Rookie from CA

Like you I struggled for years, following all the wrong recipes and using the wrong techniques. I stumbled on the video tutorial below (link):

Craftsy-Baguettes by Jeffrey Hamelman

 By no means a definitive work on the art/craft of bread making, it explains all of the questions and misunderstandings that you noted in your posting. It also walks you through the process of making a good baguette in your home oven.

He covers the tools, ingredients, baker's math and techniques used in the process, and he is an excellent teacher and presenter. Since I live in Vermont and am relatively close to the King Arthur Flour Training Center, I am seriously thinking about plunking down the "dough" for a french bread class taught by him.

Abandon recipes and move on to formulas. Strictly control times and temperatures. Use precision by weighing ingredients instead of measuring them. Your first purchase should be a scale that displays in 1 gram increments and can adapt to tare, which you can purchase for as little as $40 dollars.

Think precision and progressively work towards a baguette that you (and others) consider visually appealing with an audible crackling when squeezed, along with a pleasing aroma. Develop techniques that will create a moist and flavorful open crumb, without an excess of moisture after the baguette cools. When changing your methods or ingredients, only change one thing at a time and measure the results. If the change does not net the desired result then fall back to a known successful formula and try something else. The friendly folks around this forum will be happy to share their experiences and provide direction. I think the video will help you learn how to ask the right questions as well.

As you develop your skills you will begin to "sense" when the dough has reached maturity by touch, sight and smell. Since each bag of flour is a little different, each bag of yeast a little more or less active - you get the point - we have to learn to recognize proper dough development and adapt accordingly. To me this is the artistic side of bread making and the hardest part for this "technically-minded" novice practitioner. When you are comfortable with applying what you have learned, and feel you have control and an understanding of the processes, then branch out to the myriad of other breads and formulas.

Like carpentry (as an example of a craftsperson) anyone can nail a couple of boards together. Master carpenters  develop their craft over many years. Mediocre bread making is easy. Excellent bread making takes time, effort, and an acceptance of failure. Enjoy the journey.

If your goal is to make a loaf at home that's a clone of a SD produced by a renowned bakery, it's going to be very difficult, in part because you don't have access to the same equipment and/or ingredients. But it's a matter of diminishing returns. Making a consistently good loaf isn't nearly as hard; you can learn to do so fairly quickly. 

No matter which you're aiming for, you basically need to learn to produce good loaves before you can make great ones. So, if you want to bake at the level of Robertson, Baker, etc., fine. But don't expect or try to get there in one step that bypasses most of the learning curve they travelled. 

Just remember to have fun!

1 cup water, 2.5 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, glob of starter = 1 bread. Combine, knead or stretch and fold, ferment, shape, proof, bake covered in preheated Dutch oven 20 mins at 450, uncovered for another 20 mins at 350, consume. It really can be that simple, and all the additional details, starter care, tweaks, and techniques will come with practice, the right tools, and some reading here, of course!!

This is a starting point for when the charts, starter builds, hydration ratios and the rest are just a bit too much. Measuring in cups is obviously not accurate, glob size can vary a lot, different flours behave differently, shaping can vary, results can be hard to replicate exactly, etc, et al, ad infinitum. The reason I got specific about the Dutch oven is that no other single technique has made such a dramatic improvement in my results. 

If you start simple and try to incorporate one or two tips and techniques you pick up from other bakers each time you make bread, your personal bread journey will soon take you wherever you want to go. Some of the more experienced and accomplished bakers may correctly note that I've grossly simplified things, but one must begin somewhere. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from learning by feel and practice until you've made the process your own. Once you learn the basics, you can decide whether you want to be more of a scientist or an artist or anywhere in between. 

Many of the more accomplished bread bakers on this site were at one time in your situation. At first it seems there were too many new things coming together without a full understanding behind them (the why I am doing this at this time type of question). One word of warning, being able to bake good bread will change your dietary habits for the better.

Here's a list (in no particular order of importance) of hints that will help you along as you progress;

• Do use your senses to taste, feel, smell and observe the dough. Develop this to an art by concentrating while doing so.
• Buy a nice big (4.0 L) pyrex glass or a see through plastic mixing bowl that can be placed into a free Costco plastic meat bag for periods of fermentation. Make sure they're dishwasher safe (the bowls that is).
• When mixing flour with water always allow the stirred mixture time to allow the water to be fully absorbed by the flour so that biological elements can begin to react - this is called "hydrolys".
• Temperature is important; 77 dF is ideal sourdough fermenting temperature; 82.4 dF best for wild yeast and rise.
• Learn the age old French method "travail sur trois levains" (the work of the three levains).
• Get a kitchen scale and learn to adroitly use the gram scale (you'll be amazed at how easy this makes things).
• Become so familiar with Baker's Percentages (or Baker's Math) that you think of recipes in this format.
• Find a good source of flour preferably organic if available within your price range.
• Use sea salt. Large grain sea salt can be made fine with a spice or regular blender.
• Think about how much bread you'll need to bake on a regular basis; back into the recipe with this requirement
• Learn to schedule with the rhythm of the bread (one of the harder parts but you'll realize that you're a pro when this becomes second nature and your cell phone timer alarm goes off telling you that you have to go tend bread.
• Buy several electronic timers.
• Buy a non-contact infra-red thermometer.
• Buy bannetons (brotforms) that suit you loaf needs or improvise with colanders etc.
• Buy an oven stone.

That's enough for now. Most of the equipment above aren't required (except the glass mixing bowl) to get started but are nice to accumulate as you progress through your state of the art. You'll be staring through the oven window watching bread bake in no time...,

Wild-Yeast