite? Cast iron? A firebrick and clay block?
One brick thickness or two for the walls? Mortared arch or self-supporting for the vault? Dampered chimney?
You’re right about the stick-to-the-wall breads. Best just to have a dedicated tandoor for that. Until then take the blowtorch to the regular oven once a year.
Anuran: Yes, I did orignially two matzos at once, but because of the size went down to one. For chometz it held of course many loaves in loaf pans. It was a one to 1.5 hr heat up, and then I would sweep out the fire and bake with a cookie sheet or two to close the front. No chimney this was fire in the back and rolling out the front. For matzo a banked bed of coals at the back and no door, so the matzo could be flipped and watched. It worked with one layer of brick, but later I did another layer on three sides. This is what you call a high mass stored heat oven, and simple two cents plain. The cost was minimal, the most expensive part was the steel base, somebodies mistake that I got from a welder. At the time fire bricks were .37 cents, and red brick even less. If you want to schmooze technical, maybe contact me by email if allowed. chag kasher vesameach.
Mods, please give my email address to koma.
koma and anuran please send your email addresses to me
Ok, I know my favorite matzohs now!!
The whole wheat matzah from Boro Park matzhah bakery is the best!!(For those who go for WW of course).
The taste and crisp is just great! Its also more filling than any other matzhah.
Bump 🙂
Machine shmura – if only talking about white Matsa – otherwise egg Matsa.
Pupa tzalim is rly good or shatzer..!!!!!!! they are the freshest
Wow time files! I see I posted here two years ago, and two names ago, yours truly, the former Koma. Truth in advertising!! What is sold as whole wheat ( as in chometz products as well) does not mean 100%, or even 50%. I do whole wheat and whole spelt. It is difficult (but rewarding) to work with. I had a former professional roller roll for me when I was doing 50% and she complained how unmanagable the dough was. Seasonal threads rock! Chag kasher vesameach.
If I don’t get puppa tzailim there is mutiny in the house.
MDG: A healthy Ashkenazi may NOT eat egg Mazza!!!
I realize that, but I was answering the question.
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