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Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook] Hardcover – September 18, 2012

by Ken Forkish (Author)

14,910 ratings

in Pizza Baking

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Portland’s most acclaimed and beloved baker comes this must-have baking guide, featuring recipes for world-class breads and pizzas and a variety of schedules suited for the home baker.

There are few things more satisfying than biting into a freshly made, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-and-supple-on-the-inside slice of perfectly baked bread. For Portland-based baker Ken Forkish, well-made bread is more than just a pleasure—it is a passion that has led him to create some of the best and most critically lauded breads and pizzas in the country.

In Flour Water Salt Yeast, Forkish translates his obsessively honed craft into scores of recipes for rustic boules and Neapolitan-style pizzas, all suited for the home baker. Forkish developed and tested all of the recipes in his home oven, and his impeccable formulas and clear instructions result in top-quality artisan breads and pizzas that stand up against those sold in the best bakeries anywhere.

Whether you’re a total beginner or a serious baker, Flour Water Salt Yeast has a recipe that suits your skill level and time constraints: Start with a straight dough and have fresh bread ready by supper time, or explore pre-ferments with a bread that uses biga or poolish. If you’re ready to take your baking to the next level, follow Forkish’s step-by-step guide to making a levain starter with only flour and water, and be amazed by the delicious complexity of your naturally leavened bread. Pizza lovers can experiment with a variety of doughs and sauces to create the perfect pie using either a pizza stone or a cast-iron skillet.

Flour Water Salt Yeast is more than just a collection of recipes for amazing bread and pizza—it offers a complete baking education, with a thorough yet accessible explanation of the tools and techniques that set artisan bread apart. Featuring a tutorial on baker’s percentages, advice for manipulating ingredients ratios to create custom doughs, tips for adapting bread baking schedules to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource for bakers who want to make their daily bread exceptional bread.

From the Publisher

I was completely motivated to demonstrate how good bread can be.... Ken Forkish, from Introduction

	The Elements of Pizza	Evolutions in Bread

Customer Reviews	3,799	342
Price	$19.95	$15.38
	The James Beard and IACP Award-winning author of Flour Water Salt Yeast and one of the most trusted baking authorities in the country proves that amazing pizza is within reach of any home cook.	The author of Flour Water Salt Yeast teaches you how to elevate your sandwich bread, breakfast toast, and overall bread-baking game using everything he’s learned in the last decade to perfect his loaves.

WARNING: California’s Proposition 65

Editorial Reviews

Review

Winner, IACP Awards 2013 - Baking: Savory or Sweet
Winner, James Beard Foundation Award 2013 - Baking and Dessert

“If books full of stunning bread porn — all craggy crusts, yeasty bubbles and floured work surfaces — are your thing, here's Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish.”
—Eater National

"Legendary Portland baker Ken Forkish (of the watershed Ken's Artisan Bakery and much-loved Ken's Artisan Pizza) has joined the ranks of the lauded letterers with his mammoth new cookbook Water Flour Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza. In Water Flour Salt Yeast, he aims to bring the spirit and quality of his famous crusty, blistered breads to the passionate home baker using those four titular ingredients."
—portlandmonthlymag.com

“Exceptionally detailed and clearly written with dedicated bakers in mind. . . . Cooks and students who are serious about the craft of bread baking will definitely want to check out this title.”
—Library Journal

"Forkish's instructions are clear, concise and incredibly precise... For true artisan bread lovers -- and homemade pizza fanatics -- this book sets a new standard."
—Oregonian, June 25, 2012

"Divided into four sections (“The Principles of Artisan Bread,” “Basic Bread Recipes,” “Levain Bread Recipes,” and “Pizza Recipes”), with recipes broken down by breads made with store-bought yeast, breads made with long-fermented simple doughs, and doughs made with pre-ferments, the book presents recipes accessible to novices, while providing a different approach for making dough to experienced bakers. Plenty of step-by-step photographs, along with a chapter outlining “Great Details for Bread and Pizza,” make this slim work a rival to any bread-baking tome. A variety of pizza recipes, including sweet potato and pear pizza and golden beets and duck breast “prosciutto” pizza, (along with an Oregon hazelnut butter cookie recipe), end the title and inspire readers to put on the apron and get out the flour."
—Publishers Weekly, 6/4/2012

