The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Open Crumb Mastery

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

Open Crumb Mastery

Hey folks, just want to let you all know that I wrote an eBook. I promise, this is the only time I'm gonna pitch it here. It's specifically on the topic of achieving an open crumb. It's not for beginners, and it's not a short book. It assumes the reader already has a sourdough starter and knows how to use it -- it does not discuss starter creation. The book goes very deep into the subject of developing dough structure, so its focus is primarily on fermentation, structure building, dough handling, and working with wet dough.

I don't want to spam you with a blatant link to my sales page, but I will spam you with a link to my blog post that discusses the book in a bit more detail. I want people to understand exactly just what this book is -- and what it isn't -- before they purchase it. There you will find an excerpt from the book (the entire preface) and links to the product page with a complete Table of Contents in the "images" section. If still interested, then you can purchase from there.

Here's the link to my post: http://www.breadwerx.com/open-crumb-mastery/

If you have any questions then feel free to ask.

Cheers!

Trevor

Elsasquerino's picture
Elsasquerino

I hope this book is a runaway success and you become the next Chad Robertson. My sourdough journey was a gruelling uphill affair before I found your page and videos... I'm still a mediocre baker but I recognise the faults and know where I need to improve due to your engaging and informative style. Good luck, i might even buy a Kindle or similar for this...

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I'm glad I've been of help! And I appreciate your kind words! I've seen your bread, and I wouldn't call you "mediocre" in the slightest. Please don't buy a kindle just for this book. You can read it on your computer, or even on your cell phone (though the print will be very small and annoying). No single book is worth the price of a kindle. 

Trevor

sadkitchenkid's picture
sadkitchenkid

I'm buying this for myself as an early birthday gift

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I hope you find it a worthwhile treat! Cheers!

 

Trevor

jimbtv's picture
jimbtv

So, how do I get a signed copy of an e-book?

Congratulations Trevor! It has been long-awaited, much anticipated and greatly appreciated. 

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I don't know how to sign a digital book, but if you print it then I'll happily drive down the road to your place and sign it in person. FYI, my handwriting is that of a child's, and my signature illegible. But ask and ye shall receive . . .

Trevor

Wild-Yeast's picture
Wild-Yeast

I've got spam splatter from head to foot. Just kidding (well just a little).

Looks like a nice read - how are sales?

Wild-Yeast

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I'm very pleased with the sales so far. Better than I anticipated. The response from the bread community has been very positive.

Cheers!

Trevor

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

I downloaded it to my kindle. The text is small (as you stated) but I find it readable. 

I've come to expect anything from you to be excellent. And after reading 25% of the document I am not disappointed. It is very thorough and detailed, and I like that. I'm expecting my bread to benefit.

Thanks for taking the time to help others,
Dan

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I'm glad you're enjoying the book so far! And the positive feedback is much appreciated!

Cheers!

Trevor

hreik's picture
hreik

Just bought a copy.  Ty.

bread1965's picture
bread1965

Trevor, I just ordered the book.   Not just because of the subject matter, but because it’s from you. I’ve often read your posts, and thought how much wisdom and experience they illustrated. Without that background, I’m not sure that I would’ve bought yet another bread book. But I’m looking forward to reading yours. And it looks like it will be a great read. I’ve been wanting to understand how to make a better open chrumb structure over the past few months, and your book looks like a great way to figure this out. Thanks very much for writing it, and posting this.

I often think that books can be / are a great opportunity for learning.  Somebody spends a lifetime of experiences mastering something, or thinking through a problem, and then figures out how to communicate those ideas to you  and writes a book. Then you get to buy that information, knowledge and wisdom  for 9.99.  It’s why always say that books are the cheapest education money can buy .

Thank you and best of luck 

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I truly appreciate your kind words! It means a ton to me. I agree with you -- books are a beautiful thing. There's no better way to get into someone's mind than through the written word. I really hope you find the book helpful and enjoyable. It's important to me that folks to feel they got their money's worth from this thing. 

Cheers!

Trevor

hreik's picture
hreik

and it's terrific.  I do have a question.  And since you invited questions, here goes.

When writing about amount of starter to use you wrote this:

And  just  to  put  some  numbers  to  it:  I  usually  add  between  10%  to  15%  starter  as  a  percentage  of  total   dough  weight  -­-­ not baker's percentage-­-­  under  average  conditions.  If  the  starter  is  healthy  and  I  need   the  dough  to  move  fast,  then  I  may  go  up  as  high  as  20%  or  even  25%.  On  the  flipside,  if  I  have  the  time   then  I  may  go  as  low  as  5%  (and  on  occasion,  even  lower).  

I am assuming you are including the amount of starter in the total dough weight, correct?  So if you use 100 gm of starter and 900 gm of flour, water, salt altogether, your total is 1 Kg and the %age is 10%... Is that right?

