“Crust & Crumb”, Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers by Peter Reinhart “Crust & Crumb” is published by Ten Speed Press, (P.O. Box 7123, Berkeley/CA 94707; http://www.tenspeed.com). 1998. ISBN 1-58008-003-0, 210 pages, hardcover, $29.95 plus shipping.

No sooner did I buy this book from amazon.com (for, I should add, a few dollars less than the list price) when the publisher came out with the 2006 edition. I am nevertheless reviewing the one I have as I am assuming that there are still valid points in such an effort compared to the latest edition. Checking out the “look inside” preview on amazon, not much seems to have REALLY changed, just the photograph on the cover is a little darker and more close-up than the prior edition; the content seems to be roughly untouched.

“Crust & Crumb” is the book I started bread baking with, that is, started it in earnest. I had been looking for a book that would give me the fundamentals of good bread baking, along with a few doable recipes. I did not even look for “world-class”. This one does both, albeit with some caveats.

But first things first.

Over the course of nine chapters, Peter Reinhart lays out the fundamentals of bread baking. He starts out with what he believes the characteristics of a good bread are, then moves on to discuss types of bread and their appearances and tastes. While I, having grown up in one of the world’s foremost bread countries in the heart of Europe, bordering other countries with great bread – Germany – was familiar with all of them, I know from my experience talking to others here in the Midwest that many people could not tell a focaccia from any other flatbread, even if their lives depended on it.

More important to me and any other baker is what he lays out next, the crucial concepts and master techniques of bread baking. These are

1. There is a difference between “yeasted” and “leavened” bread. “Leavened” breads in Reinhart’s lingo are those leavened without the addition of commercially available yeast, such as sourdough breads.

2. Nearly everything that a professional bakery does can be replicated, to some degree, at home. I know this to be true, because I used his books at home first, then “translated” them to commercial equipment, and now I am baking at home once again with those same concepts.

3. Bread machines are tools that simulate in one device steps done by many machines in professional bakeries. Again, point taken – a bread machine is at the same time a kneading, proofing and baking device, and for those without time and/or space a perfect tool to making good bread without the hassle.

4. There are many ways to make world-class bread. When we started to develop our own recipes and methods, based among others on Reinhart’s books, we built on some of his and other people’s concepts and methods, but they all arrive at the same product if done right: awesome bread.

As far as the techniques, Reinhart first discusses ingredients, then moves on to kneading and shaping, proofing and scoring, and lastly baking the bread. My take on ingredients is that the BAKER must find the ones he/she is comfortable with, and this part at first is a little overwhelming. However, Reinhart gives a good overview over what is available, and I ended up using whole wheat flour whenever the recipe called for unbleached all-purpose flour, and with extremely good results.

Chapter 2 discusses the three fundamental pre-ferments – poolish, biga and pâte fermentée – and gives a few recipe examples using each. The French Bread II using pâte fermentée is what I started with, and it is truly the best bread I have ever had. I now make two loaves from this recipe, proofing them in bannetons or “brotforms” (available at http://www.brotform.com) and baking them according to Reinhart’s hearth oven method. They turn out great every time.

The rest of the book is devoted to sourdough (chapter 3), multigrain bread (chapter 4) and other popular breads. In the middle of the book the reader will find some color photographs of bread made from recipes in the book.

The bottom line:

What I like about this book is that it is relatively accessible. Reinhart explains in layman’s terms the fundamentals of bread baking, as well as the connection between them and the bread the baker will see when using a recipe. This is important if a bread does not turn out as expected, be that in appearance, texture or something else. For a consummate autodidactic like me, this is indispensable. I also found that the recipes are easy to follow and most of them give good results (with a few exceptions, but I do not own ONE recipe book where absolutely all of them are fool-proof). Most importantly, it contained the formula I ended up using successfully for a sourdough barm.

For me, however, the negatives prevail and had I to do it over, I would buy “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” instead. The “Apprentice” basically gives you everything this book gives you, but better.

The book is laid out in an awkward two-column style that has not changed with the 2006 edition. I find it harder to follow than the “Apprentice”, which is laid out in one large column, with everything not immediately concerning the recipe in the sidebar. This book also uses drawings for illustrating basic techniques, which I find harder to discern than the photographs in the “Apprentice”. Lastly, some things do not compute for me, such as the measurements for the recipes. It is not that the base recipe for, say, the pâte fermentée gives you almost a pound of pre-ferment more than needed for the recipe, but not enough to make one more entire recipe.

