yeah, I tried to make the volkornbrot and noticed some funny business with his percentages. i adjusted the recipe to match his percentages and I wouldn't recommend doing that. the bread was not very good- tasted very gummy. the german farmhouse rye, parisian daily bread, and pretzels have all worked out incredibly well. let me know if you hear back from daniel.

In many sourdough-based recipes, particularly ryes, it is assumed that when your sour build has reached the same proportion as the original starter you will remove from the dough an amount equivalent to what you put in originally. Had I missed the tiny little note in Hammelman explaining this I would have had a much harder time understanding his rye bread percentages. Could something similar be happening here?

sPh

I encountered a discrepancy in instant yeast weight-to-volume conversion when I made the Rye-Fennel Crackerbread. The formula says 1.5 t = 0.3 oz = 8 g = 2% (baker's percentage)

All of the above is correct, except the 1.5 teaspoons. Eight grams of instant yeast is closer to 2.5 teaspoons. The book consistently uses a conversion factor of 1 teaspoon = 5 grams, but the reality (and I've checked this with my scale as well as seeing it published in several places) is that instant yeast weighs just a little over 3 grams per teaspoon.

Also 2% instant yeast seems like a lot, but it is the amount called for in almost all of the book's commercial-yeasted formulas. I wonder why so much? Most of the formulas I have worked with before call for 1% or less, if it's instant.

Susanfnp

http://www.wildyeastblog.com

It's great that Daniel Leader is listening to concerns about errors and is eager to fix them.  Thanks, in case you read this posting.

Rosalie

Today I’m baking Whole Wheat Sourdough Miche, page 118, and there is another recipe with errors. 

First, I noticed while preparing the levain that the text states to “add the bread flour and whole wheat flour” when the recipe grid only contains wheat flour.  You can probably assume it means only wheat flour but then you have a little voice that makes you wonder.

Then the same issue as with the buckwheat batards on page 119 where the ingredients grid states to use 225 grams of the levain but the text says to use 125 grams and store and refresh the remaining levain. 

I decided to use the entire levain which oddly only amounted to 219 grams.  I did weigh carefully and I have an accurate scale but for some reason that’s what it ended up to be. 

When I started mixing it was clear that the water was not correct either or the text was wrong because it stated that the dough would not clean the sides of the bowl.  It was a big lump of rather dry dough.  So I poured in more water which I did not measure but it was close to a full cup more.  Now, this could have been because he really did mean 125 grams of levain but how do we know for sure?  I mixed only a couple minutes longer than the time listed and ended up with a beautiful gluten window and the dough seemed a great consistency.  So I'm happy about that.

I love this book and have found some incredible recipes but these errors are very problematic.  It shakes the confidence in the entire book, it feels often like someone went crazy with “cut and paste” without making the necessary revisions to a specific recipe and just plain hurried if these recipes were not simply read through and checked very carefully before publishing.

The other thing that bothers me is his always recommending a 2-quart rising container and clearly most of the recipes I’ve made simply would not fit in them.  So I just don’t understand what went on with people in charge of editing this book.

and have added water.  My old habit of holding back that last bit of flour when using a written recipe, holds true. 

Mini O

Dolf, we were posting at about the same time because I just asked you about pain au levain which was super dry for me.  I tripled the recipe and really needed to add more water - don't know what stopped me except I like to try and follow a recipe as written the first time I make it.  The bread was fabulous though.

I am in Omaha and the temp when I made that bread (pain au levain) was probably around 68 - 70 in my kitchen at most since it was getting very cool outside especially at night.  It had been raining almost daily for a couple weeks and was during that time.  I'm guessing the humidity inside was around 40% or lower.  I don't understand humidity so well so I might be off a little.

Again, using type 55, KAF Select Artisan for AP and KA bread flour.

