Artisan bread

[Food Network Fan]

Does anyone know of a good artisan bread recipe site? I would like to find a site that is very specific to homemade artisan bread, and not a bread machine site.

[BerryBaby]

Teri's Kitchen - Personal Recipes, Cooking Tips and more

There are a number of recipes for rustic bread that sound wonderful.

BB

[Food Network Fan]

Thanks. I like Amish bread too. We used to have a little Amish bakery here but it closed.

[bakerman]

One thing I plan to play around with is vital wheat gluten, it seems that I never get the texture that I am looking for with commercial flours, and they seem to go stale the same day, the vital wheat gluten seems to solve that problem, or so they say.

MAC

[Food Network Fan]

I think King Arthur has the best bread flour. Although I do like the Sams Club brand.

[Clove]

Artisan bread is so much more about technique than the flour you use.
Don't misunderstand, as good flour will make better bread, but you can make a very good artisan bread with regular flour and a great technique.

One of the keys relates to how much yeast baking you do.
The more you do, the more yeast and wild yeast will be in you kitchen air, greatly enhancing your bread results.

The second element to consider is the humidity of your oven. Though not required, high humidity in the oven will help with crust formation.

For some of the best recipes (but very elaborate) see Nancy Silverton's book: Amazon.com: Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery: Recipes for the Connoisseur: Books: Nancy Silverton

[Food Network Fan]

Thanks I will check it out.

[Chap]

One of the keys relates to how much yeast baking you do.
The more you do, the more yeast and wild yeast will be in you kitchen, greatly enhancing your bread results.

A real fear of mine since I bottle my wine in the same kitchen. Haven't had a problem yet with re-fermentation. I do try to at least do different things on different days, but I'm just hoping for the best.

[Clove]

Chap,

Yeast is in the air regardless if you bake or not.
It's a natural thing and it's air-borne everywhere.
That's from where yeast infections come, not just in bakeries.

Each location has its' own strain of yeast. That's why it is so hard to duplicate the famous San Francisco sourdough bread outside of SF.

Overall, yeast is a very neat organism.
Bread, wine, etc.