Look into food science and biotech journals and other industrial literature. Heston Blumenthal's cookbooks also read more like lab manuals than most, and he tak

Look into food science and biotech journals and other industrial literature. Heston Blumenthal's cookbooks also read more like lab manuals than most, and he takes advantage of common scientific instrumentation to create precise and reproducible recipes. Just learning basic lab methods is enough to make you a significantly more insightful cook. If you're mostly interested in bread, I found Daniel Leader's books to be excellent guides. "Local Breads" in particular goes into the many different levain and biga/sponge methods and the regional sourdoughs that use them.