Thanks

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

If I make 1000g of dough, and decide that 10% of the total dough weight will be starter, then that will be 100g of starter and 900g of everything else. Basically, I just calculate out the total ingredients in the recipe, decide how much starter the dough will consist of, then subtract the flour and water in the starter from the recipe's total ingredients that I already calculated. That's it.

I'm glad you're enjoying the book so far. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Cheers!

Trevor

leslieruf's picture
leslieruf

love what I have read so far. it makes a great deal of sense.  I was at the point of trying to figure a few things out to improve my crumb structure so your timing is wonderful!  

tomorrow's task is to do a test of my starter as the first step. thank you for posting this.

Leslie

 

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I'm happy to hear you're enjoying it so far! I hope you find it helpful and that your crumb improves as a result!

Cheers!

Trevor

Sadiye's picture
Sadiye

If I had stumbled upon you site by chance I would have given up SD baking since I had the stupidity to start with Tartine No 3 and you can guess the result.

Thanks to you I can now bake decent loaves.

Just bought the book and good luck with sales.

 

Sadiye

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

Sorry for the late response here (I seem to have missed a few comments), but I hope you've been enjoying the book! And I'm very happy to hear that you didn't give up baking sourdough. That would've been a sad thing indeed.

Cheers!

Trevor

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

Thank you for this! 

ETA - 296 pages!!!! That was no small endeavour! No wonder you haven’t been around much!

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I won't lie, it was a chore at times. Especially for a natural slacker like me! When I first started the project I figured it would likely just be a short 50 page pamphlet. If you'd have told me it would be even 100 pages I would've laughed at such a crazy suggestion! Funny how things turn out, no?

Cheers!

Trevor

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

for those of us who are always trying to bake the next great bread!  Sadly,Lucy only reads Swedish so I will have to read it to her in English and she who won't understand a lick of it (-_-).  WIll it work on my laptop?  What a nice thing to do for bakers everywhere Trevor!  Well done and

Happy baking

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Trevor, I'm nearly finished my first read. What a great work.

Will you consider converting the PDF to Kindle format and/or possible a printed book in the future? I'd like to be able to bookmark parts in a kindle. Or if printed, I would mark up the pages. My memory is not great so for me reminders are indispensable.

I'm told that Amazon makes the PDF conversion to Kindle format and also printed books (on demand, I think) a fairly painless process.

Also, how can I see all of your videos? I went to your website, but didn't find them. Your video demonstrations are excellent. I can "feel the love" when I watch as you handle the dough.

Dan

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

Sorry I missed your comment before Dan. To answer your question, I might consider formatting the book for kindle or epub in the future. In fact, I originally tried to convert this book to epub, but the formatting just never came out right. I'm not a technical person so I couldn't get it sorted out. If demand is high enough then I might consider paying to have it professionally converted. 

As for a print edition, that's something I would definitely be interested in pursuing in the future. There seems to be quite a few folks that would much prefer a real book in hand (and TBH, I'm one of those people). Again, if sales are high enough then perhaps I might be able to convince a publisher to take a look at it. We'll just have to wait and see.

Cheers!

Trevor

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

Sorry for my late response here -- it appears I missed these last comments. To answer your question, yes it should work on your laptop. And I'm sorry to hear that Lucy won't be able to understand it -- perhaps my next edition will be in Swedish!

Cheers!

Trevor

jimbtv's picture
jimbtv

Dan, for what it's worth, Trevor's pdf is not protected from using the Acrobat Reader tools to highlight and annotate the text. I just tried it out and it worked fine.

There is also nothing blocking you from printing off a copy yourself.

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Thanks Jim, I'll try the tools in Acrobat.

bread1965's picture
bread1965

Trevor.. I'm only half way through the book but the weekend is my chance to bake and here I am. I worked on developing a better/ stronger starter this week and have given Charlie 2x daily feedings of 1:3:3 four days running and what a difference that has made to how he's performing. I was feeding him 1:2:2 whenever I needed him and only gave him one or two feedings before using him. He was doubling and I thought he was strong enough. The 1:2:2 left him exhausted by the next feeding as it was too long. He's now been tripling after 10-12 hours which is when I'm using him (and he probably could keep going). This little tip alone was worth the book cost!

