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Baking a Better Loaf of Bread
- maxnoe 7y agoAs a German, this deeply irritates me. People have not eaten proper bread since "generations"? WTF?
- mosselman 7y agoI love German bread. Whenever we are in Germany we load up on all sorts of great loads and freeze them at home. I am from the Netherlands where the bread it generally fine, but boring. German bread is much more refined and outspoken.
- gempir 7y agoYea as a german this is crazy. Everytime I go on holiday outside germany I notice how much the bread is lacking. Yes France might have nice baguettes but it's missing the whole grain breads, sourdough etc. Other countries have other strengths but germany has such a giant selection in "dark" breads it's always amazing.
- rayiner 7y ago> Wholegrain, sourdough bread is a very different beast; crunchy, crusty, chewy, with a complex taste that is rich, nutty and tangy. Quite often, I find a couple of thick slices, spread with a generous swathe of butter, a satisfying lunch. What sanctimony! For my part, I recently discovered Trader Joe’s Canadian White bread. Such a revelation after being subjected to modern bread filling with random seeds and whatnot. Seeds are for birds!
- icebraining 7y agoYou should be careful about letting a reasonable aversion to hipsterism become a tic. There's nothing sanctimonious about finding wholegrain sourdough bread tasty and processed bread flavorless (and it is; there's a reason the bread you buy has honey, vinegar, buttermilk and a bunch of other ingredients).
- rayiner 7y agoThe preference is not inherently sanctimonious, though it is in the minority—over 80% of bread sales are white bread. But the article was certainly written in a sanctimonious. Asserting “my politics are better and the bread I like is tastier” is certainly sanctimonious. (Either one standing alone would be fine.)
- sm4rk0 7y agoAs a hacker, I especially like this project: https://github.com/hendricius/the-bread-code https://github.com/hendricius/the-bread-code
- grumpydba 7y agoHow to bake a better loaf: https://youtu.be/8B_7AFYmkYo https://youtu.be/8B_7AFYmkYo
- kop316 7y agoIf home baking interests you, I have three suggestions: - Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish - The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart - The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion Having never baked anything complex before, those books have been amazing in learning how to bake. The bread is amazing and tastes as good as a small bakery. Ken Forkish also makes a book called "The Elements of Pizza" and shows you how to make Italian, NY, and several over styles of pizza too. That in my opinion is a must have book if you want to make Pizza.
- resters 7y agoGoing to read those, but meanhile, any tips on proofing that you can offer here on HN?
- blue_devil 7y agoKeep your dough warm and cosy by wrapping it up. Conversely, if you live in a hot climate, put your dough in the fridge so as not to overproof it.
- OJFord 7y agoAre fridges warmer in warmer climates? I'd have assumed the target temperature was the same.
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- kop316 7y agoProofing? Control your temp and time if possible. Understand that a cooler temp will mean a longer proof. But also a longer proof gives you a more yeasty flavor. The first book flour water salt yeast was the first book I got, and they really help you learn how to bake yeast breads.
- foodiegoodie 7y agoHipster food is amazing and a good way to signal you are not a pleb, but there is no way we can feed 7 billion like this. Don't forget that 80% of the nitrogen in today's humans bodies came from an industrial process. We literally would need to decimate the globe population if we would all go back to non-industrial farming. It's interesting however that The Guardian periodically publishes this kind of articles which cater to the aristocracy, while at the same time saying "we must fight the elites". Of course, they are well aware that their readers are mainly The Elite.
- jankeymeulen 7y agoNot sure why you can't feed 7 billion with decent bread, other countries (including mine, Belgium) seem to do fine with artisanal bread or - at worst - supermarket bread which is way way way better than the thing they eat in Brittain.
- foodiegoodie 7y agoBelgium ranks around position 20 in the richest countries lists, which means 90% of the world’s countries are poorer. And I don't think in Belgium bread is used for "feeding".
- zhdc1 7y agoYou can. White packaged bread is only a thing because people like it. It's all flour, water, salt, and yeast. I don't see why this is even a discussion.
- pjc50 7y agoThe baking process and the Haber process are two different things, and home baking is not genocide. It's not even elitist, although it requires a bit of time privilege.
- martythemaniak 7y agoWe can do a lot better, the bar for food is quite low. Ie, many people can double or triple their bread spending to have this kind of bread and still be comfortable. The world grows richer every year, and spending extra money on quality is a great use of extra wealth. As for the guardian in particular, I think this is what you're seeing: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/identity-fusion-trump-allegiance/598699/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/identity-... I think they're very good at this kind of stuff - writing that compliments and affirms their readership's view of themselves. Whether that makes any sense or has much relationship with reality is besides the point.