“Ken Forkish’s story is as unique, interesting, and delicious as his famous breads and pizzas. The man abandoned his past, courageously stepped off the cliff and followed his passion, and the result has been a gift to all of us: great breads, fabulous pizzas, and now this beautiful book—Flour Water Salt Yeast—in which he reveals all.”
—Peter Reinhart, author of Artisan Breads Every Day and The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking

“Ken nails it, end of story, when it comes to the best levain bread or the thinnest, most perfect pizza crust you’ve ever had. He has set the bar for Portland bakeries—that’s why we use his bread at Le Pigeon. For anybody looking to bake amazing bread at home, this book is a must-have.”
—Gabriel Rucker, chef/owner of Le Pigeon restaurant

“This fun book offers more than just top-quality bread. Flour Water Salt Yeast reveals all the formulas, processes, tips, and tricks Ken established in his years of experience as a professional baker. But most importantly, it teaches home bakers how to create their own bread using multiple schedules and ingredient combinations. Hey—all that without having to get up to bake in the middle of the night.”
—Michel Suas, founder of the San Francisco Baking Institute and author of Advanced Bread and Pastry

“Ken Forkish is an artisan for our times, and the kind of ‘handcraft-it-yourself’ dreamer who makes Portland, Oregon, one of America’s top food destinations. This book is a handsome expression of his bread-baking vision: Forkish is a man unbound, obsessed by the science of fermentation, and excitedly sharing hard-won secrets and exacting recipes from his celebrated sourdough laboratory.”
—Karen Brooks, restaurant critic, Portland Monthly

About the Author

After a twenty-year career in the tech industry, Ken Forkish decided to leave Silicon Valley and corporate America behind to become a baker. He moved to Portland, Oregon, and opened Ken's Artisan Bakery in 2001, followed by Ken's Artisan Pizza in 2006 and Trifecta Tavern in 2013. His first book, Flour Water Salt Yeast, won both a James Beard and IACP award.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

It’s been five hundred years since I opened Ken’s Artisan Bakery in Portland, Oregon. That’s in bakery years, of course. My bakery actually opened in 2001. I had recently left a nearly twenty-year corporate career for the freedom of running my own venture and doing something I loved. In the time leading up to this risky transition, before I knew what that venture would be, I yearned for a craft and wanted to make a living doing something I could truly call my own. But I was itchy and I didn’t know where to scratch! For many years, I waited for that lightbulb moment of awareness that would signal an open path worth taking. Then, in the mid-1990s, my best friend gave me a magazine featuring the famed Parisian baker Lionel Poilâne. That article gave me the inspiration I was looking for. Not long after that, I began making frequent trips to Paris, and I was deeply inspired by the authentic, tradition-bound boulangeries I visited there. After a few years and a series of evolving ideas, I ended up with a perhaps naive plan to open a French bakery somewhere in the United States. My hope was to re-create the style and quality of the best breads, brioches, croissants, cannelés, and other specialties found at boulangeries and patisseries all over France.

My ensuing career transition was more Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride than simple job change. You could say I answered the call of that ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.” But I came out on the other side with a firm love of the baker’s craft, acknowledging it as much more hard work than romance. The daily rhythms of life as a professional baker, once nearly overwhelming, now provide comfort. The aromas, the tactile nature of the work, and the way the finished products look takes me to a faraway place that is still present, and to have that be the way I spend my days continues to thrill me.

About This Book

I was fortunate to train with many excellent bakers in the United States plus two in France during the two-year between-careers period before I opened my own bakeshop in Portland. What struck me during my professional baking training was that the most important lessons I was learning—how to use long fermentation, pre-ferments, autolyse, and temperature management, for example—were not discussed in any of the bread books I had read. I later encountered books that did detail these things (like those by Raymond Calvel and Michel Suas), but they were targeted to the professional. I was sure that the techniques I had learned could apply to the home baker too.

