Hello from Pittsburgh, PA

We regular readers often post tips for getting the most out of your experience at TFL.  Mine are these:

1.)  Practice, practice, and practice some more.  And then post your results, successes and failures.  Teach us and we teach you.

2.)  Read TFL often.  Watch all the videos as soon as you can get around to it.  You'll get an idea of what we're talking about.  When problems arise you'll have a tickle in your head that you saw a video.  Go back to it.

3.)  When you have a question, use the search function to look up the answer BEFORE you post it.  Lots of questions have been asked and answered countless times.  Especially if you need your answer right away, you can often get your answer using the search function.  Here are some things to learn as soon as possible:  what is a baker's formula?  what is gluten?  what is the difference between high and low hydration doughs?  what is a gluten window and why can it help you to learn when you've kneaded your dough enough?  how do you know when to stop your bread from rising?  

4.)  Learn the difference between a cook book and a text book.  Texts are obliged to teach you from the ground up; cook books aren't.  I have lots of both.  But even years into bread baking, I found that reading a text book quite helpful because of it's organized exposition of the knowledge.  I recommend a specific text book for beginners.  It's DiMuzio's Bread Baking.  It's cheap, short, and complete.  There are lots of other texts, but DiMuzio's is the one I think beginners can do best with.  

5.)  Oh, yes, and practice, practice, and practice some more.  Or did I already say that?

Welcome to the forum. Agree with the above poster, read, read, read. But do it at your pace. There is so much info here that my head aches at times trying to absorb it all. I purchased DiMuzio's book and love it. Looking forward to reading your posts...

Dan