- tmikaeld 7y agoActually tried making sourdough bread at home, the taste and texture eventually became so superior that we don't want to buy bread in the store any more. Sure, there are "sourdough" bread in the store, but they always add ordinary yeast to speed up the process, tastes nothing near the real thing. There did open a new sourdough bakery in the city that does it correctly, however, a single loaf cost 7€.
- tunnuz 7y agoSame same, my partner got me a sourdough book in april, I have baked maybe 30 loaves since then. I got to a level of quality that there is no reason to buy bread anymore and it feels that store bought bread is not great when we do.
- tmikaeld 7y agoI think we're at a similar number, I don't remember when we started but it was around the same time. We also tried different types of flour, at first we used ordinary flour but it didn't taste right (bad fermentation too). Now we use whole-grain for the fermentation stages and then a mixture of stone-milled flour and a little whole-grain during the baking process. Going from ordinary to organic flour also made a difference, especially with the fermentation reaction. We have gotten a few bugs in the flour though, but it's kind of expected, especially on the stone-milled types.
- bmurphy1976 7y agoWhat recipe do you primarily use?
- WomanCanCode 7y agoThis article reminds me of a documentary on Netflix about how we prefer to grow surpluses of lower quality wheat crops in the US that has higher yield output. I wonder if we will ever go back to quality as oppose to quantity ….
- mrob 7y agoI dislike these trendy breads. They have excessively hard crusts and large holes, both of which I consider defects. My favorite bread is made with low hydration dough (50% water by baker's percentage, i.e. percent of flour weight) for a dense crumb, and cooked by steaming for an extra-soft crust. The trendy recipes also have too much salt, which masks the flavor of the fermentation products. IMO 1% salt by baker's percentage is sufficient. Sourdough is helpful for adding flavor to wholegrain or non-wheat breads, but for standard white bread I find it never develops much sourness, and long proofing with standard dried yeast is just as good. Try experimenting with recipes yourself instead of just copying what's popular. I think a lot of bread recipes are designed to make good looking bread, rather than bread that's enjoyable to eat.
- thisone 7y agoto each their own. I don't like low hydration, dense breads, and I do like high hydration airy breads. because that's what I like eating, not because that's what's pretty.
- samstave 7y agoI find this video on “Nordic Nut Bread” something I really want to try to make. https://youtu.be/BzxmIdw5oDc https://youtu.be/BzxmIdw5oDc I really agree with you on holes in bread, do not want. But you may find the nut bread interesting..
- nuxi 7y agoIn my experience, the large holes will not form if you add low-gluten flour (rye, buckwheat, oat) to the mix, even with higher hydration. I make a 100%-rye bread with flax seeds that is very dense, although highly hydrated (100-110%!). Furthermore, it needs no proofing, only a single rise in a bread pan. The crust is not that hard and can be softened further by wrapping the hot bread in a kitchen towel. Another plus is that this type of bread will not dry out or spoil for over a week (I keep it wrapped in a towel). As for the salt, I agree - 1% should be plenty.
- Pfhreak 7y ago> They have excessively hard crusts and large holes, both of which I consider defects. I can't disagree with this enough. Gimme that hard, crispy crust with a good ear. And lots of good holes. Although, my crumb always ends up even and fairly dense. No clue what to change to open it up. (Even with 70%+ hydration).
- blue_devil 7y agoHere're a couple videos about Prof Wolfe's method: Wheat Populations at Wakelyns Agroforestry Farm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDV_tLmeeFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDV_tLmeeFE The story of Wakelyns Agroforestry https://vimeo.com/256082580 https://vimeo.com/256082580
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoOne thing I love about France. Delicious bread is everywhere. Even the corner convenience store sells a wider variety and tastier selection of fresh bread than many grocery stores in the US.
- wiredfool 7y agoI’ve been in France for a couple of months now, and I’ve found _one_ loaf that was up there with what I could get in a supermarket in Seattle, from essential baking or grand central. There’s a lot of indifferent baguettes, and other basically white bread country loafs.