When I weigh out, for example, the ingredients for the French Bread II, according to Reinhart I am using 3.5 cups of bread flour, which he equates to 16 ounces (or one American pound or 453.59 grams), but which, in actuality, weighs 508 grams. Depending on how you measure it, you consequently end up with three different recipes. That may sound anal-retentive – after all, what is 50 grams - but depending on the recipe/ingredient and equipment it CAN make a crucial difference.

Last but not least, there are some inaccuracies here and there that I would not have expected from somebody with such big a stature in the bread baking world. The major one for me is that Reinhart recommends misting the proofing baskets, should you use them, with cooking spray (page 42). I have to assume that he means plastic ones, as the wicker bannetons or brotforms we own would most certainly be ruined by such a treatment. Yet, he does not make that clear.

So, my recommendation is to skip this book and acquire the “Apprentice” instead, if you are looking for a comprehensive book to start with. There is on the one hand too much overlap between them, and too many negatives with this one to make it worth buying both.

I made a loaf of SF Sourdough for an Easter brunch, following Peter Reinhart's recipe in his book Artisan Bread Every Day.  In the past I've had extremely good luck with Reinhart's SF  Sourdough recipe in his other book Crust and Crumb but my supply of "mother starter" was a bit low and the recipe in Artisan Bread Every Day only calls for two ounces while the one in Crust and Crumb asks for .  Besides, I've been wanting to try the recipe in Artisan Bread Every Day anyway.

I mixed up the intermediate"wild yeast starter" Friday, the dough Saturday, and baked the loaf Sunday morning (keeping the starter and dough each overnight in the fridge between times). When I mixed up the dough it seemed too wet (perhaps I messed up the weights, I was working under pressure); the recipe says adjust consistency as needed so I added more flour until it seemed about right.  I fridged the dough up in a stainless bowl with a tight plastic lid.  I was a bit worried it might rise too much and pop the lid off but fridge space was limited.  In the morning the lid was, indeed, bulging a bit but it hadn't popped off.

I chose to just use all the dough to make a single big "miche" loaf because I didn't want to risk degassing the dough too much by dividing it.  It was probably the biggest loaf I've ever baked.

Here are photos of the result:

Loaf^

Crumb

The loaf looks pretty good, and my wife and our guests seemed to like it quite a bit, but I found the taste and texture less satisfactory, less "yummy", than loaves I baked back in January using the recipe from Reinhart's Crust and Crumb.

Here's a photo from back in January:

Loaves and crumb from January 2011^

The more varied and irregular holes in the crumb of the January loaves is fairly obvious.  Not visible is a difference in taste and mouth-feel.  The January loaves as I recall were a bit moister, more tender perhaps, and had better taste.

I'm a bit bemused by the difference and curious about the cause.  The recipes are very similar, and the "mother culture" is the same.  One thing different is that in January I used King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour while in the current loaf I used a less expensive generic unbleached bread flour I got at the local Food Maxx market - both have the same labeled protein content.  The loaves in January included a bit of brown sugar in the dough per the Crust and Crumb recipe while the current loaf did not.  The January loaves were made exactly by weight according to the recipe while the latest included additional flour which I "eyeballed".  I'm not sure but I think there was a tad more salt in the January loaves.  Finally, the January loaves were retarded overnight "uncontrained" under plastic wrap while the current dough was retarded in a bowl with a tight fitting lid which restrained it's expansion.

Anyway, the two sourdough bakes tasted quite different to me, although others say they found the current effort highly satisfactory.  Go figure!

I love beer breads, so when I saw the Team USA formula featured in Crust and Crumb (Reinhart) I had to try it. 

Reinhart points out that this formula is a bit unusal because it utilizes two distinct preferments (three, actually, as Reinhart says in the notes, when you include the beer).  It uses a firm starter made up from a barm as well as a pate fermente (old dough).  I used Beck's beer, which I had on hand instead of an amber ale.  I made the barm/firm starter and pate ferment from scratch using the formulas in the book. I also roasted my own diastatic malt powder to deactivate the diastase enzymes since I do not have non-diastatic malt on hand and don't have much call for it.  Toasting worked out just fine, but I was not prepared for all the smoke.  (Maybe I over-toasted it just a bit.)

