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Intro:   My ultimate bread - learn the secrets of "slow baking" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

step 1:   Preliminary thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

step 2:   Ingredients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

step 3:   Preferment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

step 4:   kneading the dough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

step 5:   Forming the bread and final rest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

step 6:   Scoring and baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

step 7:   Books, links and stuff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

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http://www.instructables.com/id/My-ultimate-bread-learn-the-secrets-of-slow-bak/

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Intro:  My ultimate bread - learn the secrets of "slow baking"A complete HOWTO on baking bread that tastes better, than most breads money can buy.

Image Notes1. Nice texture, huh?

Image Notes1. My favorite white bread.

Image Notes1. I was too lazy to fetch white flour from the basement, so i used some 30 percentwhole wheat.

step 1: Preliminary thoughtsThis is my 3rd instructable about baking bread.Baking bread means more to me, than just preparing something to eat. As soon as you smell the bread baking in the oven, you know what i mean. Last year, i bakedtwice a week, give or take.Most of the time, i prepare a "poolish" preferment Friday morning or around lunch time. At night, before i go to bed i add the remaining ingredients, and let it knead by mybread maker. The next morning, i preheat the oven, then maybe go to bed again until the oven reaches the temperature. This way, even a full time employed guy like mecan do it without interfering with my other hobbies, or money gathering activities (like working ;-).

Many people tell me they tried to bake bread, after reading a recipe. Then their bread turns out dense like a stone. It's really not that hard to bake bread with a yeastleavened dough, if you have a basic knowledge.

1. Yeast works in a temperature range from about 5 to 35 deg. C or 41 to 95 deg. F. (At the lower end, the activity is almost stopped and it works very slow but you canraise the temp. to speed it up. At the upper end, it works very fast, but if you overshoot this temp. you could kill your yeast.)Professional bakers normally try to reach a dough temp. of around 28 C or 83 F after kneading. (The temp. is reached by adjusting the water temp., the temp. of the flourcan change from seasonal storage temperatures. Kneading causes friction and heats up the dough some more.)This may sound awfully complicated, but if you take tepid water, all will be ok. (If you don't have 200lb of flour to knead, your bowl temp. has more impact on the risingtime.)

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2. Yeast doesn't like fats or salt. But then, i don't like bread without salt. The yeast tolerates some salt, but i wouldn't add it to a preferment. If you make a dough with lotsof fat, add it after you mixed the flour, yeast and water or milk. Take more yeast.(As directed on the yeast pack will be enough.) Normally, i only take a quarter or evenless than the amount suggested on the yeast package. But i give it more time to work.

After you master the white wheat flour bread, making whole wheat and breads with other grains are easy to adapt. I would suggest you use 25-50% white wheat flour inany of these breads. This makes sure, you get a good rise.If you use coarsly milled or crushed grains or other dry, hard ingredients, you need to soak them. With the following method, you can soak them in the preferment.

step 2: IngredientsFor a plain white bread, you don't need fancy ingredients. It's just flour, water, salt and yeast.The most important ingredient is the flour of course. It's differently named in different countries and this can confuse things a little bit.A gluten-rich flour is a good thing to start with. Gluten is a wheat-protein and we need it for the gas holding capability of a dough. It's essential for a nice rise.So if you find a flour with a protein content of around 11%, you should be ok. I normally buy my flour at a local mill, but once i didn't have any of it, i went to thesupermarket and bought plain white flour. The result was also very good.I would stay away from "bread mixes", since they normally have obscure additives you really don't need if you follow these procedures.

I use a digital kitchen scale to weigh my ingredients. I will add volumetric measures later, stepped up or down, so you won't need 3.731 cups of flour...

Bakers state their ingredients in bakers percentage in their receipes. This way it's easy to step a receipe up or down.

This makes two batards.(thick short baguettes)

500g white flour 100%350ml or 350g tepid water 70% (unchlorinated, and not too soft)15g salt 3%1g active dry yeast 0.2%

Baking unit conversion utility:http://pantsblazing.com/convert/vol_weight.php

4 cups bread flour  (560g)13 fl.oz. water           (384ml)3   tsp    salt              (15g)1/6  of a  1/4 oz yeast packet

Depending on the moisture content and the type of flour, you may need to adjust the amount of water a little bit. You can add some flour, if your dough gets too moist. Ifyou always need to add more flour, reduce the water a little bit.

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Image Notes1. "Mass production" for a event

step 3: PrefermentA preferment is a part of the final dough. It is made in advance and it adds considerable flavour and texture to the bread. For this bread, i make a so called "Poolish". Wellit's a bit too liquid for a traditional "poolish" but for the simplicity of it, i add all the water to the preferment.

Put half of the flour in a big enough bowl, sprinkle the yeast over it and pour in the water . Then stir/mix it until you have everything evenly distributed. It should be ofbatter-like consistency. Leave it covered at room temperature. Don't use a absolutely tight container, or it might explode from CO2 pressure.

I normally make the preferment 12-24 hours before my intended time of baking.

