 For a lot of people, myself included, making homemade bread seems like a very daunting task at first. It seems like something that only the most advanced home cooks would even attempt to make, but once you dive into the world of bread and actually learn the process behind it, you start to see that there's actually a repeatable foolproof formula that you can apply to every single bread that you might make. So let's take a look at what's actually happening during the breadmaking process and essentially it can be broken down into six basic steps. Mixing, bulk fermentation, dividing and shaping, final proofing, baking, and cooling. So we'll start off with the mixing phase, which is basically just the phase where you combine all of the ingredients and start to develop gluten in the dough. So often the mixing phase just involves combining a few dry ingredients like flour, salt, sugar, and yeast, with a few wet ingredients which could be water, milk, eggs, butter, or any combination of those. And for certain types of bread, you'll also add some form of pre-fermented dough. So for example, in the case of a sourdough bread, you'd add your sourdough starter or levan. Then before the mixing phase is over, you'll also need to start the gluten development process, which is very important because the gluten is what gives the dough its elasticity and allows those nice bubbles to form throughout the dough to create a light and airy final product. So basically gluten is a stretchy, almost rubbery substance that forms when wheat is combined with water as the gluten in and gliadin proteins within the wheat become hydrated. So when you see the protein content of a flour listed on the package, that's really telling you how much of those gluten in and gliadin proteins are in that flour, and the higher the protein content, the more potential that flour has to develop gluten. So that's why higher protein flours like bread flour result in stronger and chewier doughs. But in order to develop enough gluten, you not only need to hydrate the dough, but in most cases, you'll also need to incorporate some type of gluten development technique as well. So kneading is the most common technique and that can be done either by hand or in a stand mixer, but sometimes other techniques will be used specifically with higher hydration doughs that don't take as well to kneading. So that can include techniques like slap and folds or my favorite just because it's so simple, which is the auto-lease. So the auto-lease is just a short resting period anywhere from about 20 minutes to a couple of hours that you perform after combining the flour with the wet ingredients. Because certain ingredients like salt, butter, and sugar can actually hinder the gluten development of the dough and hinder the activity of the yeast. So the auto-lease basically allows the dough to get a head start before those other ingredients are added. So during the auto-lease, the flour fully absorbs the liquid, which allows the gluten proteins to start forming and the natural enzymes in the dough start to break down that wheat into the simple sugars that the yeast can feed on. Then once the auto-lease is over, you can mix in the rest of the ingredients and proceed to the next phase. And that phase is the bulk fermentation. Otherwise known as the first rise. And this is the phase where the majority of yeast fermentation occurs. So essentially the yeast converts the dough sugars into carbon dioxide and alcohol, which create both leavening and flavor in the dough. So as that carbon dioxide gas is released, it gets trapped within bubbles throughout the dough, allowing those bubbles to expand and inflate. And again, this is why proper gluten development is very important at this point because that gluten is what gives the dough its strength and allows the bubbles to inflate without bursting. So with a lot of lower hydration doughs, you can essentially just leave them to rest during the bulk fermentation and wait for the dough to double in size or whatever your goal is based on the recipe. But with higher hydration doughs like most sourdough bread, you'll typically need to perform several sets of folds throughout the bulk fermentation in order to continue developing gluten and to redistribute the yeast throughout the dough as it ferments. So this bulk fermentation phase is very important when you're making sourdough bread and it's the phase where the most mistakes are made in my opinion. In order to end up with a perfect loaf, you need to be able to recognize when the dough is properly fermented and you may need to make adjustments along the way based on how the dough looks and feels throughout the process. Because sometimes breadmaking can be unpredictable, so the most valuable skill you can develop is an intuition for how your dough should behave at all steps throughout the process, which ultimately just comes with time and practice. And all doughs are different, so there's not necessarily one foolproof way to be sure when it's done fermenting, but when it about doubles in size, it's generally a good rule of thumb. So from there, the next step is to divide and shape the dough. And for less hydrated doughs, you'll generally want to start by punching the dough down just to redistribute the yeast a bit so it can continue to ferment. Then you'll just divide the dough into as many pieces as you need and shape each one into a top ball or whatever other shape you need for the type of bread that you're making. So for example, with leaner doughs like bagels, you can go ahead and just shape it into the bagel shape at this point. But often with higher hydration doughs, you'll first need to shape it into a top ball, then perform a quick 20 to 30 minute resting period, which is known as the bench rest. So this basically just allows the surface of the dough to relax and stretch out a bit so that the dough can be shaped one last time to develop even more tension. And that step is known as the final shaping, which can be done in a variety of ways depending on what type of bread you're actually making. But either way, once it's shaped, you'll just need to place it