I apologize for not getting back to you. This is our busiest time of the year at Bread Alone and I have not had the opportunity to check the recipe. I am going to have my recipe tester and co-author do this immediately. I am leaving for South Africa tomorrow to work on my community baking project www.sawgbp.com. I hope you will find in interesting. I should have the recipe to you by middle of next week.
My apologies,
Dan 

Dan Leader asked me to speak with you regarding your findings. I'm not sure if he mentioned to you that he is leaving on a 3-week trip to South Africa where he is helping to build small bakeries for AIDS clinics where moms and orphans can learn a skill and a trade.  He apologizes for not getting back to you.  "Local Breads" were the work of many people, myself included, so I can assure you that your expertise is appreciated!  I have looked over your experience of the Buckwheat Batard and am quite impressed by the depth of knowledge and understanding that you and the others you mentioned have taken!
 
I am compiling a list of corrections for "Local Breads" which will be made upon the next printing and am sure to include yours.
 
thank you so much for contacting us!  This book was 13 years in the making and while much of the work was in the travelling and the meeting of so many interesting bakers (many of whom no longer bake with a written recipe as you can imagine!!) much of the testing and retesting was done by a number of very good bakers.  Compiling all that testing was quite a task, as you obviously know, being that you are so engaged in bread baking formulas. 
 
Blogging is very far from anything that we are familiar with, but you have given me an idea!  I am going to attempt to put up on our website a place for this kind of discourse that you mention.  I say 'attempt' because I'm not completely clear what will be involved and I will have to speak to my friend, Don, who has helped us put up our website.  If all goes well, I will include an 'errata' section for these persnickity (and repeated) inconsistencies.
 
Thank you again, and please feel free to contact me.
 
Sincerely,
 
Sharon

-- 
Sharon Burns-Leader
Bread Alone Bakery & Cafe
President

I have found more errors and just wanted to toss out whether it would be better for me to email those to you rather than to keep posting them here.  Or I can just keep my own running list and give them to you all at once at some point.  I am assuming you are keeping a list of what those are since you have had direct contact with Leader's company.  I'm a little torn about this but frustrated and not sure how to best go about getting answers to the questions in these recipes or to just alert them to the errors that continue to pop up.  I just don't want to appear as if we are disparaging them or piling on.  Opinion?

Hi,
I baked twice Flax, Sesame, and sunflower rye (page 282) and always with a great satisfaction with the result, but I think that there are some typos in the recipe.
The total amount of flour is 500g. The volume of water is 22 cups and I strongly believe that it is supposed to be 2 cups, as the recipe says: soak seed in 1/2 cup,  mix 1 1/2 cup water with flour.
Thus, I would adjust  metric weight to 2*246g = 492 and baker's percentage to 100%.

If I missed something, please correct me. I love this bread but with this amount of water, hand kneading is very messy business (but the bread is so good that it is worth to do it).

Does anyone tried to make Classic Auvergne Dark rye from page 158? I tried that and it turned into brick, which I kind of expected, because 50% hydration seems to me not enough for this kind of bread.

Anyway, I absolutely love this book.
Thanks for answers and posted errors.
Pevnak

and finally got around to reading about the search for Authentic German Ryes (p 269). So much is true and worth reading if you want to get into rye breads. I did find his mention of Cumin quite disturbing. I believe he means Caraway.

Very often a recipe will say cumin when it should read caraway because the German word for caraway is Kümmel. The German word for cumin is Kreutz, Mutter, or Roman Kümmel and so when a translation is made from Kümmel, unfortunately cumin pops up. Just pronouncing the two, one can see why there is a mix up and often thought to be the same spice. In English, caraway and cumin are two very different spices, just as Kreutzkümmel & Kümmel are different. I've run into this before.

So, Reader beware! Most references to cumin from German translations is really caraway.

Dan, if you are reading this, go chew on some cumin (or kreutz kümmel) and honestly tell me you put this into your bread!

Mini O

Mini - Are you saying that, for instance, in the German Farmhouse Rye that I've been planning to make, I should substitute caraway seeds for the cumin seeds? In that recipe he also lists coriander, fennel, and anise seeds so I didn't think much about the cumin seeds not being familiar with rye breads. Then I would assume this is the same for the Spiced Rye Rolls, page 289, that also calls for ground cumin seeds?

Most US rye breads use caraway seed - that is the distinctive smell and taste that almost all US ryes have and which is actually what most USians are thinking of when the say they don't like "rye". Actually they don't like caraway.