- SECProto 7y agoI don't think I've heard "indifferent baguettes" used as a descriptor of bread in France before. What makes them indifferent in your opinion? In my very brief experience the baguette were fresh, fantastic texture, cheap, and widely available. You're not going to get the loaves you might want, but you have to assess things as they are, not how they compare to what you want. As an example, I lived in Japan for several years. I like crunchy crusts, flavourful sourdough, etc. But the bread scene in Japan is mostly incredibly airy white, buttery crust, focus on pastries etc. I try not to criticize the bread as being boring airy whites, but rather compliment the pastries on their strengths.
- wikibob 7y agoWhere are you shopping? Proper indépendant boulangeries? Or Carrefour and Auchan?
- wiredfool 7y agoIndependent, 3 towns/4 bakeries, + SuperU, e-Leclerc, Carrefour once, and one Artisan bakery in Paris. The one in Paris was by far the best, but it was bio levian and a pain complet. So that was kind of not fair to the others, but it's the only one that had a real depth of flavor. They were excellent loaves, and I wish I could have had more. (but I only walked past it once, and there's only so much bread you can eat before it goes stale) Second best has been a Leclerc, surprisingly good. Good crackly crispy crust, good structure in the center. Nice mix of lacy holes and structure. Not just a fluffy almost pain de mie with a leathery crust. Third best has been another one of the big supermarkets, probably SuperU. They have a coupage or something like that that is probably a very high hydration that's made into a sheet, then cut lengthwise into baguette shapes. The independent bakeries all seem to have pretty much the same baguettes, they're not great, better than your average store bought bread, but the crumb and structure are far too uniform to be anything other than a mass process. It's almost as if they're getting the same flour and have pretty much the same process and equipment. Yeah, it's good compared to plastic bagged sliced bread, but I'm comparing it to what I've made and eaten, and I've seen better.
- bluedino 7y agoI love baking bread, but it's hard to argue with the $2.99 loaf from La Brea in the "bakery" at the local Kroger.
- Animats 7y agoArtisanal bread making. How it's really done.[1] Note how much takes place before baking. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qm_iHgFsPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qm_iHgFsPw
- ip26 7y agoQuite often, I find a couple of thick slices, spread with a generous swathe of butter, a satisfying lunch. Who are these people? I would be hungry again within ten minutes. (BMI of ~19)
- kupopuffs 7y agoYou just need to eat more bread
- yhager 7y agoIt's sourdough bread. It's way more filling then your average supermarket-bought white.
- ip26 7y agoI bake my own. A quarter loaf might serve as an appetizer.
- trhway 7y agoAge. 30 years ago I would do a half or almost whole loaf with the butter and sweet tea. At 47 that couple of thick slices amounting to the quarter loaf does it. Wrt. bread making - from my short summer stint at a bakery in a remote village in USSR back then (these days you'd call it a craftsman/artisanal given what and how it was done there) - good bread takes less sugar and more time to rise like 12 hours. Industrial quickrise - 2 hours with a lot of added sugar - is in my view one of the major factors behind the current onslaught of GI, diabetes and autoimmunes.
- downtide 7y agoDue to a broken oven, I've ended up using a breadmaker, and although the results are middle of the road, the simplicity of making a loaf is super. Just throw in the ingredients, set timer, wake to the smell of cooking bread. The kneading is a bit weedy and I get better results by hand. But the breadmaker makes no mess at all.
- dev_dull 7y agoI think the bread maker was ahead of its time.
- dev_dull 7y agoUsing bread flour really is one of those things that’s easy to miss but often times discourages first time bakers. The gluten makes a HUGE difference in the crumb and mouthfeel. Also tip for other busy bakers like myself that don’t want to keep two types of flour stocked. Keep some vital wheat gluten in the freezer and throw in a teaspoon or two with each cup of AP flour. Instant bread flour!
- sircastor 7y agoI've been baking breads regularly for the better part of a decade, and I just learned about Vital wheat Gluten this last year. I was blown away. What an incredibly useful tool!
- bluedino 7y agoThis is a great recipe to start out with if you'd like to start making your own bread: https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/ https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-br...
- chadcmulligan 7y agoA question one of you bread fans may be able to answer. My daughter has what we thought was a gluten intolerance, she recently went to Italy though and can eat their bread and pasta fine. Coming back to Australia, and eating bread here - same reaction, she's found a deli that imports Italian bread and can eat that. I've looked at the ingredients list and nothing leaps out, one thing I was thinking maybe the wheat is different and so the Gluten is a slightly different shape maybe, any of you folk know what the difference could be?