somewhere to rise one last time for the final proofing phase. So during this period, the goal is really just to allow the dough to finish fermenting so that all the little bubbles that have formed throughout the dough can blow up nice and large with that carbon dioxide that's being produced. And one of the most important things here is that you keep the dough supported on the sides so that it can retain its structure and rise upward rather than outward. So if you're making a rustic high hydration loaf, you'll generally want to proof it in a banneton. If you're making baguettes, you'll want to proof them in a If you're making dinner rolls, you'll want to proof them in a properly sized pan and so on. Now as the dough proofs further and further, it actually gets to a point where the gluten structure starts to degrade, so longer proofing times are not always better. Really, what you're trying to do is let the dough proof enough so that it can become nice and airy without overproofing. So a good way to tell that the dough is done proofing is when it springs back slowly when poked with your finger. So you'll notice that at the beginning of proofing, the dough will spring back quickly because the gluten network is still pretty strong at that point. But as the proofing progresses, it'll spring back slower and slower until it looks about like this. And at that point, it's time to get ready to bake. So with enriched doughs and most other breads that aren't intended to end up with a hard crust, baking is pretty simple because you can essentially just throw them in the oven at about 350 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, which is about 180 to 205 degrees Celsius until the outside is golden brown and the inside is fully cooked. So in general, the higher the temperature you use, the quicker the outside will cook relative to the inside. So if you're having issues with the inside ending up undercooked, you may want to decrease your oven temperature a bit. And if you'd like your bread to have a slightly shiny crust like you might with a brioche bread or a dinner roll, you can brush it with a small amount of egg wash before baking and even sprinkle it with some salt for extra flavor. But when it comes to more rustic breads like baguettes or an open crumb sourdough bread, there are a few extra steps you need to take in order to achieve the best possible results while baking. And those steps are scoring and creating steam in your oven. So scoring is just a fancy term for slashing the surface of your dough with a sharp razor, and this basically just creates a path for steam to escape from the loaf as it bakes, so that the loaf doesn't burst in unwanted places. So how deep you need to score depends on the size of your loafs, but for full size boules or batards, you'll generally want to score about a half an inch to one inch deep. And for something like baguettes, you may only want to score about a quarter of an inch deep. But in both cases, I'd recommend scoring at about a 30 to 45 degree angle from the surface of the loaf in order to give the loaf a nice ear, which is that little flap of dough that rises up and gets nice and charred during baking. Then when it comes to the actual baking, you'll need to create steam in your oven for about the first 15 to 20 minutes of baking. So this basically allows the crust of the bread to stay soft for as long as possible so that the loaf can rise freely at the beginning of baking. So professional kitchens often have steam-injected ovens that'll automatically keep the environment moist at the beginning of baking, but for home bakers, we have to come up with a different solution. And there are a lot of methods that people use, like placing bowls of water or ice in the oven, but the easiest method is actually just to bake your bread in a Dutch oven. This way as the bread bakes and releases steam, that steam gets trapped within the Dutch oven and keeps the crust soft. Then after about the first 15 to 20 minutes, you can remove the Dutch oven lid and continue to bake until the crust gets nice and golden brown. So I used to use this Lodge Dutch oven combo cooker, which while it wasn't specifically designed for bread baking, it does work very well because you can just place the dough into the shallow half and then use the deeper half as the lid. But it is a bit one-dimensional because the size is somewhat small so you can really only bake one loaf at a time and you can't really bake bigger loaves or unusual shaped loaves like baguettes. So recently I started using this Challenger bread pan, which was designed specifically for home bread baking, so it forms a better seal to trap in the steam and its size allows you to bake things like demi baguettes, which are basically just smaller baguettes and it can even fit two small loaves at once. So I will be making a full review video on this pan soon, but it's definitely already my new favorite and the results are noticeably better than the results with my Lodge combo cooker. The only downside is that the Challenger pan is more expensive than the combo cooker, but I think for serious bread bakers it's definitely a worthwhile purchase, so I'll leave the link to both pans in the description below for anyone interested in checking them out. So at this point you might think that you're done once you take the loaf out of the oven, but there's actually one more very important step and that is cooling, because steam is still being released from the inside of the bread as it cools, so it's really still finishing cooking at that point. If you cut into it too early, you may end up with a gummy interior, which of course you don't want, so for full-sized loaves you'll want to let them cool for at least one to two hours, and for something smaller like baguettes you'll want to let them cool for at least 20 minutes or so. So now if you want to apply the concepts that I've talked about in this video, I'd recommend that you check out my sourdough baguette recipe in the bottom right corner of the screen, which is one of my personal favorite bread recipes. So thanks for watching and I'll see you all in that next video.