Flour Water Salt Yeast
by Ken Forkish · first published 2012
75% recommend25% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Well-explained home bread baking with step-by-step photos, a detailed starter section, and temperature-and-time guidance. Suits first-time bakers and analytical types who want reliably great loaves.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A critically acclaimed book on the fundamentals of artisan bread making.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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On the topic of bread for a moment: I recently started making my own bread. I bought a book on the topic by Ken Forkish "Flour water salt yeast", and I've fallen in love with the process. The recipes are great, but the first few chapters that cover his journey to making bread, a bit of the science behind it and talking about the less scientific…
on “Make your own sourdough” ↗If 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…
on “Baking a Better Loaf of Bread” ↗…therapeutic, fun and interesting. Maybe open up a small bakery with a cafe and if it went well expand it to teach classes on how to make bread, pizza, etc... If anyone is also interested, I'd recommend the book Flour Water Salt Yeast (https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d...) as a starting point
on “Ask HN: If you were to switch career, what would you do?” ↗One of the better techniques I’ve picked up (pretty sure I got it from https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d...) replaces the kneeding steps with folds during the first 2-3 hours of bulk fermentation. Basically after mixing in starter transfer to large fermentation vessel, reach under the dough…
on “The Basic Sourdough” ↗Anyone looking to make good sourdough (or any other kind of) bread should read Ken Forkish's "Flour. Water. Salt. Yeast." Including the OP - there a few things that could use improvement in both their method and recipe: 1. Ideally, for home baked bread, you always want to use a heavy dutch oven. A heavy dutch oven retains…
on “The Basic Sourdough” ↗…fantastic, thank you for the great writing & information! I was curious, is there a reason you go for KA over caputo? I migrated from KA -> Caputo after getting into the recipes from https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d..., I perceived a positive difference, but it was anything but a blind experiment :D.
on “Pizza Physics: Why Brick Ovens Bake the Perfect Italian-Style Pie” ↗…Then add the rest of recipe and bake as usual. What you get is a bread that taste bread-ier. Sounds silly, but it's just ridiculuosly good. If anyone's interested in specifics, the Ken Forkish book (Flour Water Salt Yeast) has a good recipe. Highly recommended to try if you are into breadmaking.
on “Bread in the Middle Ages (2013)” ↗I use the recipe from this book + the levain instructions — https://www.amazon.com/Flour-Water-Salt-Yeast-Fundamentals/d... Highly recommend though I believe the author is located in the Pacific Northwest, and one thing I have found is nearly all recipes should have their hydration ratios adjusted to your…
on “The physics of baking good pizza” ↗I recently read Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza and found his discussion about how to use temperature and time to produce good bread and pizza enlightening.
on “The physics of baking good pizza” ↗Ken Forkish's book 'Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast' has led me to making some great breads, and every step is explained and has photos. There's as many ways to make bread as there are bakers, and they are probably all good.
on “People are planting more vegetable gardens” ↗Consider Ken Forkish’s “Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast”. I’ve been happily making bakery-quality sourdough with it.
on “Jeff Varasano's NY Pizza Recipe (2008)” ↗I like Ken Forkish’s “Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza”
on “Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?” ↗If you want even tastier bread I'd recommend Ken Forkish - Flour Water Salt Yeast.
on “Ultra-processed food consumption, cancer risk and cancer mortality” ↗I can only recommend flour, water, salt, yeast by Ken Forkish if you want to get amazing results. However there is some amount of time commitment that I think might be hard if you don't have the luxury of working from home or being/having a stay…
on “Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline” ↗You may want to get hold of a copy of: Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish
on “Why German bread is the best in the world (2018)” ↗