Degrees of Complexity Ingredients: Flour, water, salt, sometimes yeast. Time. Air temperature. Water temperature. Time. What kind of flour? Organic? High protein, low protein? High extraction rate? What mix of white, whole wheat, rye? How many types of white flour do you use: type 55, type 70, type 85, etc.? Roller milled or stone ground? How is the levain culture maintained? Is it stiff or liquid? Kept at what temperature? Fed how often, with white flour, whole wheat, or a combination? How long before mixing the dough is the levain fed, twelve hours, six hours, two hours?, and what water temperature is used in the feeding? Is a pre-ferment used in addition to or instead of natural levain, and if so, is it a poolisch, sponge, pate fermentee? Is the flour and water mixed before adding the levain and salt (the autolyse process)? How long before, 30 minutes, twelve hours? How long is the dough mixed, with what kind of mixer? Do you give it folds after the mix? How much salt? How much levain? How much water? What shape loaves? What kind of oven? How much steam? These are a lot of decisions for a baker to make. Modifying any one of these variables creates a different bread. A good artisan baker understands how to manipulate these variables to produce the bread he or she wants. That’s why I laugh, okay groan, when I see the supermarket advertise Artisan Bread. The real craft is turning these three ingredients into wonderful, complex, aromatic loaves. It’s a small percentage of bakers who really succeed. Flour, water, and salt. Three ingredients yielding an infinite number of possibilities. Give any two bakers the same ingredients, and even the same equipment, and you will almost always get two different breads. Long, slow, cool ferment? It’s called retarding. In the first fermentation, or after the loaves are shaped? Or both? For how long and at what temperature? If they are retarded after shaping, do you want to proof them at high temperatures, ease them gradually to room temperature, let sit out for a couple hours, or load immediately into the oven? Retarding after the loaves are shaped takes more space and more expensive, specialized equipment. The retarder needs a condensor, to be mounted on the roof, water line run to it, maybe 3-phase power. Retarding in bulk, in the first ferment stage, only needs a dedicated refrigerator big enough to hold the dough bins. Why retard in the first place? No doubt about it, the long, slow fermentation creates a greater complexity in the bread. Retarding improves croissants and brioche too. Most bakeries skip this step. It adds much time to the process, and more equipment. It makes better bread.