In the years that followed the opening of Ken’s Artisan Bakery, several notable baking books were published. But I still saw an opportunity to address the techniques used in a good artisan bakery and how they could be adopted for the home kitchen. I wanted to write a book that didn’t totally dumb down these techniques, since the concepts really aren’t that difficult for the nonprofessional baker to apply. And I wanted to break from the mold prevalent in almost every bread book out there (at least until very recently): that every recipe had to use a rise time of just one to two hours. Further, I was completely motivated to demonstrate how good bread can be when it’s made from just the four principle ingredients: flour, water, salt, and yeast.

I also saw the opportunity to address how to make great bread at home with each of the three principle techniques of dough fermentation: straight doughs, doughs made with pre-ferments, and levain doughs, including an easy, unintimidating method for making a levain culture from scratch in just five days using only whole grain flour and water.

In order to accurately use this book’s recipes and follow its logic, I ask you to use an inexpensive digital kitchen scale to execute the recipes and to help you understand baking. One of the fundamentals of artisan baking is using weight measurements instead of cups and tablespoons and being guided by the ratios of ingredients. (Don’t worry, I do all the simple math for you.) While the ingredients tables in each recipe do include volume conversions, these measurements are by their nature imprecise (for reasons explained in chapter 2) and they are included only to allow you to bake from this book while you are contemplating which digital kitchen scale to buy.

My purpose in writing this book is twofold: First, I want to entice novices to bake, so it is written for a broad audience. Total beginners can dive right in with one of the entry-level recipes, the Saturday Breads, for example, right after reading chapter 4, Basic Bread Method. Once you feel comfortable with the timing and techniques involved in those breads, try recipes that involve an extra step, like mixing a poolish the night before. Once you have mastered the poolish and biga recipes, try making a levain from scratch and enjoy the particular pleasures of bread or pizza dough made with this culture. By the time you work your way through this book, you will be baking bread in your home kitchen that has a quality level approaching that of the best bakeries anywhere, along with Neapolitan-style pizza that would make your nonna smile.

Second, this book is also written for more experienced bakers who are looking for another approach to making dough—one that treats time and temperature as ingredients—and who are perhaps looking for an accessible (or just different) method for making great-tasting levain breads. Mixing dough by hand, a process used in all this book’s recipes, may also be new. To me, one of the most unique and important aspects of bread baking is its tactile nature. In asking you to mix the dough by hand, I am also asking you to think of your hand as an implement. Mixing by hand is easier than using a mixer, is fully effective, and teaches you the feel of the dough. People have been mixing dough by hand for thousands of years. If our ancestors did it, we can. And if you haven’t done it before, I hope you get great satisfaction from the process and feel a connection to the past and the history of baking, like I do

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ten Speed Press; 43633rd edition (September 18, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 160774273X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1607742739
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.3 x 0.97 x 10.3 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Pizza Baking
- #9 in Bread Baking (Books)

Customer Reviews:
14,910 ratings

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Ken Forkish

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After a twenty-year career in the tech industry, KEN FORKISH decided to leave Silicon Valley and corporate America behind to become a baker. He moved to Portland, Oregon, and opened Ken's Artisan Bakery in 2001, followed by Ken's Artisan Pizza in 2006 and Trifecta Tavern in 2013. His first book, Flour Water Salt Yeast, won both a James Beard and IACP award.

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Customers say

Customers find this cookbook excellent for sourdough bread baking, providing well-illustrated instructions for technique and taking them step by step through the process. The book is detailed and thorough, with beautiful photographs that serve as a great supplement to the text, and customers report that every recipe works well. They appreciate it as both a first-time and advanced bread baking guide, and find it entertaining to read, with one customer noting it reads like a novel.

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Taste Ease of follow Information quality Pictures Results Bread baker Enjoyment to read Story quality

1,157 customers mention "Taste"1,146 positive11 negative

Customers enjoy the taste of the book's recipes, particularly praising the sourdough bread section, with one customer noting that the results are heavenly as toast with cream cheese and fig spread.

