There are many ways to frame the classifications of bread, as you will see on the chart on this page. For instance, one classification system defines breads according to three categories based on hydration, or water content. These are the stiff doughs (bagels, pretzels—50 to 57 percent hydration of liquid to flour), standard doughs (sandwich bread,

I double the barm at each feeding if I want a very sour bread, but I triple, quadruple, or even quintuple it when I want a less sour flavor. Remember, it takes longer for the bacteria than the yeast to work, so while a larger feeding dilutes both the bacterial and the wild-yeast communities, the yeast bounces back faster than the bacteria, creating

Whichever method you use, the goals of mixing must be met without damaging or degrading the dough. The most common form of degrading comes from overmixing and overheating (which leads to overfermenting).

One of the techniques that bakers often use to minimize mixing (and thus to reduce oxidation that causes natural bleaching of the flour) is to mix the flour and water for only a few minutes, enough time to hydrate the flour fully, and then let the dough rest for 20 minutes. During this resting, or what the French call the autolyse, the protein

Pre-ferments extend fermentation time, allowing for more flavor to be coaxed out of the complex wheat molecule. Four types of pre-fermented dough are commonly used, with variations of each creating the possibility of endless types of pre-ferments. There are two types of firm, or stiff, pre-ferments and two types of wet, or sponge, pre-ferments. The

discovered that the true Gosselin method, which requires two mixings, can be consolidated into one mixing without adverse results. I began playing with variations and applications and now think of the pain à l’ancienne technique in its generic, deconstructed sense as a delayed-fermentation cold-mixing method.

The most reliable method to determine when gluten development is sufficient is called the windowpane test, sometimes referred to as the membrane test. This is performed by cutting off a small piece of dough from the larger batch and gently stretching, pulling, and turning it to see if it will hold a paper-thin, translucent membrane (see

Fermentation is the single most important stage in the creation of great bread.

(Note: A new option, the Baking Steel, has become available. It is a solid steel plate that works even better than a baking stone, but it is also, of course, quite a bit more expensive. Unlike a stone, it is indestructible. see Resources, for details.)