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| Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor | 
 enlarge | Creator: Peter Reinhart
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $21.94
You Save: $13.06 (37%)
New (35) Used (5) from $21.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 3257
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 309
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.2
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 9.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1580087590
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.815
EAN: 9781580087599
ASIN: 1580087590
Publication Date: August 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 another great addition to the library September 12, 2007
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
I signed up for the testers list for this book, (albeit too late)so hopefully I'll get in on the next!
I have made many a recipe from this book already with fantastic results. I am a professional baker as well as an avid home baker, so the techniques are ones that I use already, with a few original tweaks. That being said I believe someone with little or no experience could make quality bread following the instructions within a few dedicated attempts.
I love the combo of formula, knowledge, story, science and spirituality that always come with a Peter Reinhart book.
I like how many of the formulas allow you to pick and choose your soaker grains to make the bread's flavor what you desire. I went out and stocked up the pantry with wheat berries, rye berries, millet, polenta, kamut, and many other grains. Cool and healthy!
I love the portion dedicated to enzymes as I am always looking for that extra tidbit of knowledge to give me an edge. I have been studying every bit of available information regarding enzyme action in bread making, so I welcomed the info. Hopefully Peter will expound on this more in the future!
I was intrigued at how pleasantly soft the "crust and crumb" of the majority of these loaves are. That, balanced with the crunch/chew of the grains, make for very pleasing loaves of bread.
I would recommend this book to everyone and am looking forward to Peter's class next year in Sonoma to hear him talk about the methods first hand!
Buy many copies!
Excellent source for whole grain baking September 12, 2007
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is the book I've been waiting for! I love whole grain/multigrain breads, but have never had any success baking them myself. Most of my whole wheat breads turn out like bricks and taste very bitter. Not anymore! Peter explains in detail how enzymes help break down the barrier to success in whole grain bread baking.
I really enjoyed his first book, A Bread Baker's Apprentice, which is a great precursor to this one. The recipes in his new book are not that complicated and I have already had successful (and tasty) results. Now I have no excuse for serving my family anything less than healthy whole grain breads. Thanks Peter!
New procedures, great taste: update September 9, 2007
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
I'm revising this review now that I have considerable experience with the book and have seen a class on it by Chef Reinhart. I am tremendously enthusiastic about it. At this point I have made whole wheat, several variations on rye, the miche, anadama, mash, the focaccia, whole wheat mash, 'spent-grain' (uses leftovers from beer making). I've made both hearth and loaves, and on the ones where you can use a buttermilk biga or your mother starter I've done both. I have had NO failures. A sheet pan of the focaccia serves two. (:->
This 'epoxy' method sounds complicated but it actually is very, very fast compared to traditional methods, and very simple. To say that you make the loaves over two days makes it sound rather ominous, but the fact is that the stuff on the first day occupies maybe half an hour at most. Later that day you just remember to stuff the biga or starter part into the frig, but it is very fault-tolerant as to time. The second day has a predictable timeline that is just like making one-day bread -- and you get to pick the second day out of the next several, so if something comes up, just leave it in the frig.
Some tips:
a. When the book says 'tacky', it means about as sticky as the sticky part of a post-it note.
b. Get some powder-free latex gloves (I got mine at Safeway) and put one on your strongest hand to mix / knead the soakers and bigas the first day, right in a small bowl. No need to get the mixer out, just measure, squeeze, squeeze, fold, fold, throw away the glove and you're done.
c. Best tip in the book: if you need to add both oil and honey, do the oil first and the honey won't stick to the spoon. See page 98 for other tips.
d. White whole wheat (as sold by King Arthur, for example) ought to be sweeping the country. I make my mother starter out of it and then if I need to make a bread that normally uses a white-bread starter, the color is unnoticeable. Unless you are a purist, you don't need a bunch of different starters.
e. Agave instead of honey is interesting.
Original review follows:
This book is not for beginners. You should have some experience with the various kinds of recipes in the The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It is also not an omnibus bread baking book -- even the cinnamon buns (gasp!) are whole grain.