There are other yeast preferments or starters like the biga, which is a very dry preferment.Then there is the whole world of sourdoughs.Sourdoughs are a combination of  lactic and acetic bacteria and a acid tolerant yeast. You need the acidity for the development of the gas holding capability in a 100%rye bread. But sourdoughs also make wonderful wheat breads. There are very good instructables available on this topic, but maybe i'll do one more...

http://www.instructables.com/id/Sourdough-Bread/

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Image Notes1. The preferment after mixing

Image Notes1. The preferment after a couple of hours. The yeast is happy.

step 4: kneading the dough4-6 hours before i intend to bake, i add the other half of the flour and the salt . You can mix it with your hands or take your mixer with the kneading hooks.After incorporating all the ingredients, the dough needs to be kneaded properly. When you do it by hand, it will take around 10-15 minutes. Using a hand mixer withkneading hooks or a KitchenAid or Kenwood type of machine, it it takes around 5-7 minutes.When you overdo the kneading, the dough will go from springy to slack pretty quickly and you need to start over with a new dough. It is very unlikely to overknead itmanually, with a machine, it can happen easily.As you can see on the pictures, i use a bread maker to mix, ferment the preferment, add the remaining ingredients, knead and ferment again. This way i only need onecontainer with integrated mixing and kneading hook and it is covered while fermenting. The only task i don't use the bread maker, is for baking.

Image Notes1. The final dough shortly after the remaining flour was mixed in. Beginning ofthe kneading phase.

Image Notes1. At this time, you can judge the consistency of the dough. Add some flour ifneeded. A good time to taste a little bit of it. In case you forgot the salt, now is thelast chance to add it... it happened before

step 5: Forming the bread and final rest4-6 hours after kneading (you can prolong this time in the fridge), the dough looks like on the first picture. It has risen nicely and aromas, flavours and texture had time todevelop.

If you wait for much longer, the "yeast-food" gets depleted eventually. But with such minute amounts of yeast used, the schedule is quite forgiving.

Compared with insanely high amounts of yeast in many bread recipes, which double in size in 45 minutes, this is really slow baking.Although it may sound tempting to save some time, the resulting bread smells of raw flour and yeast and has a texture like cardboard. Give slow baking a try , you won't be disappointed. It has been done this way for centuries and good bakers still do it.

Forming the bread:I like free formed breads, because of the crunchy crust and the plain sight of it. And you don't need to clean a form afterwards ;-)To form a bread, you can't just push and shove it into the desired form. It would flow to a blob during the final rise.Here we use our good protein friend gluten again. This protein makes the dough springy.

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First i flour the working surface, then i take the dough out of the kneading bowl and flour the dough from the top, so it won't stick.Use only so much flour, that it doesn't stick, because the flour you add here is not incorporated into the dough.Next, i flatten it and try to make a sqare area of dough. While flattening, you also drive out large bubbles. This is also called degassing. Without degassing, you get reallylarge holes into your bread.Then i divide the dough into 2 rectangulars. I put one out of the way and take the other one with a short side towards me.Then i think of three sections on the long side and fold it from the far side towards me. In the end i have a "roll" with 3 layers and i push down the seam.Then i flatten that "roll" again, but only so wide, that i can give it one more fold and push down the seam again.When you do that you will realize how springy the dogh got by folding it. This is the work of the gluten protein. If your dough is very slack, you can give it another fold. Ifyou overdo it, the dough can rip.Finally i put them on a cookie sheet with the seams down for the final rise. Cover it with cling wrap and let it rise for 60-90 minutes.(or overnight in the fridge) The time ofthe final rise can be adapted to the environmental temperature and also how dense the crumb should be. During the final rise, you also have to preheat your oven.

Image Notes1. The dough has risen over the rim of the container and fallen back after i took itout of the bread machine.

Image Notes1. degassed dough formed into a square

Image Notes1. the dough divided

Image Notes1. the 1st third is folded over

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Image Notes1. folded again towards me to make a three layered roll

Image Notes1. stretched the dough, only as much, so you can give it another fold

Image Notes1. folded and pressed the seam together

Image Notes1. Batard shape2. Baguette shape3. Whatever shape ;-)

step 6: Scoring and bakingBaking the proofed loaves the right way needs a bit more consideration, than only shoving them into the oven.First, use a baking / pizza stone of a sort. You could use unglazed spanish tiles, but you can get gaps when they're not aligned nicely or when you move them whileshoving the loaves onto them. This helps to heat up the loaves quickly from the bottom. This is important for a good oven spring. It also gives more thermal mass into theoven, so the temperature doesn't fall so much, when you open the door or shove the cold dough in. But you need to be aware, that it also takes longer to preheat.

As a next thing, you should have a steam saturated environment during the spring phase of baking. This keeps the surface elastic, since the steam condenses on thecold dough surface and keeps it from drying out too early. There is more than one way to achieve this.

1. Put a heavy skillet on the oven floor, before you preheat the oven. Just before you put the loaves into the oven, add a cup of boiling water into the skillet.2. Spray the oven walls and the oven floor with a water sprayer, when you put the loaves in. Repeat it after a minute.3. Buy a oven with integrated steam generator ;-)4. Use a very small oven, like my small electric one. Sprinkle some water on the cookie sheet and on the loaves. The environment gets moist enough this way.

As you can see on the photos, i scored/slashed the loaves differently for you to see. Slash them with a very sharp blade about half an inch deep.

Sprinkle the the loaves with water, i do it by hand with tap water. But you could also take a water sprayer or a brush.

