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Crust & Crumb Academy
920 members • Free
60 contributions to Crust & Crumb Academy
41m •
To introduce myself
I started baking all of the bread for my wife and six children this past December. I started this because one of my daughters had been dealing with constent tummy aches most of the time and taking her to the doctor only resulted in her having to take laxatives with little to no change to her condition. After switching to homemade bread her tummy aches have almost completely vanished and now only seem to return occasionally if we eat out. I also started making sourdough bread at the same time and I am hoping that joining Crust and Crumb Academy will help me become a better baker. The videos I have seen so far have been very helpful.
2 likes • 18m
Welcome to the party @Randal Borgerding. There’s mountains of valuable information available to everyone provided by our fearless leader @Henry Hunter. Plus don’t hesitate to ask for help. There are many informed members more than willing to contribute on topics they have some knowledge of. Feel free to flash some pictures of pretty loaves that come out of oven at anytime.
31m •
Same recipe… different hydration & different bulk fermentation ending
THE DOUGH (SAME FOR ALL THREE) - Flour: 100% - Water: 72%–75% - Salt: 2% - Starter: 20–25% - Starter hydration: 100% Same ingredients Same process Same dough Only the fermentation changes everything
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22h •
Focaccia
I needed a confidence booster with my sourdough baking. I do what I know works best for me and that is focaccia, even though it is a high hydration dough. It is very resistant and forgiving. For some unknown reason, it always works to my favor to which I am blessed. I made a savoury one today to be gifted to my neighbor as she just lost her mom. I wanted to do something special for her and she loves my focaccia. She loves it simple and I honor her request. Otherwise, I would have jazzed it up and be creative again. I added rosemary, garlic and cherry tomatoes as this is her favorite. I was fascinated to find these colorful cherry tomatoes and supposedly organic. I wish it looked just as pretty before it was baked. After baking it, it loses it's attractiveness. This is my opinion only as beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
2 likes • 5h
@Sandy Chong now that you’re successfully making focaccia sourdough you’re very close to making a boule or a batard loaf. Start watching videos about how to preshape and final shape either. You’ll be posting pretty pictures of authentic artisan sourdough loafs soon…👨🍳
1 like • 3h
@Sandy Chong the most common comment I get after a 4 hour class of completely inexperienced beginners is… “I thought sourdough was supposed to be much more complicated than this” If you review the progression of my system after mixing and gluten development, 30 minutes total, half of which is a 15 minute bench rest, you don’t touch the dough at all for 2 hours. Then all you have to do after bulk fermentation is over is divide the dough and preshape it and let it bench rest for 20 minutes again. Then you final shape it and let it bench rest again while it final proofs. You already know how to do most of that stuff… I’m confident you’re going to be another one to say… I thought it was going to be much more complicated than this.🤷♂️
23h •
Tartine Country loaf right next to Gaylord’s 75% hydration loaf…
A friend brought me a loaf of bread from Tartine Bread Company. It’s a bread company I really admire. They make bread differently than I do. Every once in a while i reduce my inoculation and slow down the fermentation process the way they do just because I respect their methods and success. This picture is their signature loaf. I can pick their loaves out of a crowd of unlabeled loaves.
4 likes • 17h
@Sandy Chong all of my loaves are very close to 1000g into the banneton. Tartine looks like they are using 1200 to 1300g of dough per loaf. They have big loaves.
4 likes • 8h
@Candi Brown-McGriff Tartine has earned their fame as the most renowned sourdough bread merchant in America because their product is extraordinary. Looks, taste, texture and crumb. They are the best in the business in my humble opinion. I’m in the process of reverse engineering this loaf of their’s I have now. I can’t use it in the classes for beginners yet because it takes much longer than my same day warm dough system. But eventually I’ll add another class to move beginners into slower higher hydration loaves like Tartine makes.
4 likes • 20h
As soon as you are done mixing, before there’s been any rise, put the dough in your 2 liter vessel and with a sharpie pen… draw a line indicating the starting point. Let’s say it’s 3”… if you want a 50% rise just measure up the wall of the vessel and draw a line at 4.5”. If you want a 70% rise measure up to 5.1” and draw a line there.
7 likes • 17h
@Linda Gregory yes… in a straight sided vessel the rise goes straight up. I keep my tape measure handy. I always make the same amount of dough… 1200 grams of flour. So I know when I put my normal batch of dough into my bulk fermentation vessel it is exactly 4” up from the bottom of the vessel. So a 50% rise is 6” up from the bottom of the vessel. A 65% rise is 6.6” from the bottom. It takes the guesswork out of when bulk fermentation is done…😉
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@gaylord-foreman-9623
Just an old retired guy that likes making sourdough bread…👨🍳
Active 7m ago
Joined Apr 9, 2026