- punnerud 7y agoI read last year that it is not gluten that most people with “gluten allergic” is reacting to, but a protein that normally is found within “gluten”. They are now starting to produce gluten without this protein. Could be that this is the reason. Just like milk-protein and lactose intolerance/allergic is two different things.
- chadcmulligan 7y agomaybe, any links? Its puzzling why bread from Italy is OK, maybe they use a different strain of wheat was one thought I had. I've even tried baking my own bread, additive free, but same reaction.
- punnerud 7y agoFound it, was form 2017. It is called Fructan: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(17)36302-3/pdf https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(17)36302-3/... To make it short: Only 13 of the 59 in the double blind study with gluten allergy was actual allergic to gluten it self. Also relevant to know if you are gluten allergic: “... because a product marketed as “gluten-free” must also be free of rye and barley in addition to wheat, those who must avoid only wheat may be limiting themselves.“ https://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-allergy/wheat-gluten-allergy https://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-...
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- GordonS 7y agoRandom thought - I like to bake cakes with the kids, so I always have flour in the cupboard, but seldom yeast. I've looked, but even flatbread recipes I've found seem to include yeast - is there such a thing as bread without yeast?
- chadcmulligan 7y agoThere's a classic Australian bread - Damper that's made without Yeast, it just uses self raising flour as a raising agent. https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/damper/80391c40-8eab-4e67-9cfc-0c802f9fb7a1 https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/damper/80391c40-8eab-4e67-9... Its great to make when camping
- betterbeehome 7y agoI find damper hard to digest compared to normal bread.
- lkschubert8 7y agoI know this isn't without yeast, but you can start the development of your own sourdough culture without added yeast.
- diablerouge 7y agoI purchased a large package of instant dry yeast and keep it in the fridge, in a mason jar. It lasts essentially indefinitely (I've had it for _years_.) Part of the reason it's hard to use chemical leaveners in breads is that they only provide so much lift. A yeasted bread can go through multiple proofings and risings.
- maxerickson 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_bread https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_bread
- bluthru 7y agoSoda bread, but just buy some instant yeast and keep it in a jar in the fridge: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0001CXUHW/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0001CXUHW/
- geden 7y agoBy bizarre coincidence I bumped into my neighbours yesterday, they’d just arrived back from Tuxford Mill after reading the Guardian article. We live only 15 mins away. I’ve been buying Tuxford Mill porridge oats from for a few years. Going to try my hand at sourdough now!
- viburnum 7y agoI really enjoyed this article. I remember reading about the WSU Bread Lab etc a few years ago and it was great to get an update. Here are two older articles about bread that I really liked (both feature the Bread Lab): https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/grain https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/grain https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/bread-is-broken.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/bread-is-broken.... Here's a quote that explains what the deal is with the whole wheat bread you can buy in America: A grain of wheat has three main components: a fibrous and nutrient-rich outer coating called the bran; the flavorful and aromatic germ, a living embryo that eventually develops into the adult plant; and a pouch of starch known as the endosperm, which makes up the bulk of the grain. Before roller mills, all three parts were mashed together when processed. As a result, flour was not the inert white powder most of us are familiar with today; it was pungent, golden and speckled, because of fragrant oils released from the living germ and bits of hardy bran. If freshly ground flour was not used within a few weeks, however, the oils turned it rancid. Roller mills solved this problem. Their immense spinning cylinders denuded the endosperm and discarded the germ and bran, producing virtually unspoilable alabaster flour composed entirely of endosperm. It was a boon for the growing flour industry: Mills could now source wheat from all over, blend it to achieve consistency and transport it across the nation without worrying about shelf life. That newfound durability came at a huge cost, however, sacrificing much of the grain’s flavor and nutrition. In the 1940s, to compensate for these nutritional deficiencies, flour producers started fortifying white flour with iron and B vitamins, a ubiquitous practice today. The rise of roller milling and bread factories also put pressure on plant breeders to make wheat even more amenable to the new dominant technologies; whiteness, hardness and uniformity took precedence over flavor, nutrition and novelty. Today, whole-wheat flour accounts for only 6 percent of all flour produced in the United States. And most whole-wheat products sold in supermarkets are made from roller-milled flour with the germ and bran added back in.
