Who is the author of Flour Water Salt Yeast?

Ken Forkish is the author of Flour Water Salt Yeast.

Health & Nutrition

Flour Water Salt Yeast Book Summary - Flour Water Salt Yeast Book explained in key points

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Flour Water Salt Yeast summary

Name: Flour Water Salt Yeast
Rating: 4.1 (26 reviews)
Author: Ken Forkish

Ken Forkish

The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza

4.1 (26 ratings)

28 mins

Brief summary

Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish is a comprehensive guide for mastering the art of making perfect bread. It explores the chemistry behind baking, outlining techniques for creating artisanal loaves, pizza, and more.

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Cook Books

Table of Contents

Flour Water Salt Yeast
Summary of 9 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 9

What’s in it for me? Discover the methods for creating great quality bread at home.

There’s nothing quite like cutting into a freshly baked loaf of high-quality bread, smothering it with butter or dipping it in oil, and savoring its complex flavors. And these days, you can get all this without splashing out on a holiday to France.

There’s been an explosion of interest in traditional, artisan bread making in recent years, and it’s even possible to create tasty, complex, professional-looking bread from the comfort of your own home.

These blinks shine a light on the world of high-quality home baking. They’ll take you through the principles you need to know, explain what equipment you’ll need to get, and gently walk you through the process that lies behind great bread making.

Feel free to skip through these blinks if there’s stuff you already know, or if you want to get to the method right away. Blink 1 will introduce the author of Flour Water Salt Yeast, Ken Forkish, and Blinks 2–4 will explain the principles and setup you’ll need to get used to. Then, Blinks 5–7 will outline the methods for making bread, and for creating your own levain culture – otherwise known as a sourdough starter. Finally, Blinks 8 and 9 will explain how to adapt those methods for making specific types of bread, pizza or focaccia.

And, along the way, you’ll find out

what the two secret ingredients are in every recipe;
why you really shouldn’t be measuring stuff by volume; and
how to make a yeast culture that you can maintain for decades.

Becoming a baker

Almost everyone with a busy business career has dreamed of packing it in and starting over. A new life as a baker sounds particularly idyllic – making artisanal bread, serving your friendly neighborhood community, starting work at 3.30 each morning to tend to your yeast culture…

Wait, what?

Ken Forkish, the author, is not your average career changer. After 20 years in the tech business, he decided to retrain as a baker, and he now runs Ken’s Artisan Bakery in Portland. But despite having traded in his suit and tie, his new line of work is still seriously hard work.

Especially if you’re a perfectionist like Forkish, baking can be super demanding. For a professional bakery, where things need to be ready for the early morning rush, that means some seriously early starts.

You’ll be relieved to learn that it’s possible to create great-quality bread at home – to a far more normal-sounding schedule. A little perfectionism still goes a long way, though.

The key message here is: After a career change, Ken Forkish became a brilliant baker, thanks to his obsessive, detail-focused drive.

Back in 1995, Forkish was working in tech, and had barely baked a loaf in his life. But something about a magazine article he read sparked his imagination. It was about a famous Parisian baker, Lionel Poilâne, who had spurned modern technology and returned to the subtle craft of traditional bread making.

Before he knew it, Forkish had joined the Bread Bakers Guild of America and enrolled in a course at the San Francisco Baking Institute. He also studied with numerous other experienced pros, so that he could emulate the greatest and most traditional boulangeries in France.

He found his perfect location in Portland, Oregon, a town with a great food scene that he thought would welcome his ambitious, artisanal plans.

He was right, and Ken’s Artisan Bakery is still going strong. In fact, it’s now expanded – Forkish runs a pizza place as well.

One reason for Forkish’s success is his passionate, even obsessive focus on detail. Thankfully, you don’t have to adopt his punishing schedule to make great bread at home. However, you do need to do a lot more than follow a recipe – you need to understand the principles. And that’s what we’ll look at now.