That said, I discovered by accident that whole cumin seed makes for an interesting flavor in rye bread too ;-). And I have since found several recipes that call for cumin, or a mix of caraway, cumin, anise, celery, poppy etc seeds.

Just be aware that cumin is a powerful flavor and most people consider it "hot" or "spicy". When I put it in a 2 lb loaf I use 2 tsp compared to 2 tbs of caraway.

sPh

sphealey - You just stated why my husband thinks he doesn't like rye bread. He says he can't stand the caraway seeds! (Despite the fact that he ate a loaf I purchased a year ago last new year's day for our traditional Reuben's that very much contained them...hehe. Hey, I had only been baking bread for a couple weeks by then and certainly had not tried baking my own rye.)

Anyway, I think that is also why I feel I'm relearning the flavor of rye bread because so far in the few rye recipes I've made I don't use the caraway and you do get an entirely different flavor and I'm lucky I like it both ways - caraway or not. Thanks for the info.

(PS...We both love cumin and are not at all afraid of its strong flavor.) 

How long from now is this second printing expected? I am not confident that I will be able to figure these solutions out myself, and I just ordered the book today based on the praise I've read about. Thanks!

W. W. Norton & Co of NY is the publisher. You may be able to find a contact at their website, www.wwnorton.com to ask about the second printing and, more importantly, whether it will contain corrections.

I'm disappointed that there's no addendum or other information addressing the errors at the Bread Alone website. Other bakers have noted the errors as well, such as Ye Old Bread Blogge

Sharon/Daniel,

This was one of the last communications I've received from you and we (myself and other folks at The Fresh Loaf) have been hoping to see some of these corrections before a possible next printing (which could be a long way away, and those who have already spent money on the first printing would not buy the second just for the corrections). Since this communication, quite a few more errors/issues have been found, but since we've essentially never received an actual correction (Daniel you promised to have some of the issue recipes baked to confirm/fix the problems, but apparently never did), we've kind of stopped sending them to you (although they are mentioned on TFL).

Should we leave it at this and simply let the comments stand and live their own life (generally: I love the book, but it is full of errors and ambiguities), or would you like to try and pick this up and send us corrections as you determine them (after checking I suppose). I'm still interested in coordinating this.

On Oct 25, 2007, at 2:04 PM, Sharon Burns-Leader wrote:
Hello Dolf!
 
Dan Leader asked me to speak with you regarding your findings. I'm not sure if he mentioned to you that he is leaving on a 3-week trip to South Africa where he is helping to build small bakeries for AIDS clinics where moms and orphans can learn a skill and a trade.  He apologizes for not getting back to you.  "Local Breads" were the work of many people, myself included, so I can assure you that your expertise is appreciated!  I have looked over your experience of the Buckwheat Batard and am quite impressed by the depth of knowledge and understanding that you and the others you mentioned have taken!
 
I am compiling a list of corrections for "Local Breads" which will be made upon the next printing and am sure to include yours.
 
thank you so much for contacting us!  This book was 13 years in the making and while much of the work was in the travelling and the meeting of so many interesting bakers (many of whom no longer bake with a written recipe as you can imagine!!) much of the testing and retesting was done by a number of very good bakers.  Compiling all that testing was quite a task, as you obviously know, being that you are so engaged in bread baking formulas. 
 
Blogging is very far from anything that we are familiar with, but you have given me an idea!  I am going to attempt to put up on our website a place for this kind of discourse that you mention.  I say 'attempt' because I'm not completely clear what will be involved and I will have to speak to my friend, Don, who has helped us put up our website.  If all goes well, I will include an 'errata' section for these persnickity (and repeated) inconsistencies.
 
Thank you again, and please feel free to contact me.
 
Sincerely,
 
Sharon

-- 
Sharon Burns-Leader
Bread Alone Bakery & Cafe
President
Route 28, Boiceville, N Y 12412
845-657-3328
"BREAK BREAD ~ MAKE PEACE"

If all goes well, I will include an 'errata' section for these persnickity (and repeated) inconsistencies.

call them what thay are errors downright mistakes. 

yes i know i type like crap but to have errors like this kind in a book that is ""teaching" other people to bake.  it sets up the new baker to fail and then thinking it is their fault and not the books they don't try again.

i realy dislike books such as this.