When the oven has reached the temperature and is steam saturated, i shove in the loaves on the sheet with the cookie tray. Then i let the sheet with the loaves fall on thebaking stone by quickly pulling out the tray. Work quickly in order to keep the heat and the steam in the oven.

Start baking rather hot 275C / 530 F(if your oven can't get that high, take the maximum), then after about 3-5 minutes (when you see the first brown spots on the formingcrust) reduce the temperature to 180C / 355F for the rest of the bake. It will take a while for the oven temp to fall, but that's ok.If you have a oven with a convection function, use it. It helps to heat up the loaves quickly for a nice oven spring and in a even browning of the loaves. If you don't have aconvection feature, i'd raise the temp to around 190C / 375F in the second baking phase. And maybe you have to turn the loaves for even browning. Every oven behavesa little different, so you probably need to make some temp adjustments to get optimal results.Breads of this size need about 35 minutes to bake. The baking time needs to be adjusted for thicker and thinner breads. If your bread gets too dark too early, reduce the

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temperature in the second baking phase and/or turn down the heat earlier.If you want a very thick crust, vent the steam by quickly opening and closing the oven door when you turn down the heat. You can repeat it after a coule of minutes.(Stand away from the oven, as hot steam can scald you!)

Final thoughts:Many things about preferments, long fermentation times and baking are almost universal in making good to outstanding breads.It takes me a maximum of 15 minutes of actual working to make a delicious plain wheat bread.(cleaning of the equipment included.) The time it takes from start to finishvaries from 6 hours(with some shortcuts) to 24 hours with retarding, but it's not much work actually.

Happy baking

Image Notes1. Loaves after the final rise, slashed and sprinkled with water.

Image Notes1. After baking2. Maybe i should have slashed a little deeper, so it wouldn't have ripped openhere...

step 7: Books, links and stuffHere some very good books about baking bread.(Not ordered after preference...)

Bread by Jeffrey Hamelmann

The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

They have written more books about bread and also a wonderful pizza book.

A very nice site in germanhttp://www.petras-brotkasten.de/

My other bread related instructableshttp://www.instructables.com/id/Spent-Grain-Sesame-Bread/http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-Braid-%22Butterzopf%22-or-Challah/http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-build-a-Pizza-Oven/

My entry in the pizza contesthttp://www.instructables.com/id/Flammkuchen-the-other-type-of-pizza/

Some photos with comments.

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Image Notes1. Flammenkuchen

Image Notes1. Selfmade buns and patties

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Image Notes1. buns

Image Notes1. extremly wet dough 78% water

Image Notes1. wet dough on the pizza stone

Image Notes1. finished wet dough bread

Image Notes1. bread in the wood fired oven

Image Notes1. fire,fire!!

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Related Instructables

The UnkneadedBread bySiljestam

Spent GrainSesame Breadby t.rohner

4-Hour No-Knead bread. bydaniel_reetz

I Bread bypmetro

Honey MapleBread byRobotrix

SourdoughBread by MySisters Kitchen

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 suckrpnch says:  Aug 24, 2010. 10:04 AM  REPLYI am a convert to the preferment. My first batch is probably my best bread ever. It is still a little heavy, so I need to work on it, but it is pretty light compared tomost of my no-knead breads. I left it sit for a long time though. It sat for 25 hours in preferment. then about 8 hours after kneading and then it was prettynormal from there. I will try to follow the recipe closer next time. I also used about 60% wheat flour and some vital wheat gluten. It had a lot of flavor andeven a nice sourness to it. The flavor was MUCH better than previous breads. This was just what I needed. Now if I can only get those big beautiful pocketsof air...

 t.rohner says:  Aug 25, 2010. 2:56 AM  REPLYThat's what i mean. If you ever tasted it, you'll stay with it ;-))) Now to the big and irregular beautiful pockets of air. Maybe the photo in the intro is a bit afake for this recipe. I'm really not sure anymore. For a while, i made a recipe with up to 80% water. But it worked best with 75-78%. This depends on theflour used. Although the recipe in this instructable makes a pretty moist dough with 70%, i also love my "Flow-Dough" (small TM). This dough is so wet, italmost flows out of the kneading bowl. For handling the dough, i use water instead of flour to keep it from sticking to the surface or hands. The otherimportant difference is, i don't degas it and i don't give it a final proof. I just let it flow onto my working surface, divide it and somehow form it. Then put itonto a baking paper on a peel and shove it into the oven as fast as i can. (it would flow into a blob, given enough time outside the oven) I also set myoven to the maximum for the first couple of minutes.(300 C / 570 F) The rest of the recipe and procedure is the same as in this instructable. You can seephotos of it in the last step of this instructable. (6th, 7th and 8th picture) It would be nice, if you post a photo of your results here.