Importantly, the rhythm of the process is really much easier. You make two parts, a 'soaker' (flour salt buttermilk, for example) and a riser part (sourdough starter or a small amount of yeast, flour, water). It takes 15-20 minutes and you're done, and later in the day you come back and put the 'riser' in the fridge. That's similar to what you are used to from TBBA or refreshing your starter.
The second day you put the two parts together with a considerable amount of yeast and some recipe-specific ingredients, knead it a little, and let it rise. With all that yeast in there it is going to rise in a short, predictable time, and that's what I liked -- I had a good idea when I would need to be there for shaping and baking.
The book production people should get a lot of credit. There are lots of helpful photos and the layouts are clean and pleasant, and easy to read.
I have found consistently that I need more liquid than called for in both books. The author makes the point that you have to adjust for your local flour, humidity, etc. Believe it.
Since the book is new I have limited experience but the outcomes so far are fantastic. Now if I was only not so bad at shaping...
Amazing Grains at Last September 8, 2007
11 out of 15 found this review helpful
Finally! A book that truly "gets" what bread bakers have been after with whole grains. Peter Reinhart has the experience, has done the research, and has tested, tested and tried, and the results are an amazing book. I have bought every book on baking for whole grain bread, and this is the first one to put it all together and make a truly wonderful loaf. The book is gorgeous from every detail - the incredible photos, detailed instructions, tips, chapters of background and tips for the less experienced baker, and great instructional photos for shaping. This book is wonderful in every way, and should be on the shelf of every baker.
Ideal book for a very specific audience September 5, 2007
146 out of 151 found this review helpful
Let me make a couple of things clear up front. First, this book is not for the casual baker who likes to toss a recipe together on short notice, throw it in the oven, and be done with it; Reinhart goes the extra mile of effort to extract every last ounce of perfection from whole grain breads.
Second, it is entirely possible to make delicious whole grain breads without using his complex methods. I've done it using the recipes in both the King Arthur Flour Company's "Whole Grain Baking", and "Secrets of a Jewish Baker". If you are the aforementioned casual baker then I highly recommend picking up one (or preferably both) of those books instead.
However, this is the perfect book for the cook who's always fiddling with their recipes trying to make them Just Right. It's the ideal companion for the home baker who's willing to go the extra distance to get not just delicious and enjoyable whole grain bread, but perfect whole grain bread. It isn't the right book for everyone, but for the right audience I can't imagine a better read.
Do be sure to read the first few chapters, which explain the history and science behind Reinhart's methods. Not only is it fascinating stuff, but it's necessary to give you the understanding you'll need to make the most of the recipes. Unlike simple recipes where you can just follow a few steps and be done with it, these methods require you to have a feel for the doughs. The amount of kneading required, for example, can vary so much depending on which grains you've used, how you've kneaded them, and so on. If it weren't for Reinhart's "windowpane test," which has you test the gluten development of a bread by gently stretching the dough and seeing if you can stretch until it's somewhat translucent (illustrative photos are included), we wouldn't have known that the difference in airiness between the loaves we made was entirely due to kneading. But because he armed his readers with that knowledge, we were able to make a loaf of super-high-fiber oat bran bread that was fluffy. Yes, I did indeed just describe a whole grain high-fiber bread as fluffy.
No matter the grains you want to try in your breads, you'll find a formula to use them in here. Quinoa? Cooked rice? Bran? Doesn't matter--there's a recipe in here you can use. Reinhart has also included a number of `transitional' breads that use part-white flour and part-whole grains so as to ease your transition to whole grains.
The recipes do involve a certain amount of flipping around from section to section, and you need to start them the night before. (In the case of those recipes involving a wild yeast starter--which he does tell you how to make from scratch--you'll need to engage in even more advance preparation.) The book is complex in ways that normally I would hold against a cookbook. However, in this case I won't. These aren't unnecessary complexities at all.
Reinhart set out with a very specific goal in mind--the creation of the perfect whole grain loaf of bread--and did everything he had to do in order to achieve that goal. Through playing with the recipes I'm convinced that everything he has you do is, in fact, integral to achieving his fantastic results. It may take you a few tries with any given recipe to make it come out perfectly as you learn how to gauge the feel of the doughs, but with practice... well, let's just say I'm going to take a break after this review to go back to the fridge for some more oat bran bread. Surprisingly yummy, fluffy oat bran bread.
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