I am very frustrated by all the errors in this book. I would be even more so if I had paid for it and not simply checked it out from my local library.

If your teaching someone how to cook, your recipes MUST be accurate. It is inexcusable. Get an editor! 

I'm attempting to make a spelt sourdough seed culture based on the instructions beginning on p 276. I had a couple of failures and then found Reinhart's suggestion to use pineapple juice in place of water for the first two days. I did this as well as using rye flour on the first day and everything seemed to be going well. It was very active and rising fast — especially in my tropical (Hawaii) climate. 

So day four comes around and the seed culture had easily double and fallen in much less than 12 hours. I figured it was ready to refresh and start making The Whole Spelt Loaf the next day.

As per "Refreshing The Rye Sourdough" instructions on p 278, I measured 1/4 cup of my culture and stirred in 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup spelt flour. At that point I had an inclination that something was off. It seemed much to watery -- how would it rise? We'll sure enough It did not rise. And seems to have drown and become inactive.

Having exhausted all other variables (bad flour, hard water, temp., juice for the first two days, etc.) it occurred to me that there may be an error in the recipe. I then checked the "Refreshing The Semolina Sourdough" steps on p 256 an it says 1/4 culture mixed with 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup flour. additionally Reinhart's Barm refreshment instructions in his BBA are similar in terms or weights/%age.  

Having found this thread I assume I found an error. Can someone corroborate this?

For all Mr. Leader's his romantic prose about the world of bread making it would have been nice if he'd spent even a fraction of his time actually getting the recipes right. If I had paid good money for this book I would chuck it through the window of his bakery on my next trip to NY.

End rant.

Disclaimer -- this book has the potential to be great, but went to press long before it was "proofed." 

You have every right to be frustrated. Alas, I paid good money for the book but have no plans to visit upstate NY.

I do always recalculate his baker's percentages and read through the instructions a few times before making any attempt to bake from his book.

What's even worse than the errors is Mr. Leader's failure to acknowledge that there were errors or post a corrective addendum at his website.

Local Breads had been nominated for the 2008 James Beard Award. I am so glad the award went to Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, and not Leader. Mr. Reinhart had the courage and honesty to acknowledge there were typos in BBA, but tooks steps to publicly correct them.

I'm not a skilled enough baker to deal with fixing Leader's errors on my own. I'll simply have to return this book and pick up Reinhart's. It's a shame, cause it seems like there's many a delicious loaf in Local Breads. Maybe V2 will be better, but I'm not sure I'll bother as I'm so disgruntled. I think Dan should step up though and get the errata published on his domain. 

Great news about Peter's book. I've just requested the Library system pick it up. I'm currently delving into the BBA, but whole grains are really where my interest lies. I'm determined to make whole gain breads with a light, open crumb. It CAN be done!

Love

John

Dolf,

First off, thanks for taking charge of this. It's incredibly helpful to a solitary bread making student! 

After drooling and drooling over the photograph adjacent to p. 84, I made the Quintessential French Sourdough from Local Breads. Here's where I should pause for a quick footnote that because I did not have Learner's Levian on hand, and wanted to make it right away, instead I used a white flour sourdough starter that I keep (Reinhart's barm from Crust and Crumb). That starter, by the by, worked perfectly. 

Back to the question at hand -- and this might be nitpicky, I concede. The formula, p. 124, creates darker bread than I'd have expected from looking at the p. 84 photo. This could also be my own judgement. Anyway, have you made the Quintessential French Sourdough, or has anyone else, and, if so, did it come out darker than you expected? What I'm wondering is if that formula contains mistakes as well?

It was great the way it came out, for the record, enough so that I'll make it again and again. But I have picked up a French sourdough at Bread Alone that was lighter and I suppose I expected this one to come out similarly. And since I typically make whole grain breads I was thinking of adding a lighter one. 

I'd be much obliged for any insights you or anyone can provide! 

Thanks,

TS

Thank you kindly. Very helpful, indeed. That is about the color mine turned out so all is good, though I suppose I might test out some slight changes just to see what I can come up with.