 suckrpnch says:  Aug 30, 2010. 2:06 PM  REPLYThe first two pics are from my first batch last week which was the wheat batch I mentioned. The crum isn't bad, it just wasn't as light as the white, butperhaps that it just how it goes with wheat. There are some big pockets in there though. I put sesame seeds and flax seeds on top. The second twophotos are from my white bread batch this week. It was by far the best bread I have ever made, and it, to me was finally completely as good asanything I could buy even at the high-end store. The flavor was rich and it was very light and airy. Light and airy have been my goals all along, so Ican't thank you enough for your great help here. You can see lots of big holes in the white batch and overall the hole sizes are much bigger. I addeda little rosemary and chives to the second batch, but they weren't very noticeable. I am working on a third batch now with a lot of herbs to try that out.I also forgot to slash the top of the second batch with a knife. It was ok, but it looked like it was suffocating since it couldn't open up as much. :) I amworking on getting a bigger container to make a double batch and test out refrigeration, but haven't gotten one yet. But really it does go so quick tomake the bread... it doesn't take much time at all. My wife (the professional baker in the family) recommended I just cook up multiple loaves and thenfreeze them once baked if I want to make a few loaves at a time. That seems like a pretty good idea. I might expirement with par-baking like the stuffyou get at the store that is "mostly baked" and then frozen, so that it can be thawed out in the oven and finish the crust, but seems complicated to getright.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 30, 2010. 11:37 PM  REPLYThis looks great. It's normal, that whole wheat or breads with rye don't get so fluffy. If i give the dough a long final proof,(90-120 minutes) i oftendon't slash the loaves. If i need to rush things, i heat my other oven to 40 C / 104 F and switch it off to proof the loaves for 60 minutes. I'm actuallyworking on a "freezing dough/bread" instructable. I even have a microwave for testing, but my first microwaved dough ended on the compost. Itwas still frozen in the core, while it was too hot on the outside. My favourite in frozen dough at my current knowledge is freezing it after the mainrise and patted flat before freezing. It freezes fast and also thaws fast, even without the use of a microwave. Then form and final proof it. But themost practical way seems to be 2/3 baking. Start baking hot, but reduce the heat early.(2-3 minutes, before the browning starts) Also reduce themain baking temp by 10 or so deg. and stop after 25 minutes. Bag while still hot, let it cool in the bag and freeze it. Take it out of the freezer, wet

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it with water and bake it at 210 C / 410 F for 10-15 minutes, or until brown enough.

 suckrpnch says:  Oct 1, 2010. 2:28 PM  REPLYI also recently doubled the recipe, and put two loaves in the freezer after baking. I wrapped them in plastic wrap. I let them thaw on thecounter after about 1 week and 2 weeks. They were great. The crust isn't crispy anymore, but it is hard to maintain good crust for any periodof time. Either it gets stale, or, if kept in plastic, gets soft. I didn't mind. It was great. I will probably try partial baking, like you mentioned, nexttime of smaller loaves so that i can finish them after they come out and eat while the crust is fresh.

 suckrpnch says:  Sep 17, 2010. 7:51 PM  REPLYI had my first experience with over kneading. not fun. it was gluey and very hard to work with. i have a kitchenaid, and all of a sudden, it just collapsed. Stilllearning the finer points of machine kneading... I baked it anyhow. It was bearable, but... weird. I also have started converting this recipe for otherapplications. I made a pretty great anchoy bread where I folded chopped anchovies, fresh oregano and chives in. I then coated the bread with the anchovyoil. That was a big success. This really is the perfect recipe.

 t.rohner says:  Sep 17, 2010. 11:33 PM  REPLYHaha. Over kneading is pretty nasty. Especially if you have planned something for your slow bread.This recipe is really just a starting point. It shows the impact of a long fermentation. In fact, it's all about the procedure of making it. Using this procedureon other recipes is absolutely recommended. I love focaccias with olives and rosemary for example. Use more water and don't degas comlpetely whileforming.

 sleepsadream says:  Sep 11, 2010. 2:23 PM  REPLYThank you for the easy-to-follow steps... I'm eagerly awaiting tomorrow morning when my batter is ready for more flour. :]

 gemjunky says:  Sep 6, 2010. 8:21 PM  REPLYcan one use a bread machine to do the kneading, and if yes, how long to knead? Thnx.

 t.rohner says:  Sep 7, 2010. 5:14 AM  REPLYThis is a Panasonic SD-253 bread machine. I use the pizza dough program. This program takes 45 minutes, but the kneading time is around 10-15minutes.

 Skip says:  Sep 4, 2010. 1:24 AM  REPLYI'd started using preferments as experiments and then saw this instructable. Made me happy to see I was on the right track. Love bread. Bread is theawesome. But while I'm commenting.... What is the best way to get a loaf that smells and tastes strongly of malt? I've tried using malt extracts and evensoaking malted barley and using the water and grains, but the flavour and smell just disappears. Any suggestions?

 t.rohner says:  Sep 4, 2010. 1:59 AM  REPLYIn commercial bakeries, malt is added as additional yeast food for better rising in short time. It can also enhance the crust by caramelizing of the sugars. Iused malt extract for baking as well, that was before i started to use preferments and slow baking. If you want malt flavour in the bread, try caramel orcrystal malts. You can buy them in homebrew stores, or order it online. They are available differently roasted. I would start with medium to dark forflavour. I once made a two colored toast bread with dark malt extract. (This was for coloring only) I'd use Caramünch type one or two malt from theWeyermann malting company. If your shop sells a different brand, try it. I'd use Weyermann because it's readily available here and it's very good maltthat i also use for brewing beer. Mill it, or crush it finely and add it to the final dough, not the preferment.

