re: Making Artisanal Bread

quote:

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anyone read through this?

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yes, mentioned it upthread. It's a good entry point to high-hydration, low-kneaded bread. But, the Forkish book has more info on manipulating time and temperature to achieve more interesting flavors. Lahey focuses on recipes, he doesn't dive deeply into stretch & fold as a low-intensity technique...and his shaping instructions aren't so great. It's pretty much a wet blob & he encourages very limited shaping....whereas Forkish provides some detailed descriptions on how shaping builds internal structure into a wet dough. If you care about stuff like the grigne/ears opening up along lines scored into a loaf, then read Forkish before Lahey.

Lahey's My Pizza, his second book, is the formula I routinely use for baking-steel-broiler pizza in my home oven that is every bit as good as a wood fired pizza.