"...a bit wetter dough but it's lovely, a resilient ferment, and makes wonderful bread! And the discard, makes the best crackers I have ever baked!!..." Read more

"...'s methods, and immediately and consistently began making artisan quality bread that looked just like the cover photo with dark brown beautiful crust..." Read more

"...of commercial (unnatural) bread, with gobs of excellent information about bread and method and a stable of recipes, though not as foolproof as Flour..." Read more

"...and much more. While the recipes in this book are also great, once you work your way through this book you will be more than comfortable..." Read more

621 customers mention "Ease of follow"532 positive89 negative

Customers find the cookbook easy to follow, with well-illustrated instructions that take them step by step through 4-5 basic techniques.

"...I find his instructions easy to follow, interesting and very informative, so I welcome his extra information and in-depth discussion...." Read more

"...very useful section on customizing recipes, and discusses how to improvise or adapt to circumstances by thinking of time, temperature and leavening..." Read more

"...to Ken Folkish's book based on the variety of recipes, the precision of the instructions, and the consistent excellence of the outcomes...." Read more

"...It is like a well-written textbook, with the first 80 pages diving deep into technique and how to develop feel and intuition while baking...." Read more

508 customers mention "Information quality"502 positive6 negative

Customers find the cookbook's information quality excellent, praising its detailed explanations and thorough approach, with one customer noting how it guides readers through increasingly complex doughs.

"...I find his instructions easy to follow, interesting and very informative, so I welcome his extra information and in-depth discussion...." Read more

"...He does a good job of delivering reality checks, dispelling myths and reaffirming a few truths about the romantic notions of owning a bakery...." Read more

"...What you will find is a beautiful exposition of standard and classic breads: whites, whole wheats and browns; both commercially and naturally..." Read more

"...It is like a well-written textbook, with the first 80 pages diving deep into technique and how to develop feel and intuition while baking...." Read more

193 customers mention "Pictures"185 positive8 negative

Customers appreciate the beautiful photographs in the book, which serve as a great supplement to the illustrations.

"...from other starters -- it will be a bit wetter dough but it's lovely, a resilient ferment, and makes wonderful bread!..." Read more

"...For one thing, despite the beautiful photography, it is very no-nonsense, with very common ingredients, and doesn't bother with fluffy decorations..." Read more

"...What you will find is a beautiful exposition of standard and classic breads: whites, whole wheats and browns; both commercially and naturally..." Read more

"...The pictures are beautiful and honestly, the bread recipes all turn out great...." Read more

137 customers mention "Results"128 positive9 negative

Customers report that the cookbook delivers outstanding results, with every recipe working like a charm, and one customer mentions being successful with their first loaf.

"...Besides the quality of the results, there are several things that are noteworthy or remarkable about this book...." Read more

"...three of the bread recipes, each with increasing complexity, and they are great!..." Read more

"...The results have been great. I’ve made some really good bread that has been appreciated by many family members and friends...." Read more

"...Even the first bread turned out well. Everyone who tasted the breads was blown away...." Read more

106 customers mention "Bread baker"81 positive25 negative

Customers find this book excellent for bread baking, particularly for beginners and more advanced bakers, with one customer noting it's ideal for culinary students.

"...] - literally a textbook on baking bread, ideal for culinary students or small-scale commercial bakers who have already practiced/..." Read more

"This is really an aspirational book more than anything else...." Read more

"...He learned so much from it and he believes it is great for beginners as the author did a great job of taking time to explain certain terminology/..." Read more

"...There are a couple of practices with this book that I find problematic as a home baker...." Read more

83 customers mention "Enjoyment to read"83 positive0 negative

Customers find the book enjoyable to read, describing it as a novel-like experience that is particularly entertaining and gratifying.

"...character, however, I found the introduction to be informative and fun to read...." Read more

"...It is also pleases everyone, bread aficionados and those who have never tasted artisan bread before...." Read more

"...He highly recommends it. He said it is both and entertaining and informative read...." Read more

"...Reading-on-your-vacation quality writing. It is a well built book...." Read more

76 customers mention "Story quality"76 positive0 negative

Customers love the stories in this cookbook, finding them fascinating and inspirational, with one customer particularly appreciating the author's background and personal journey.