 Skip says:  Sep 4, 2010. 7:02 PM  REPLYta, I'll give that a shot

 boky2405 says:  Sep 2, 2010. 12:27 PM  REPLYI'm going to modify this recipe to create bread as large as the one the woman was holding in the pictures!

 t.rohner says:  Sep 3, 2010. 9:02 AM  REPLYIf you have the oven for this size ;-) But maybe she's just petite...

 boky2405 says:  Sep 3, 2010. 9:13 AM  REPLYIt would be hilarious if she was tiny and the bread she was holding was the size of a hamburger bun.

 gladys45 says:  Aug 19, 2010. 11:15 PM  REPLYok, bread really isnt that hard. you dont need to worry about the temperature so much. 2 parts flour, 1 part water, yeast to rise, salt to taste. people havedone this for thousands of years, there are no secrets to this.

http://www.instructables.com/id/My-ultimate-bread-learn-the-secrets-of-slow-bak/

 t.rohner says:  Aug 20, 2010. 7:35 AM  REPLYBread is never hard, no bread is hard.... The ingredients are plain and simple, the procedure is easy as you say. Bread has been made for a very longtime, but the awareness of the existence of yeast isn't so old. Most breads made throughout the millenia, have been sourdough breads of some sort. Butwhy is there tasty good bread one one side and so bad breads, that calling them edible is stretching the word? Why would a commercial baker beinterested in making a mediocre product? There is more bad than good bread around. Fresh out of the oven, most selfmade bread is tasty. I have beenbaking bread for almost 20 years, i read many books on the subject, but it's only about 5 years, that i stumbled over the "secret" that took me into anotherleague. In a preferment with very little yeast, enzymes from the flour and the yeast create flavourful byproducts. This takes time and won't happen to thisextent in a "overyeasted" quick rise bread.(alpha amylase for example has a temp. optimum around 150F, so at room temperature it works pretty slow)

 JohnnyLaredo says:  Aug 21, 2010. 9:53 PM  REPLYI respectfully disagree that quality bread is easy. It's not my intent to start a flame war, but good bread has escaped me for over 25 years. Especiallythe airy baguette pictured with this article. I've never had a sourdough starter live; never had an airy crumb develop. Mostly cannot get a good riseout of breads at all. Solving this quite literally took years and scientific help (http://www.bakingandbakingscience.com/) and, believe it or not, the EPA.I live where well water is not potable without EPA supervision, because of uranium mining in the past. The water available to me is filtered nine waysfrom Sunday and arrives at the tap quite soft. Guess what soft water does to gluten development? Kills it. Most of America has hard water which isgood for gluten development but no baking book refers to this phenomenon. You have to find out on your own. I agree with long slow development ofa preferment; best flavor going, but it took me a good ten years to find quality flours from Europe which are far superior to American mills. Pizza, forexample, should be made with Double 00 flour, never with all purpose. Only recent artisan books mention such things. At my ranch we still can't getthe decent rise and airy structure to finished ciabatta, though that's counting over a thousand loaves over a bunch of years. Even built my own adobehorno wood fired outdoor oven to get that thermal shock to the bottom of the bread and superior even radiant heat but still no joy. After all the scienceand enquiry and trolling bread forums I discovered a simple reason .... atmospheric conditions (desert), coupled with high altitude (7,000 feet)coupled with caliche dust that gets into everything. Caliche is a calcium carbonate often present with sulfur. It's chemical reaction with the enzymes,even in the smallest amount, neutralizes carbon dioxide, the gas given off by yeasts. My point is that for many people ... they have blessedlyacceptable conditions and materials for making bread. Some don't . For some making bread is easy. For a number of us ... it is elusive andexceptionally frustrating. I'm glad it's easy for you.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 23, 2010. 2:56 AM  REPLYMy comment above yours, was a reaction on a comment, that has been removed in the meantime. So it may sound a bit out of context. (i'mactually thinking about removing it.) "Bread is never hard, no bread is hard" is a old saying here, that is not about making, but having bread to eat.(Having bread means no starvation, no bread could mean death, especially in the past. And hard bread can be soaked in water, so it's neverhard.) Now your problem definitely is hard. I did a little research on caliche and high altitude baking. Because i remember eating wonderful breadin the Taos Ski Valley actually on 10,200 feet elevation. I asked the cook, where he gets this bread. He told me, it's from Santa Fe which is on7000 feet as well. So it can't be the elevation alone. From what i read, the dough should rise even better in high altitudes.(Less pressure againstthe co2 bubbles.) But they also wrote, that due to the reduced absolute humidity, your flour has less water content in storage. So you need toincrease the water and maybe the salt in the recipe. (I always tend to make moist doughs, they have a nice oven spring and generally tastebetter) When it over-rises and falls again, you probably have too much water. Now your water and caliche problem: I don't want to be a smartasshere and you probably know it already. I'm brewing beer for 15 years and had to think about water chemistry for that matter. In brewing, overlyhard water can be bad, but you still need minerals for the enzymes to work. The optimum mash ph is around 5.5, this is needed for the (diastatic)amylase enzymes to work. These enzymes also provide the simple sugars for the yeast in a dough. So, given your soft water together with thecaliche, gives you a alkaline water with a ph above 7. The phytase enzyme in the yeast may not be able to overcome the buffering of caliche tolower the dough ph enough. (Maybe the phytase needs other minerals as well, that are missing in your water.) I need to demineralize half of thewater for brewing light colored beers, but i need to add calcium-chloride for the ph to fall properly. This sounds a little strange at first, but it has todo with the buffering ability of the remaining minerals in our partly demineralized water. Enough of this. Have you tried bottled mineral water forbaking?(After 25 years i guess you have...) I would even try bottled carbonated water, maybe the co2 in the water can wrestle down the calichealkalinity... and maybe different brands with different mineralizations. I took a look into the book "Bread" while researching, and i found somethingon water hardness and gluten development on page 31. But in general, i agree with you, there are not many good books about baking. I hope,this information can help you, or at least lead you in the right direction. If i'd need to use bottled water for baking, i'd do it. For brewing, definitelynot.

