The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens

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Summary: Le pain sous toutes ses formes
Review: "The bread builders" est un magnifique livre, qui fournit toutes les informations scientifiques ou pratiques que tout amateur de pain aimerait trouver. En plus le livre comporte une partie tout aussi passionnante sur la construction des fours à pain. Sans oublier les bonnes adresses de boulangerie dont le Cheese Board de Berkeley que j'ai personnellement testé et que je vous recommande! Et non, il n'y a pas qu'en France qu'on apprécie le bon pain. Une bonne claque aux idées reçues!

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Summary: Bread Builders: Hearth Loves and Masonry Ovens
Review: All you need to know to build your own brick oven. Wonderful bread recipes are included.

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Summary: Bread Builders: Hearth Loves and Masonry Ovens
Review: All you need to know to build your own brick oven. Wonderful bread recipes are included.

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Summary: these guys know their stuff!
Review: As an erstwhile professional baker, I learned plenty ...and I could tell from the good bread advice that the oven-building advice is authoritative and just what I've been looking for. This book is essential reading for anyone who seriously wants to bake good bread. Thank you, Chelsea Green, Daniel Wing, and Alan Scott. WELL DONE!

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Summary: Wonderful book, wonderful resource
Review: Dan Wing and Alan Scott have answered all the questions I have ever asked about bread and ovens, and then some. After baking regular yeasted bread for years, I learned to make small, wood-fired ovens out of mud, and started making naturally leavened breads. In the process, I stumbled onto some of the "secrets" of good bread, for which I was very happy. For people who don't want to spend years stumbling, however, The Bread Builders is a thorough, authoritative, and inspiring door into the hows and whys of really good bread. For people who already know the "secrets," it's an absolutely brilliant explanation and exploration of what makes good bread (part of which is, of course, the oven).

If you want to understand the principles of what you're doing, this is it. And if you want to build a commercial quality oven for baking your own bread, here are plans and detailed instructions. I have had the pleasure of meeting, and learning a little about ovens from Alan Scott. I am very happy that now, in addition to having a master baker on my bookshelf, I also have a master oven builder as well. Thank you both very much.

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Summary: Best book on natural leavens I have read
Review: Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 16:33:05 -0700

From: Darrell Greenwood<[e-mail]>

Subject: The Bread Builders -Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens

I had a very interesting book pop through the mail slot yesterday, 'The Bread Builders - Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens' by Dan Wing and Alan Scott.

When Dan wrote me for my address so he could send me a review copy he noted in his enthusiasm for his newly minted book "It's a really good book." After receiving it yesterday I noted in my enthusiasm for his newly minted book, "It's a really good book" and it is :-).

You get for your $35 the best book I have read on "natural leavens" or sourdough. It has no recipes but sets out to teach you the basics underlying baking bread with no commercial yeast... and succeeds very well. The book is 254 pages, paperback, indexed, and well illustrated with color and b&w photographs, graphs, line drawings and a glossary.

Starting out with interesting introductions by Alan Scott and Dan Wing, the book's chapters wind their way through Naturally Fermented Hearth Bread, Bread Grains and Flours, Leavens and Doughs, Dough Development and Baking, Ovens and Bread.

Interspersed in the chapters are 'visits' where a separate article describes a visit to an interesting bakery or baking related location ranging from Vermont to California. The book's clear and easily readable style is assisted with sidebars and notes clarifying various points. I do like the notes in the margins as this book does rather than at the bottom of the page.

But wait, that is only half the book. You get thrown in for free another book, on how to design, build and operate a masonry oven. Its chapters range through Masonry Ovens of Europe and America, Preparing to Build a Masonry Oven, Masonry Materials, Tools and Methods, Oven Construction, Oven Management and A Day in the Life at the Bay Village Bakery. If you are not up to rushing out to build a masonry oven right away, 3 methods are given to approach the results in a masonry oven, cloche, baking stone, and you'll have to read the book to see what I am going to be doing with a metal pot, cookie sheet and pie plate.

All in all I believe this book is a good read for aficionados of sourdough, and they would find it a good reference work for inclusion in their library. As a book for someone switching from baking yeast bread to "natural leaven" bread they would probably regard ownership of this book as priceless gift. For someone starting out in bread baking it would allow them to get a really good understanding without all the "old wive's tales" that unfortunately dog some sourdough advice. I know it will find a treasured place in my library and be well thumbed through as it assists me in achieving the perfect loaf.

Cheers,

Darrell

Rating:
Summary: Where's the dough!
Review: I was expecting something more like a SUNSET magazine type presentation...this book is not a "how to" manual on building an oven. In fact, the directions given were so poorly presented that it felt like I needed to hire these guys to do the job. Outlines, guidelines, drawings or anything else one would expect for buildiing a brick oven were completely lacking. The bread portion of the book is well...okay, but it has been better written and done elsewhere. I would pass on this book and keep looking

Rating:
Summary: Where's the dough!
Review: I was expecting something more like a SUNSET magazine type presentation...this book is not a "how to" manual on building an oven. In fact, the directions given were so poorly presented that it felt like I needed to hire these guys to do the job. Outlines, guidelines, drawings or anything else one would expect for buildiing a brick oven were completely lacking. The bread portion of the book is well...okay, but it has been better written and done elsewhere. I would pass on this book and keep looking

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Summary: A joy for the serious bread baker amateur, or professional.
Review: I've been a serious amateur bread baker for more than thirty-five years. In that time, I have learned that magnificient bread can be made of the simplest of ingredients. Often, I have found it difficult to convey to friends that wonderful bread is "built" (to use the term in the book's title) upon the subtleties of technique rather than on the complexities of recipes.

Dan Wing and Alan Scott have provided bakers with a wonderful book that teaches these techniques and the principles that contribute to their success.

In addition, they provide detailed information about building that masonry oven I've been dreaming about for years. I think that it will soon become a reality.

Rarely have I felt so appreciative of a new book.

I offer these highly skilled authors my sincere thanks.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Resource
Review: I've read this book cover to cover at least three times, with some sections so mauled and tattered that frankly, I should replace the book. For that I'll await the next edition. I've lent this book to several bread-building friends and felt fortunate to have it returned - though usually not until their own copy arrives.

You see, besides being incredibly well written and edited, the primary contributor to this book is a life-long contributor to the community of baking fine breads. While Alan Scott does publish the plans for ovens described in this book - they are not included in the book. You would need to acquire them separately. He does however provide fairly detailed drawings, photographs and directions in the book for one of his ovens that are adequate for someone with a minimum of construction skills to build one of his ovens from just the book (I did).

This is hard to describe, but Alan Scott seems to be a person truly committed to the lifestyle surrounding the community of baking fine bread. Alan expresses this by defining (and these are my words) that a goal of our "culture" should be to create a community that can create and support the artisan who builds a fine loaf of bread, as well as the artisan with the knowledge and skills to build a fine oven to bake that bread. For me, this represents a refreshing break from the world of finance and technology that represents so much of my life.

This is a book that can change your perspective on the world. It's terrific and should be an important reference document in the library of eveyone who bakes bread, or wants to.