- girzel 7y agoI knew I'd fallen down the rabbit hole when my dad and I started going in on 50lb sacks of wheat berries from Eastern Washington (I'm in Seattle). I can't remember, I think it's like 20 or 30 dollars a sack. I have a mill attachment for a KitchenAid, it's not awesome but it does the trick. My dad bakes 100% ground berries (so completely whole-wheat, by definition), but I mix it with bread flour -- using whole wheat to feed the sourdough starter. It produces an absolutely incredible flavor. If you give it a slow proof and bake in a cast iron dutch oven, you get these amazing cinnamon and nut smells as it bakes. Just the most delicious bread.
- girzel 7y agoAs I understand it, the principle shenanigans going on with commercial flour is that they add enzymes (if you're doing this at home, it will be malt) to the flour before you take it home. Unless I'm quite mistaken -- please tell me if I am -- the whole point of a slow/retarded proof is to give the enzymes a chance to break the starch down into component sugars. When more sugars are broken out, you get both a nicer taste (it's sweet!) and a more beautiful crust (the sugars caramelize/brown). But with home-milled flour, are there no enzymes at all? What happens to the slow-proofed dough?
- chris_st 7y agoDo you do anything to increase the gluten? When I've tried whole-wheat bread, it just kind of falls apart when sliced. I've tried adding "Vital Wheat Gluten", but even a tablespoon to a loaf didn't seem to help. Thanks!
- droithomme 7y agoJust make this 3x a week. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread Once you get it down, you can make it more fancy by adding other things. Yeah, store bought breads are terrible with all the weird crap. Fantastic, delicious, nutritious, satisfying, world-class bread is incredibly simple and easy to make. If your book's recipe is complex and hard to follow, throw it out. They are a poser. Good bread doesn't last long though and has no shelf duration. But it doesn't have to because it will all be eaten quickly. Store bread is entirely about long term storage of something never intended to be stored more than a day. Given those constraints it is what it is.
- smcameron 7y agoI've tried this a few times. Twice, it come out great, and once it failed (I think temp was too cold and it didn't rise quite enough.) All three times, I made a huge mess. The dry flour goes everywhere, the dough is very sticky and gets on my hands and spoon and the towel and plastic wrap the recipe has you using. If I could figure out how to not make a huge mess, it would be 100x more convenient to make.
- stevekemp 7y agoI use an overnight no-knead inspired approach as documented here: https://blog.steve.fi/this_is_mostly_how_i_make_bread.html https://blog.steve.fi/this_is_mostly_how_i_make_bread.html There's only one bowl to clean afterward, and so I find it pretty simple. The pictures in that post don't really do it justice, but I've never had an inedible result, even if sometimes it doesn't look great.
- MegaDeKay 7y agoThis is the process I use in making no knead bread. Lots of pictures and minimal minimal mess. http://madscientistlabs.blogspot.com/2014/06/diablo-bread-bread-of-devil.html http://madscientistlabs.blogspot.com/2014/06/diablo-bread-br... But note that no-knead bread is supposed to be sticky. The high hydration is the trick to making the whole thing work, but good technique can reduce the mess to a minimum. If you are getting inconsistent results, I strongly recommend you weigh your ingredients (especially flour) if you aren't already. There is a huge variation in how much flour is in a cup, and you can swing between delicious to disaster pretty easily. I feel that weighing of ingredients when baking is a key to consistency.
- senectus1 7y agoIts all about the flour. I'm Australian I recently went through south America for work and was shocked at the poor quality bread products in that country. It turns out their bread has a really poor gluten quality, makes a huge diff to the mouth feel and eat-ability of the bread.
- mark_l_watson 7y agoSometimes the health food stores in town have whole wheat flat bread with just whole wheat flour, yeast, salt, water. I can imagine my distant ancestors eating it and feeling right at home with it. I am supposed to watch the glycemic index of food I eat so eating a small amount of dense whole wheat flat bread works for me. I also sometimes make pizza crust from riced fresh cauliflower and avoid the wheat altogether. I really like the advice given in the article about only eating what our great grandmothers would recognize as food.
- p1mrx 7y agoI wouldn't mind having good bread from time to time, but a loaf is well over 1000 calories, and it goes stale before I have time to eat that much. Frozen bread is difficult to cut, and even pre-sliced frozen bread is a pain to tear apart. Somebody should make good bread that's pre-sliced into several chunks, with sheets of (e.g.) wax paper dividing them. Each loaf could also include a small resealable bag, so you always have a convenient container for the current non-frozen chunk.
- simonebrunozzi 7y agoBook suggestions are great, but I have a more compelling question for all of you: where to get absolutely amazing flour (in the US)?