 gladys45 says:  Aug 20, 2010. 5:09 PM  REPLYI didn't say anyone should "overyeast" the bread, and i didn't say you had to add commercial yeast product. Your claim that awareness of yeast isn'tthat old is a little hard to fathom. Wikipedia - "Archaeologists digging in Egyptian ruins found early grinding stones and baking chambers for yeastedbread, as well as drawings of 4,000-year-old bakeries and breweries" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast For at least 4000 years people haveunderstood the principles of baking and brewing. The 'secret' you refer to is nothing more than a scientific description of the contents and process ofbaking. Finally, from wikipedia - "Bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating back to the Neolithic era" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread

 suckrpnch says:  Aug 22, 2010. 3:38 PM  REPLYUnderstanding yeast and using yeast are two entirely different things. Yeast was basically a contaminate that nobody knew was there, but happilycreated the results that brewers and bakers were looking for. It was common practice to save some of a previous batch, which was used toensure that the next batch fermented or rose properly, because it wasn't known exactly what made it work. Once the microscope was invented,yeast began to be understood. So yeast has only been understood for maybe 150 years to-date. That is definitely not very long. Fun fact is thatthe Reinheitsgebot or "German Beer Purity Law", created in 1516, which laid out what ingredients had to be used in the beer-making processonly listed water, barley, and hops. It didn't list the most important ingredient, yeast, because nobody knew about it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot

 t.rohner says:  Aug 23, 2010. 3:27 AM  REPLYThat's the way i also see it. The "contaminate" can easily be seen on a unpolished apple or a grape. This white layer, you can polish away, iswild yeast. And by saving some of the last batch, our ancestors have not only "cultured" yeast, but also lactic and acetic bacteria. (maybetogether with chants and invocations...) This mix is called sourdough. The understanding and pure culturing of yeast goes back to PierrePasteur 1861. He not only proved the existence of it, but also found out about it's ability to live aerob and anaerob.(with and without oxygen)Even today, when you read sourdough recipes, they tell you to add some raisins or. (this is for wild yeast and hopefully they weren't sulphurtreated..) A cultured baking-beer-wine-yeast is a wild yeast that has been cultured pure for it's features. But they also tend to mutate to live inthe environment, they are. In a sourdough, the yeast needs to be acid tolerant. (this is normally not a cultured baking yeast) As ahomebrewer, i can assure you about the importance of the yeast in beer. I can imagine, how the beers tasted in the "good" old days. Yikes, ihave a old book on how to save sour beers, by adding ash or hanging chickens(or even more obscure stuff) in the barrel. I guess, having sourbeers was more the rule, than the exception in "good" old times.

http://www.instructables.com/id/My-ultimate-bread-learn-the-secrets-of-slow-bak/

 gladys45 says:  Aug 23, 2010. 2:59 PM  REPLYits highly unlikely that it was only Pasteur who concieved of the reason for fermentation. he discovered the mechanism for it, but that doesnot mean no-one prior to him had any concept of fermentation or levening. many people today still buy and ENJOY sourdough, so i fail tosee your point about bread or beer made with wild yeast being unpalatable. Lambic Beer for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambicmost beer also contains hops or a herb to impart flavour and no-doubt to help mask the yeast taste, wether the yeast is wild or cultured.But with the range of beer and bread available i suggest it ultimately comes down to personal taste. suckrpnch said about beer brewingunder german purity laws "It didn't list the most important ingredient, yeast, because nobody knew about it". If no-one knew about yeastas a distinct organism, nor had and idea something was causing fermentation or rising in bread, how can it have continued as a practicefor more than 4000 years.... also, this has become a very interesting debate, thank you for keeping me excited aobut bread, and its history:D cheers!

 t.rohner says:  Aug 23, 2010. 10:52 PM  REPLYI made a "Berliner Weisse" this year. This and the Lambics you mention and some other beers in Belgium and Germany are the onlybeers, that are fermented with a cocktail of yeast and bacteria today, I don't know, if they tell you the market share of those beers inwikipedia, The main cause, of it's extremly low share, is the predictability of what you get. For our "Berliner Weisse", we used thenatural "wild" lactic bacteria on the malt. This worked well for the first 3 batches, but made us dump the 4th. You write, that most beersuse hops or "herb" to mask the yeast taste. Do you know of any beer that uses "herb" today? I'm thinking of making a "gruit" or herbbeer for a while. This was common until the 12th century, but the hops is a natural antibioticum that helped to keep bacteria at bay. Bythe way, the "herbs" used had their supporting psychoactive qualities, together with the alcohol.(besides bittering) Making bread withsourdough is another story. I think, it's highly interesting and definitely more predictable, than making beer with bacteria. It's becauseyou kill them by baking after a certain (relatively short) time, before they can wreak havoc. ( There are exceptions, i made ainstructable on souring veggies with mainly lactic bacteria. Sauerkraut is a good example of it.)

