Bread Built on Fundamentals, Not Kitchen Mysticism

Welcome to Fill Up on Bread.

1. What this is

Fill Up on Bread is a newsletter for inquisitive home bakers who want bread built on fundamentals, not kitchen mysticism.

The goal isn’t just big holes or pretty scores. The goal is bread that’s worth eating: loaves with balanced fermentation flavor, good texture, and a crust and crumb that actually taste like something—on the day of the bake and for days after.

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2. The problem with most bread you see online

A lot of bread you see online looks impressive and tastes…fine. Usually that’s because it’s optimized for photos, not for flavor or repeatability.

Common pattern:

• Undermixed dough
  Weak structure that never really supports a long, flavorful fermentation. The crumb might look “open enough” in a photo, but the texture and keeping quality aren’t there.

• High hydration, under-fermented dough
  The trend is to push hydration as high as possible, then keep fermentation on the short side so the dough still has enough strength to stand up and spring in the oven. On camera, it looks great. In practice, it often means a heavy, slightly wet, pasty crumb that’s functionally underproofed and noticeably chewier than what you’d get from a well-fermented loaf at a good bakery.

• Unnecessary effort
  These doughs are harder to mix, harder to handle, and more stressful to manage—often needing extra folds, constant babysitting, and an automatic autolyse step whether the flour actually benefits from it or not.

Add to that:

• Vague, mystical language (“let the dough tell you when it’s ready”) that doesn’t help you fix anything.

• Recipes written around flours and conditions that don’t match your climate or the flours that are readily available to you at the grocery store.

You’re left with bread that photographs well, sometimes has a flashy crumb, but lacks the deep, balanced fermentation flavor you get from dough that was mixed, fermented, and baked on purpose.

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3. What I mean by “fundamentals” (and why they matter for flavor)

When I talk about fundamentals, I mean a handful of variables that control how your bread tastes, not just how it looks:

• Dough strength
  Enough initial development that the dough can handle a longer, more flavorful fermentation without collapsing. Proper strength lets you push for more flavor and still end up with a tall, well-structured loaf.

• Temperature
  Dough temperature, not just “room temperature.” Temperature shapes fermentation speed and the balance of acid, aroma, and gas. It’s one of the cleanest ways to control flavor and timing.

• Prefermented flour (PFF)
  How much of your flour is pre-fermented in a sourdough preferment (or yeasted preferment) that goes into the final dough, and how that changes timing, strength, and acidity.

• Fermentation curve
  Not just “bulk for 3 hours,” but how gas and acid accumulate over time. Good flavor isn’t about hitting a single perfect time; it’s about steering the curve so you arrive at the oven with dough that’s fully fermented, not rushed or blown out.

• Flour behavior
  How the flour you actually buy at a typical U.S. grocery store behaves—how strong it is, how much water it will realistically take, and how it responds to mixing and fermentation.

If you understand these, recipes stop feeling like magic spells and start feeling like specific points in a system you can adjust.

A quick note on terms
Online, you’ll often see the word levain. It’s just French for “sourdough.” Here I’ll use sourdough culture for the ongoing starter you keep, and sourdough preferment for the final build you mix into the dough. I stole this nomenclature from King Arthur; if you’re used to the word levain, that’s what I’m talking about—I just prefer plain language.

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4. What you will (and won’t) find here

You will find:

• Clear explanations of how dough strength, temperature, PFF, and flour interact to produce flavor.

• Techniques designed for flours you can actually buy in a typical U.S. grocery store.

• Fermentation plans aimed at tasty bread, not just “good enough to hold shape.”

• Schedule-aware examples that assume you have a job, a life, and a normal fridge.

• Troubleshooting that starts from flavor and crumb, not just “did it rise.”

• Recipes, formulas, and step-by-step processes when they actually help you apply an idea in your own kitchen.

You won’t find:

• Mystical language used to cover for a lack of understanding.

• Hydration peacocking as a stand-in for skill.

• A random wall of recipes with no shared logic.

• Me describing something as “soulful” when what I really mean is “I haven’t taken the time to understand the process.”

I’m not trying to turn you into a lab technician. I’m trying to give you enough structure that when you taste your bread, you know why it turned out that way—and how to change it next time.

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5. Who this is for (and who it isn’t)

This newsletter is for you if:

• You’ve baked some bread already and suspect it could taste better than it does.

• You’re curious about why your dough behaves the way it does, not just whether it “passed the poke test.”

• You’re willing to pay attention to things like dough temperature and fermentation timing.

• You’d like your bread to have real, balanced fermentation flavor—mild or bold, but never flat or harsh.

This newsletter is probably not for you if:

• You only want quick, one-off recipes and don’t care how they work.

• You’re mainly here for crumb shots and aesthetics.

• You never want to weigh ingredients or think about time and temperature.

You don’t need to be a scientist. You just need to be willing to notice what’s happening and adjust on purpose.

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6. What to expect next

Over the next few posts, I’ll be writing about topics that all tie back to flavor, fundamentals, and the flours you actually use:

• Why hydration isn’t your main lever for open, flavorful crumb
  How fermentation timing, dough strength, and flour choice usually matter more than pushing hydration higher—and where hydration actually does move the needle.

• Dough strength and undermixing in normal home kitchens
  How to build enough structure up front—by hand or with a mixer—so your dough can handle longer, better-tasting fermentation without collapsing.

• Stronger than you think: U.S. grocery-store flours and what they do to your dough
  How typical U.S. all-purpose and bread flours compare in strength to flours from elsewhere in the world, why that matters, and how to adjust mixing and fermentation so you get flavor instead of tight, rubbery loaves.

• Fitting flavorful bread around a real schedule
  Using sourdough preferment, PFF, and dough temperature to make room for proper fermentation flavor without wrecking your day.

In many of these posts, I’ll include concrete recipes, formulas, and processes so you have something specific to try—not just concepts to think about.

I’m planning on roughly two posts per week, plus occasional smaller notes or experiments as they make sense.

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7. How you can help shape this

To make this useful, I need to know what you’re actually dealing with.

If you’re up for it, hit reply (or leave a comment) and tell me:

• What flour you usually buy, and

• In a sentence or two, what you don’t like about the bread you’re currently baking.

For example:

“I use King Arthur AP and my loaves look fine but taste kind of flat.”

or

“I get good rise and ear, but the inside tastes underfermented or ‘young’.”

I won’t be able to respond to every message individually, but I’ll use these patterns to decide what to tackle next—and some anonymized scenarios may show up in future troubleshooting posts.

If this sounds like the kind of bread writing you’ve been looking for, subscribe, stick around, and maybe forward this to the one friend who also suspects most bread online looks better than it tastes.

No mysticism. Just clear, repeatable techniques for the inquisitive home baker—and bread that actually tastes good.

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