I just finished three sets of Rubard mixing and the extensibility of the dough is quite something. It has such a great feel.  I had premixed overnight (a few hours in the fridge and then on the counter before bed). I'm using only 70% hydration and should have increased it a bit more in hindsight as my forearm got a bit of a workout with this mixing method. I'm now moving onto hour long folds for the next several hours and will continue to work this out.. my flour mix is AP 80, WW 10, dark rye 10. And I've used 20% (100 hydration) starter made with AP. It's probably not the ideal flour and starter mix from what I've read so far in your book but it will help me get this baked before dinner (I think) and it's a mix I'm familiar with so I'll have a good comparison of the final bread. I'll cut it open tomorrow night for dinner and see what happens!

mutantspace's picture
mutantspace

downloaded your book this morning and it was revelationary. I have found your videos and posts a wonderful help to me and this book takes it further. I wish you luck with it and hope it brings you the kudos you so greatly deserve. ive been reading it all day and already have a long list of improvement notes for my bake on friday night. 

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I appreciate your kind words! And I'm very happy to hear that you've been finding it so helpful! That's what I was aiming for!

Cheers!

Trevor

BreadBabies's picture
BreadBabies

You said it...there is absolutely nothing out there like this (at least that I have seen). You nailed the audience. This content is quenching to a community like TFL (can't you tell by how giddy we are)? I don't know if you are staying in e-book land because of a personal choice or because you don't know how big the non-beginner audience is...but I'd sure love a hard copy of this book. I'd buy it again.

I hope everyone stays ethical with respect to distribution. 

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

I'm very glad to hear that you liked the book! It seemed to me that there was a need for a book like this -- I was trying to write something that I would've loved to read back when I first started baking. I figured if I would've liked it, then surely others would too. So I'm happy to see such a positive response. 

To answer your question, I would definitely consider putting out a print edition of this book. And it's something I might pursue in the future. If I end up with some decent sales numbers that I can put before a publisher then perhaps they might consider taking a chance on it. You never know!

Cheers!

Trevor

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

Trevor, have you looked into Kindle Direct Publishing? You mentioned that you tried the digital format and had some problems, but you could self publish without a publisher.

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

You can go digital and/or print on demand at no cost to you. I have a friend who went this route.

Maybe you could find a tech-savvy friend to help with this.
Just a thought...

Dan

Trevor J Wilson's picture
Trevor J Wilson

Thanks Dan! I followed your link to check out KDP -- pretty interesting. I'm hesitant to do anything with amazon based on discussions I've heard from those who've used them. But it looks like there are plenty of other "print on demand" publishers out there. And that could be interesting. I'll be digging into this a bit more to get a clearer picture of the model. Many thanks for the idea!

Cheers!

Trevor

jo_en's picture
jo_en

Hi Trevor,

I just bought your book yesterday and I am learning a lot!!

I had a good result with the 50% whole wheat and am trying

to apply your mixing techniques and fermentation keys to getting a 70% loaf.

Thanks for taking the time and care to tell us about how to improve and' enjoy this craft!!

paulfrench's picture
paulfrench

Hi Trevor,

Great video's etc on Instagram. I don't have a kindle and was wondering how I could be a PDF version? Willing to pay of course!

Thanks

Paul

berryblondeboys's picture
berryblondeboys

I am just getting back to baking after a few years. It's a LONG story, but coming back to it is therapeutic and I need that right now.

I have made loaves here and there, but I hadn't really done more than dabble. Yesterday I made the pain de campagne bread I've made several times and it turned out as well as it ever has for me, but the crumb still wasn't quite right, I don't think. So, I started googling and then I ran across a video and while the recipe is different than the one I have, I saw immediately some things I could try as I think I'm degassing the dough too much.

Anyway, that video had a link attached to a book that sounded like just what I needed - Open Crumb Mastery for an intermediate baker - that is pretty much me spot on. I came here to see if there were any reviews of this book and found this. I have already bought the pdf book  as it seems to be perfect and I love to support a fellow baker!

I'll re-intruduce myself in a bit, but I wanted to thank Trevor from what I have learned already from that video on Breadwerx abd here.

 

DanAyo's picture
DanAyo

We’re here to help Bblonde. Let us know how your baking goes.Trevor’s book is very detailed and excellent for producing various crumb types.

Danny

Peternumnums's picture
Peternumnums

Hello Trevor 

Your book looks really good.

My only issue is finding it. 

I followed the link but it sent me to a location that was not secure so I passed. 

Goodreads has a link to amazon but I couldn't find it there even after typing in the name of your book. 

Hopefully you can direct me to where I can buy it. 

All the best 

Peter

Peternumnums's picture
Peternumnums

With apologies, but some of the links for your book that I followed had malicious virus's attached to them. 

Peter

Sugarowl's picture
Sugarowl

I noticed that too. His website is down which stinks. You might try contacting him through his Instagram page though, if that's still up. It's a good thing I printed some of the recipes from his Breadwerx site.

Peternumnums's picture
Peternumnums

Care to share 😉

rondayvous's picture
rondayvous

did not grow up reading on screens. I bought it, but the digital format makes it all but unreadable for me. I wish there was a hard copy. I guess I can print it out, but it’s a lot of pages.