 suckrpnch says:  Aug 24, 2010. 7:18 AM  REPLYI would love to know more about the history of yeast and will try to look into it myself, so far in my reading, though, it seems likethings just worked for people and Pasteur finally explained why. We have been experimenting with hops and herbs in beer lately.We just started messing around. Gruit is the next step. My last two batches I experimented with no hops in the boil and only dryhopping. The second batch, I did use a little rosemary in the boil. But this has all been pretty messing and I am too confident thatthe dry-hop only will be any good. It seemed watery when I bottled it. I look forward to Gruit next though. I haven't been able to findany Yarrow, however, which seems to be a bit of a cornerstone ingredient. Not absolutely necessary though.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 25, 2010. 3:16 AM  REPLYYeah, me too. I just ordered the new book about yeast from the AHA store. But to come back to the good old days. At the time,the lager revolution began, people loved it for the clean taste. I think, the beer wasn't only cleaner because of the bottomfermenting yeast strain used, but also because bacterial infections were inhibited or slowed by the low fermentingtemperatures. (7 C / 44 F) This has been done prior to mechanical cooling.

 gladys45 says:  Aug 25, 2010. 5:31 AM  REPLYall this talk of fermentation, now i have to start brewing beer :) as to the clean taste of lager, i believe your right. tho i thinkwith the understanding of yeast as an organism people may have also understood the need for clean hands and cleanequipment. an example of beer that doesn't use hops is Spruce Beer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce_beer now to find alarge Spruce tree :P

 suckrpnch says:  Aug 17, 2010. 9:12 AM  REPLYHave tried refridgerating and/or freezing dough? I would like to make a larger batch of dough that I can then take part of to bake fresh when needed.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 17, 2010. 11:39 AM  REPLYI have refrigerated doughs overnight and i have also frozen doughs. It's actually no big deal. Refrigerating a dough to 35F-40F, more or less stops yeastactivity. Freezing a dough will rupture some yeast cells, but there are still enough cells alive. When i take a dough out of the freezer, i normally thaw inthe fridge overnight. The main problem i see, is the heating up to ambient temperature. Since a leavened dough is foamy, it also insulates. The outsidegets warm, but the core takes much longer. So my idea was to try heating it up from frozen to 80F in a microwave. I would just freeze the formed loaves.Then do the final proof after thawing. But i have first to organize a microwave for testing... i'm not a big fan of microwaves otherwise...

 suckrpnch says:  Aug 22, 2010. 3:23 PM  REPLYI don't have a microwave either. I will stick with refrigerator or now. Thanks for the input. The microwave is a good idea.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 22, 2010. 10:37 PM  REPLYI organized a microwave for testing in the meantime. But i have to correct myself in my first comment. After i made some of it yesterday forSunday brunch, i realized, that it's not such a good idea to freeze the formed breads. The loaves need some springiness in the final proof and iguess they loose it by freezing and thawing. So i would just form balls, that are oiled and put in a bag for freezing. I will thaw them in themicrowave, form them and give them the final proof. I will try to do it this week and keep you informed.

 suckrpnch says:  Aug 22, 2010. 3:15 PM  REPLYI am going to make some soon, and try refridgerating. Even though these things take very little hands-on time to create, I find that even 10 minutescan be hard to bring myself to do sometimes. And the end goal would be to get a good dough with a long rise that I can make when I want it and nothave to wait another 20 hours for the next loaf. Will report my findings. :) This is really a great instructable! I have been making a modified no kneadrecipe that I found on here that has worked well, but tends to be a bit hit-or-miss on the air/hole quality (often very heavy). And it isn't always the mostflavorful. It was a good starter recipe, but I have been looking for a next level. Thanks!

http://www.instructables.com/id/My-ultimate-bread-learn-the-secrets-of-slow-bak/

 johnnyr8 says:  Aug 22, 2010. 6:08 AM  REPLYIt's Sunday Morning in a NYC suburb, and my wife and I just sat down to enjoy my first attempt at your bread. In a word "Great"! I had a few stumbles alongthe way, but your instructions are excellent and the end result is very enjoyable. Thanks!

 t.rohner says:  Aug 22, 2010. 11:32 AM  REPLYThanks, that's my reward, if you enjoy it.

 petuljak says:  Aug 20, 2010. 6:52 AM  REPLYHoles in your bread are too big and of different size, I guess you have put too much water. The signs of amateur bread baking. You wouldn't stand a chancein bread baking competition.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 21, 2010. 2:20 AM  REPLYYou are right about the holes and the high water content and also that i am an amateur. As you probably know, there are breads, where irregular andlarge holes are part of their definition. A real baguette or a very regional speciality in my region, the St. Galler Buerli. The Buerli can't be formed bymachines, because the dough is extremly wet. (78% water) Even around here, there are not too many bakers left, that make them the right way. The realones are formed with your hands dipped in cold water, before you touch the dough. They are formed without degassing the dough and baked very hotwithout final proofing. If i want to make bread with small regular holes, i do it.