Thanks again! 

I have never really had an issue with formulas in Local Breads, but last week I had to chuck a loaf of bread for the first time ever, courtesy of Bread Alone.  Even our local squirrels wouldn't touch it.  I share some of the blame though as I knew his numbers weren't right.

Mike

While this thread is great, I wish there were a more succinct list of errors specified by page number and/or recipe name.  The discussion is useful, but in places where there is an obvious typographical error in the volume, weight or percentage, I'd really just like to know the 'correct' value.  I have had good luck following the metric weights thus far.

Dolf,

 I like to ask how to do spreadsheets for the dough.I do have lot's of books for excel but I do not know how to make spreadsheets.Please, help

                        Saintdennis

I was happy to find this thread, because I was just getting ready to bake this bread and realized the recipe did not make sense.

In particular, the water called for is 60%, which he converts to 300 grams (OK), 10.6 ozs (still OK), and 22 cups (doubly wrong).  I say doubly wrong because there is 1) an obvious typo, presumably 2 cups and 2) 2 cups is 16 oz.  He seems to have used the flour weight to volume conversion, rather than the water weight to volume conversion, to get this.

To compound the confusion, in the written directions, the water is split into 175 grams for soaking the seeds, and the "remaining" 350 grams (300-175=350?)

So, I'm not quite sure what to do here. 

Does anyone know if he has posted anywhere the corrections to all the formula issues in the Local Breads book?  I got the book last year as a birthday gift and only tried one bread in it so far beings I got 6 books for my birthday.  I really wanted Mr. Leader's book beings it deals with sourdoughs which happens to be our favorite bread medium.

Blessings,
Lydia

It is incomplete...I've got some too that I can e-mail Sharon.

Hello!  I've been baking my way through this book, made the first three recipes to much success, and I think I've successfully cultivated the liquid levain.  I am trying to make the Old World Baguette but have had the same problem twice: When I mix up the bread dough (150g water, 300g flour) it yeilds a VERY dry dough.  When I mix in the levain after letting the dough stand for 20 minutes, there is no way to mix the two together.  I get flat, gluey globs that won't absorb the levain at all.  I tried to knead (by hand) for over 20 minutes, and was left with a gelatenous mess with lumps of hard flour pellets. I'm incredibly frustrated and disappointed. I've measured by volume and by weight for each.  What am I doing wrong? 

I couldn't find that anyone else had a similar problem in this thread.

I just mixed up the buckwheat batard dough this afternoon, hoping that it works!

thanks in advance for any help. 

I just had the exact same problem with the Old World Baguette. Thankfully I was directed to this thread. I had wondered about mixing time and speed. Leader says to mix at 4 on the KA mixer for 8-9 minutes. I wanted to go for at least 20 but had no clue if that was right or not. This book is apparently rife with erors and some may be Leader, some may be the publisher, but all of them affect us.  Why in the world would Leader have asked for 8-9 minutes of mixing with such a dough? I have to believe there were too many hands working this book and not enough tresting ot proofreading. In either case it is unconscionable for a book to go to press in such poor shape.

 I have to start again as the first attempt has been tossed out. Alas!

Thanks for tis input. I had suspected more mixing time but with such a short time in the recipe who would have guessed 20 minutes? Or more.

Kim

Hi There

I'm new to this wonderful forum and am in a bit of a quandary over this book.  I ordered it after reading good reviews and having an interest in thecontents, but then started noticing the many threads here and elsewhere regarding the errors in the book.  I immediately decided that when it arrives I'd send it back, but I'm un-sure as to weather that is a hasty decision.  I am a new baker so I won't at this time be paying much attention to the bakers %'s (which seems to be the main source of frustration), but I still wonder if buying this book would cause me more disappointment than good.   If on the other hand the book is 90% amazingly good then should I just bite the bullet and when wanting to try a recipie search the forum first for any erros?

I think part of my reason for reacting badly is down to the inability of the author to provide a comprehensive list of known erros.  Personally I find it inexcusable, but at the same time the content looks incredibly fascinating.

Not sure really, but I would be grateful for the forums advice

Best regards

Ben