"...I find his instructions easy to follow, interesting and very informative, so I welcome his extra information and in-depth discussion...." Read more

"...I even enjoyed Forkish's amusing, humorous and unpretentious back story, all the more since I lived in Portland for a time...." Read more

"...Very Zen-like in the emphasis on repetition and feeling/sensing what is going on, placing the onus on the baker to think, intuit and adapt...." Read more

"...to fit your day-to-day life, and an entire chapter that demystifies the levain-making process, Flour Water Salt Yeast is an indispensable resource..." Read more

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juliw
Learning -- and love this book!
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2024
Verified Purchase

I'm not new to fermentation. I ferment my own milk kefir, sauerkraut, sumac onion and pickles. But, I have never expanded that into sourdough bread. I took a class at my local library recently and decided to give it a try. This book and Ken Forkish in general was recommended to me by the instructor, and I'm glad I went with her recommendation. He has videos on youtube that are wonderful. And, you can take these recipes, use a bit of math and make them match your baking habits. I bake once a week -- only two of us, that's all I need. And I keep my discard and use to make crackers and all sorts of other goodies. Saw a negative review about waste -- you DO NOT have to throw the discard away. Forkish runs a restaurant and bakes many, many loaves. He can't use all that discard so throws it away. If you are a home baker, there are hundreds of recipes online for things you can make using that discarded levain/starter. I find his instructions easy to follow, interesting and very informative, so I welcome his extra information and in-depth discussion. Levain dough is a bit different from other starters -- it will be a bit wetter dough but it's lovely, a resilient ferment, and makes wonderful bread! And the discard, makes the best crackers I have ever baked!! And the bread is vegan!! :) Baking my own bread just seemed so intimidating before....but with simple ingredients, a bit of knowledge, and basic math skills.....anyone can do it!

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Jbrau
One of the best food books I've ever owned
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2019
Verified Purchase
I've been making very good sourdough bread regularly for years, but I had stagnated, wanted to take it to the next level, and was attracted to Flour Water Salt Yeast by the cover photo and reviews. I bought it and read it almost cover-to-cover, invested in the recommended equipment (12 quart tubs, Lodge dutch ovens, bannetons, etc.), followed Forkish's methods, and immediately and consistently began making artisan quality bread that looked just like the cover photo with dark brown beautiful crust, soft elastic crumb with huge holes, and beautiful flavor. As a bonus, I also went from making unsatisfying pizza to making some of the best pizza I've ever had. Since then I've made almost every recipe in the book (something that just doesn't happen for me, usually), bought Forkish's next book, The Elements of Pizza, and when wowed friends and family ask for my bread recipe, I buy them a copy of this book, because it's not a collection of recipes, it's a system.

Besides the quality of the results, there are several things that are noteworthy or remarkable about this book. For one thing, despite the beautiful photography, it is very no-nonsense, with very common ingredients, and doesn't bother with fluffy decorations of the loaves with stencils or cuts. I really appreciate the omission of such distractions, and appreciate being "allowed" to focus on the recipes and bread as they pertain to eating. Why is this so rare?

As noted elsewhere, this is not a general purpose book in that it just tells you how to make round boules like the photo, and pizza. Again, Forkish focuses in on one thing, explores it thoroughly, and omits distractions. This is so rare, and having explored it well, I appreciate it immensely. The net result is basically a study of how minor variations in nothing more than flour, water, salt and yeast can create very different quality breads.

All of the bread recipes in this book use very high hydration doughs, and are worked with pinch and fold methods rather than kneading. Though I had been making bread for years, both of these concepts were new to me (okay, I had heard of stretch & fold, but as more of an emergency maneuver), but Forkish explains them thoroughly.

For educational value, this book includes a very useful section on customizing recipes, and discusses how to improvise or adapt to circumstances by thinking of time, temperature and leavening as ingredients. While this seemed obvious on first reading, I've found that applying it in practice has revolutionized my bread making. And then there's Forkish's Youtube channel where he demonstrates numerous techniques using recipes directly from this book, just to really give you no excuse not to make amazing bread.