I baked this bread with Pendleton Mills Power, home-milled hard white winter wheat, and Wingold Dark Rye flour.  I substituted 1 ounce of coarse rye meal for an equal amount of rye flour.  I found the formula produced too dry a dough on just the water called for (1/2 Cup) and had to increase that to roughly 1 1/4 Cup total.  Some of this is probably due to the home-milled whole wheat flour, which I find to be pretty thirsty in all cases.  More of it is probably due to the coarse rye meal.  The dough balanced out at a very nice texture with the additional moisture and my old Bosch mixer never broke a sweat on the four-loaf load, even with the several extra minutes of heavy work it had to put in while I adjusted the hydration.  Total mixing time came out close to 13 minutes.

After fermenting, degassing and fermenting again I shaped the dough into free-form oval loaves and proofed them in pairs on parchment.  They were scored and baked in pairs on parchment on my baking tiles under a roasting pan lid preheated with the oven to 475F.  I misted the loaves liberally before loading them into the oven, and again just as I lowered the roasting pan over them.  I found baking times somewhat shorter than called for in the book, but that is expected given the shape I used.  Boulles would probably have taken the prescribed amount of time.

This formula produces four loaves of bread.  I could not find a pleasing way to fit all four into my basket, so here are three of the four.

The crumb looks like this:

Calling this "beer" bread has a point, in that the addition of a nice fully hopped brew should add an additional flavor dimension of hoppy bitterness that is subtle and enhancing rather than strong and overpowering.  Perhaps I should have gone and bought the amber ale called for and drank the Beck's with lunch.  In any event that flavor dimension was not very prevalent in these loaves.  They are good, but I think these would be more accurately called whole wheat and rye.  I accept responsibility for that, for both the beer selection, which weakened that flavor component, and for the inclusion of the rye meal, which gave the bread a stonger rye flavor.  I'm certain this combination of divergences does not do justice to the original flavor.  The beer does add a softness to the crumb however, that is an excellent offset to the chewiness (IMHO) of bread flour.  The crust is not a crispy french bread crust that shatters when you cut into it, but has a very agreeable chewy bite that is also very flavorful.  Overall this is better than average bread, and I will make it again.  Next time I will get the proper amber ale and leave out the rye meal to see what difference it makes.

Thanks for stopping by
OldWoodenSpoon

This is my first post on Fresh Loaf, but I have been reading posts for months now. This is my first try at Bagels and I consider it about 50% success. They look better than they taste. Not to say they taste bad, just not "bagelly".They actually taste a whole lot like my soft pretzels...sorta. They are 100% bread flour which I was not too happy to do, but I usually follow recipes very closely the first time around and then modify. I like whole wheat bagels the best so that is coming next.

I use a Bread Machine on Dough mode sometimes as I have no mixer. This was one of those times. Thought I broke the machine at one point since the dough is incredibly dry. I took it out and hand kneeded for another 10 minutes. I let it rise then shaped. Retarded in the fridge overnight and just took them out of the oven. I am using Peter Reinhart's "Crust and Crumb" Yeasted Bagels recipe with his Poolish and KA Bread flour. It was a 3 day process since I had to make the Poolish. They were 102g at shaping and currently 94g baked w/toppings. Not big, but not small. Here are the pictures.

Poaching 4 at a time...

First batch out of the oven (yes only 4 fit at a time...the oven is from 1954... = very tiny)

3 Poppy seed, 2 Golden Flax, and 3 Sesame seed

Poser shot...

And finally...the crumb.

Greetings

I have an electric oven and a convection gas oven.   How can I get a crust that crackles like hard rolls or bread made in a brick oven?   Steam pan doesn't do it.  Stones in the steam pan doesn't do it.   Hot water in the steam doesn't do it.  Cold water in the steam pan doesn't do it.  Spraying sides of oven doesn't do it.  Spraying the loaves with water doesn't do it. Leaving the loaves in oven while (shut off) and door cracked open doesn't do it in 15 min.   If it works, how long must one leave the loaves???    I can get that kind of crackly crust by leaving the loaf on the counter for a few days but who wants that! etc., etc., etc.  

I say no method works!  One must have a professioal oven or a hearth.

Any comments?

Hey all, I've been meandering through this site for the past few months and trying out the various recipes and techniques, and I have been really happy with the results.  This is one of the best sites I've ever come across, and I'm glad it's here.

