January 19, 2009 - 4:19am
Wanted - a technical book about flour, yeast etc
I am currently using Karen Saunders' The Breadmaker Bible, and tend to have a look on the internet for other recipes.
However it would be useful to have a book that goes a bit more into how flour, yeast etc "works", to answer questions such as Is Spelt more or less absorbent than bread flour? How much salt do I need? Of course trial and error is fun, but this would help to keep the disasters to a minimum.
Is there such a book on the market? Most simply run through the ingredients and then give you loads of recipes, which can be more or less easy to adapt.
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Bread Science by Dr. Emily Buehler sounds like it may be just what you are looking for.
And although I do not yet have them in my hands, The Taste of Bread by Dr. Raymond Calvel is reputed to be the text book on this subject, others here like Howard can better comment on that book as well as Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman, which may have much of the info you are looking for.
Another favorite book of mine that delves into the science of sourdough very well is The Bread Builders by Dan Wing and Allan Scott. It is mostly about building wood-fired masonry ovens but has a lot of well-written and researched baking info as well.
Try using Floyd's Amazon search to find them there.
In addition to the usual suspects that always get mentioned (try using the search functionality of the site), you might find useful info in Daniel DiMuzio's upcoming book "Bread Baking: An Artisan's Perspective".
Thanks, I think I'll go for Buehler; some of the others are expensive and/or hard to get hold of.
There's a yeast treatise and flour treatise available from this site, along with a lot of other information. Both treatises are very comprehensive. I finished reading the yeast treatise this past weekend and it explains pretty much everything you want or need to know about yeast right down to the enzyme level. Anyway, here's a link.
http://www.theartisan.net/MainCommFrm.htm
Good luck with your pursuit,
Howard
EDIT: When you go to the site check the list in the left-most column: "Bread Basics...and more". This is where you will find the link to the flour and yeast treatises.