 Culturedropout says:  Aug 17, 2010. 9:26 AM  REPLYLooks tasty. I might try your preferment technique sometime. I've had very good luck baking bread by just throwing everything into the stand mixer bowl - 3cups cool water, 1 1/2 tbsp salt, 1 1/2 tbsp active dry yeast (kept in bulk in the refrigerator), mix briefly, then add about 6 1/2 cups of flour - usually about 4white and 2 1/2 wheat. Let the machine knead the heck out of it for maybe 5 minutes, throw a dish towel over the top of the bowl, and ignore it overnight orlonger. The next day, put my old stoneware "crock pot" with glass lid in the oven, preheat to 475 for about 20 minutes, then work a little flour around thedough down the inside of the bowl until it comes loose. Form it into a rough ball, drop it into the pot, and put the lid back on. Leave it in the oven for 30minutes. Remove the lid, and bake it for another 30 minutes. Dump it out onto a cooling rack for half an hour or so, and _eat_! I constantly get complimentsfrom my house mates, who are both pretty picky eaters when it comes to bread. We've had breads from the farmers market, local artisan bakeries, and soon, and I'd put mine up against most of them. I like keeping things simple; if they get too complicated, I don't do them, so it's important. ;-) I make about twoloaves of bread a week this way, and have for the last couple of years. Sometimes I like to throw in crumbled blue cheese, or some rolled oats and sunflowerseeds, or crushed walnuts and dried cranberries, or whatever, just for variety. It almost always turns out great. Sometimes I think the really complicatedbread recipes are more superstition than science.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 17, 2010. 11:58 AM  REPLYYour way doing it isn't so totally different from mine, especially if you let it rise overnight. This already makes a big difference to a 45 minutes quick risedough. But i can assure you, that i can taste the difference between a 12 and a 24 hour dough bread. I also don't think, that it's very complicated. Makingcroissants with selfmade yeasted puff pastry dough is much more complicated ;-)

 johnbots says:  Aug 20, 2010. 11:15 PM  REPLYThis is the first Instructable to move me to a reply; the others are great - this one is awesome. I must try the preferment technique. Can you expandon the making of croissants please - I make very tasty croissants but I have never been able to get the right flaky texture.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 21, 2010. 1:13 AM  REPLYYeah sure, but it could take some time to write it up. I don't do it very often. Actually, the first time i did this dough, was for salted flutes.(Juststicks, i tasted at a customers site. He bought them from a "boulanger artisanale", which means a artisanal baker in the french speaking part ofour country.) These flutes really blew me away, so i had to try them. Try this video from the remarkable late Julia Child. She really rocks.http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-make-croissants-2436/view/ I may be better than my future instructable.

 garycindy2175 says:  Aug 19, 2010. 8:58 AM  REPLYYou mentioned using a baking stone - that's great - and then on the next page you mentioned a "sheet" that you obviously placed on top of the cookie sheetwhere the bread had risen. You also said you quickly tilted the cookie sheet and slid the bread "on the sheet" onto the baking stone. What is the "sheet" youare referring to? Also, is there a problem with mixing and rising bread in a metal mixing bowl?

 t.rohner says:  Aug 19, 2010. 10:42 PM  REPLYSorry for the confusion, but i'm not natively english speaking. The "sheet" is a non-stick baking paper, as seen on the photo in the second-last step. Thetray i refer to, is a low rimmed alluminum "sheet" that i solely use as a peel. So i put a paper "sheet" on the tray and the dough on the "sheet". When ishove it in the oven, i don't tilt it, but i rip out the tray and let the dough on the "sheet" fall onto the baking stone.(together with the paper sheet) My breadmaker bowl is made of teflon coated cast alluminum. But if yours is made of stainless steel, that's no problem. For "mass production" i also use astainless bowl on my Kenwood machine.

http://www.instructables.com/id/My-ultimate-bread-learn-the-secrets-of-slow-bak/

 trailleadr says:  Aug 18, 2010. 8:01 AM  REPLYThis is great. I had pretty much given up on making bread because I always seem to produce bread that is more suited for construction rather thanconsumption. Thank you very much for sharing this. I'm definitely going to give this a try the next time I feel brave enough.

 t.rohner says:  Aug 18, 2010. 10:02 PM  REPLYFeel brave now! Don't kill the yeast, don't use too much of it and give it enough time in the final proof. (90 minutes between forming and baking)

 midnsun183 says:  Aug 18, 2010. 1:54 PM  REPLYOutstanding Ible! Now only if I weren't deployed in Japan....

 t.rohner says:  Aug 18, 2010. 9:59 PM  REPLYWhat's the problem in Japan?

 pmartinez says:  Aug 17, 2010. 10:14 AM  REPLYFantastic is what I was looking for, you hit it right on it.. thank you, btw... excellent pictures and nice bread presentation

 AngryRedhead says:  Aug 17, 2010. 9:29 AM  REPLYI can't find argument with a crust like that. Nice work!