A few days ago I sat down with @Des Dreckett of Content Revenue Lab for a podcast interview about how we built Crust & Crumb Academy. Des runs one of the sharpest community-building Skools on the platform, based out of England. He posted a teaser in his group this morning ahead of the full video dropping. I wanted to share it here because the question he kept coming back to is the one I get asked most often: how is Crust & Crumb growing the way it is, and what are we actually doing differently? My answer is always the same. It starts with the people. The tools, the content, the work, all of it sits on top of that. Strip out the members and there's no community to build. I'll post the full interview here the moment it drops. In the meantime, if community building is something you think about, go say hello to Des and tell him where you're from. He's good people. 👉 https://www.skool.com/content-revenue-lab-4761 ~ Henry ⭐🔥 ---------------------------------------------------- This guy grew his Skool community faster than almost anyone else on the platform - video tomorrow I've just finished interviewing one of the fastest-growing community owners on Skool and I'm still in the edit suite putting the final touches on the video. It drops tomorrow. Here's a snippet to give you a taste of what's coming. Henry built Crust and Crumb Academy into a powerhouse community and the way he thinks about using social media to drive growth is something every community builder needs to hear. This is the kind of conversation that genuinely changes how you approach things. Watch the clip, then come back tomorrow for the full video. In the meantime, you can check out Henry's community here: https://www.skool.com/crust-crumb-academy-7621/about?ref=c75adaa832e449d8b1ef463c22b1d8a9

I know it’s late, but I had to have some. The baguette was my excuse.

I need someone to bake this and tell me how it turns out. I’ve never seen anything like this in all my born days. I need to know.

Ever switch flours and your dough suddenly feels different… but you can’t explain why? This is one of the reasons. Ash content tells you how much of the grain is still in your flour. Higher ash means more bran and germ. More flavor. But also more interference with gluten. What that looks like in your dough: Less strengthMore fragilityMore sensitivity to handling If you treat it like standard bread flour, it’ll fight you. Same pattern you’ve seen with ancient grains. This is where understanding your flour starts to matter. Not just what it is… but how it behaves. That’s ash content.

One of our members asked about getting good steam in a gas oven. I lost track of the original post in the inbox before I could reply directly, so I'm answering it here for everyone. Before I dig in, let me say this: gas vs. electric matters less than most bakers think. The vent in a gas oven pulls moisture out faster than electric, but the fix is the same either way. Stop trying to fight your oven. Create a sealed chamber instead. The easiest fix: use a Dutch oven. The lid traps moisture released from the dough itself during the first phase of the bake. Doesn't matter what kind of oven you have, the Dutch oven makes its own steam. Bake covered for the first 20 minutes, uncover for the rest. Solves 90% of steam problems for both gas and electric. If you don't have a Dutch oven, layer your steam: A cast iron or steel pan on the bottom rack, preheated with the oven. Pour 1 cup of boiling water into it the moment you load the bread. Boiling, not cold. Cold water cools the pan and produces less steam. A few ice cubes tossed onto the oven floor at the same time. They melt slowly and release sustained steam. Cover the loaf with a metal bowl, roasting pan, or even an inverted aluminum foil pan for the first 15 to 20 minutes. Same principle as a Dutch oven, just scrappier. Works better than you'd think. Why this matters more than gas vs. electric: The first 10 to 15 minutes of the bake are when steam does its job. It keeps the crust soft so the loaf can fully expand (oven spring), then helps the crust crisp and brown later. After that, you actually want the steam gone. So whether your oven holds steam well or vents it fast, the goal is the same: trap moisture early, release it later. The real takeaway: Don't overthink the oven type. Focus on the chamber. If you've been struggling with flat, dense, pale loaves, fix the steam first. Then come back and tell me how it went. I'm dropping two videos from my YouTube channel below that go deeper on this. Lesson 1 covers why steam matters and what your oven is actually doing. Lesson 2 walks through the enclosed baking environment, which is the foundation of every steam method I just described.