Principles

Given the title of Forkish’s book, you might think that there were four basic ingredients to making bread. Well, technically yes, but in fact there are two more elements to consider that don’t need to go on your shopping list. They are time and temperature.

Flour, water, salt, yeast, time, and temperature can combine in an infinite variety of ways, to produce an infinitely subtle variety of breads. With experience, you’ll be able to manipulate these elements to get perfectly baked bread that has whatever variations you want in taste and texture.

Equipment

Ken’s Artisan Bakery is the proud owner of a 1,200-square-foot open kitchen, an Italian oven weighing 15,000 pounds, a cool room known as the retarder where mixes can ferment at a particular temperature, and all the professional kit he needs. For his pizzas, he has a wood-fired oven that reaches temperatures of more than 1,000°F (538°C).

How in the world can you compete with that in your home kitchen?

Pre-ferments and levain baking

Have you been eagerly awaiting that famously trendy term sourdough starter? Well, here we go… sort of. It’s time to talk about yeast.

First of all, do remember: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with commercial yeast – in fact, it’s a vital ingredient of most of Forkish’s recipes. But some of the fun in home baking comes from creating your own yeast culture. And for that, all you need is flour, water, and that crucial extra element, time.

Making bread – the essential method (Part 1)

There are infinitely many subtle ways to adapt the breadmaking process by shifting the ratios of flour, water, salt, yeast, time, and temperature – as well as by using different mixes of flour, and developing the yeast in different ways.

But there’s a common core to all the methods – not a recipe, so much as a blueprint. And this is it: the outline of the process you should pretty much always follow.

Making bread – the essential method (Part 2)

Step 3. Folding.

Several times while the dough is resting, give it some extra strength by folding it. Like before, reach your hand in and fold the mix over on itself. Then invert it so it’s shaped like a ball.

Making a levain culture

Making a levain culture might sound like a lot of work, and there’s no denying that it requires care and attention, strung out over multiple days. But once you get into the routine, it’s a process that’s nice and simple to keep going, with minimal effort required each day.

Plus, you can think of it as an investment for great bread stretching way into the future. Forkish’s levain culture dates all the way back to 1999.

The different types of bread

There’s a scientific aspect to baking, especially for an obsessive like Forkish. But it’s never just a numbers game.

In other words, while you do have to stick to the correct ratios of ingredients, and the methods outlined above, baking also gives you the chance to indulge your creativity and find your own signature style.

Making pizza and focaccia

It’s possible that you’ve committed to using a whole kilo of flour, but will struggle to get through the two entire loaves that’ll produce. But don’t panic – you can use the dough to make other stuff, too.

And not just any other stuff – stuff as delicious as pizza and focaccia. So let’s take a look at the method needed for that.

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What is Flour Water Salt Yeast about?

Flour Water Salt Yeast (2012) by Ken Forkish is a guide to the principles underlying high-quality baking, that you can apply to your own baking at home. By learning the fundamentals and developing a good technique, you can master the art of home baking and develop your own individual baking style.

Flour Water Salt Yeast Review

Flour Water Salt Yeast (2012) is a comprehensive guide to baking artisan bread at home. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Expert tips and techniques help readers master the art of baking, creating delicious loaves with professional-level results.
With its step-by-step instructions and detailed recipes, the book empowers beginners and seasoned bakers alike to confidently explore the world of bread making.
Beautiful photography showcases the mouthwatering creations, making the book visually appealing and inspiring to try new recipes.

Who should read Flour Water Salt Yeast?

Experienced home bakers looking to up their game
Baking novices who don’t know where to start
Anyone looking to develop an exciting new skill.

About the Author

Ken Forkish left the tech world behind after a 20-year career to retrain as a baker, and he now runs Ken’s Artisan Bakery, as well as Ken’s Artisan Pizza, in Portland, Oregon. Flour Water Salt Yeast was his award-winning first book, and he has since written The Elements of Pizza.

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Health & Nutrition

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