So here's my question.  I've been experimenting with the formulas in Reinhart's Crust and Crumb with a fair amount of success, so far.  However, last night I made the poolish forumula, and it doesn't look so good.  I used the formula rather than the recipe, but ended up with roughly half the recipe (2c. flour, 2c. water or 300g flour 530g water - the formula says 178% water) I added about 1/8 tsp of yeast (too small for an accurate weight on my scale).  When I mixed it together it was very thin, like crepe batter.  I let it sit for about 5 hours, and when I checked it again, the flour had settled to the bottom and a layer of water had formed on top.  There were a few bubbles on the surface of the water and some holes in the flour underneath, but not the large foamy oles that I've seen in pictures.  I mixed it up once more to get the water back in with the flour and threw it in the fridge.  This morning it looks exactly the same as when I put it in the fridge last night only separated again.  There are no holes, no bubbles and it looks as if no fermentation is taking place at all. 

Did I do something wrong?  I really want to make Reinhart's sweet rustic bread; can I use a different poolish formula?

Please help.

Thanks,
Jeremy

Peter Reinhart's recipe for San Francisco Sourdough Bread in "Crust&Crumb" is one I keep coming back to. I have enjoyed many French-style levains with a more subtle sourness, but I still prefer the assertively sour San Francisco-style Sourdough. Reinhart's formula in C&C is the one with which he won the James Beard Award, and it is a winner in my book too.

I generally make three 1.5 lb boules from this formula, but I had wanted to make a sourdough walnut bread again for quite a while. So, I made two of my usual boules and one batârd with walnuts. The walnuts were lightly toasted (15 minutes at 350F) and kneaded into 1.5 lbs of the mixed dough before bulk fermentation. 

I think this bread has the most beautiful crust! Can't you just hear the crunch when you imagine biting into a slice?

And for the crumb aficionados ...

The crumb is not as open as usual. Maybe the white whole wheat (10%) was thirstier than I thought.

David

Hello,

I am reading the excellent "Crust and Crumb" by Peter Reinhart" In the section on poolish, page 34, he says: "you can freeze unused poolish and save it for another time, if you do so just before or after refreigerating it on the first night"

I am surpised, I thought freezing killed yeast cells? Any thoughts on how this works, or how long you could get away with leaving it frozen and then using it?

Darell

SF SD with WW from C&C

SF SD with WW from C&C - crumb

Having been raised on San Francisco Sourdough, if for no other reason, I prefer sourdough bread that is ... well ... sour.

 Peter Reinhart's formula from "Crust & Crumb" was the bread with which he won the James Beard prize, and it is my favorite SF-style sourdough. There are two overnight cold fermentations - One with the chef, which is a very dry levain, and the other of the formed and partially risen loaves.

 I have been adding some rye flour most times I bake this. This particular time, I left out the rye but used KA Organic Whole Wheat flour entirely for the levain. Then I used a mix of 1/3 high-gluten and 2/3 bread flour for the dough.

 There are two 690 gm boules retarding in my refrigerator, but I wanted to bake one loaf without the cold retarding, just to compare. I made this loaf into a batard, as you can see.  I baked it at 475F with steam for about 7 minutes, then at 425F with convection for another 25 minutes. I think it could have come out a couple of minutes sooner.

 The crust is still crisp and crunchy. The crumb is quite chewy from the high-gluten flour. (I think I'll use less next time.) It has a lovely taste. I like what the whole wheat does to the flavor. I'll use more next time I bake this bread. The sourness is less than usual, probably because i skipped the overnight cold retardation. You know, I like it either way. This is just good bread!

David

Banana Bread

In addition to all the yeast breads, including sourdoughs, Peter Reinhart has also provided us with recipes for other types of baked goods. In Crust&Crumb, he has a Banana Bread recipe I tried for the first time yesterday.

Reinhart gives two methods of mixing: one if you use butter as the fat("Creaming method"), the other if you use oil ("Batter method"). I had an attack of self-restraint and used oil. I also cut down the sugar by about 1/3, because most recipes call for more sugar than I like, and cut down the walnuts by 1/3, because I didn't have as much walnuts as I thought I did. Reinhart does not call for toasting the nuts, but I did - 5 minutes at 350F.

Next time, I am going to try using less oil (Canola).

The past and future tweaks aside, this made a very nice quick bread. It is very moist and tastes delicious.

David