I even enjoyed Forkish's amusing, humorous and unpretentious back story, all the more since I lived in Portland for a time. He does a good job of delivering reality checks, dispelling myths and reaffirming a few truths about the romantic notions of owning a bakery.

Some criticisms I have include the amount of wasted of flour in feeding starter noted in other reviews (which Forkish actually admits in his follow-up book The Elements of Pizza; I use about 1/4 the quantity of the called-for ingredients when making these recipes, and they work out great), I wish there were more pure sourdough recipes, more recipes with higher whole wheat percentages, and some discussion of fresh milled wheat, but these are extremely minor issues. Between the existing recipes and the section on designing my own, I can and will make my own customized recipes to suit myself.

I should also add a footnote that I live at an elevation over 7000 feet, adjusted nothing, and had no problems.

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NewEnglandScene
An Algorithm for Great Bread: OOD + baker's experience + precise instructions = consistently superb artisan bread
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2016
Verified Purchase
If I had to choose only 3 cookbooks to take with me to a new home, this would be my bread book. A close runner up would be Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread, but I give the edge to Ken Folkish's book based on the variety of recipes, the precision of the instructions, and the consistent excellence of the outcomes.

In my review of Tartine Bread, I called this book by Ken Forkish the "Algorithm of Bread", written by an ex-software engineer. Forkish is meticulous in his description of how to bake each loaf, as if he were writing a detailed algorithm for a baker to follow. Starting by defining his bread baking objects in early chapters, he proceeds by chapter from straight bread, to preferments, to natural yeast hybrids, to pure leavened breads, a journey that allows intermediate (and even beginner) bakers to follow a natural bread learning progression. The recipes for all his bread variants produce consistently top-quality loaves. I was shocked when my first preferment loaf turned out nearly perfect, in both form and taste. The algorithm worked.

Chapter 2 is great background on bread and Folkish's methods; the why's and how's of his bread. Chapter 4 describes the core methods used in all of his breads: mixing, folding, dividing, proofing and baking. These are the essential programming (bread baking) objects that are arranged in the bread algorithms (recipes) which compose the rest of the book.

The book has a limited but sufficient repertoire of classic breads. You won't find recipes for esoteric ingredients and combinations. That is not Forkish's intent, nor if I understand correctly is that what he offers in his Portland bakery. What you will find is a beautiful exposition of standard and classic breads: whites, whole wheats and browns; both commercially and naturally leavened. At the end of the book are two chapters on pizza, which I must say I have not read because I don't care for pizza. Forkish has a new book out (or due out soon) devoted to pizza, for the devoti di pizza.

The naturally leavened (sourdough) breads in Flour Water Salt Yeast are better than Peter Reinhart's. They are on par with Chad Robertson's. The results with Forkish recipes are more consistent than with Robertson. The difference between the Zen of Bread (Robertson) and the Algorithm of Bread Baking (Forkish) is that Robertson is less directive and less precise, encouraging the baker to 'feel' what is going on and adjust, while Forkish basically says, "Do this, this and this, and you will get very good bread." ---very much like a conditional statement in programming. And he is right, you do get very good, more likely 'excellent', bread. Interestingly, in a couple places in the book, Ken Forkish credits Chad Robertson for helping him out with technique and ideas when Forkish was learning to bake bread. Nice when the results of the student match or exceed those of the master.

Once I started making the hybrid and pure leavened breads in this book, only occasionally do I go back and make the pre-fermented breads. The hybrids and pure leavens have more complex flavor and last longer on the countertop. I never tried the straight yeasted breads in the book, going right to the preferments. I can truly recommend ALL the hybrid and naturally leavened recipes, with my favorite being the Overnight Country Brown (and also the companion Overnight Country Blonde). The pure leaven breads last for 3-4 days on the countertop under a tea towel and are still great. No other bread I bake is so durable.

Both Forkish and Robertson use the Dutch Over method of baking for wet doughs. That was a brilliant innovation. It is the only way I have found to get the kind of internal moistness and external crispness in leavened breads baked at home. I have tried all the steam and spray techniques without the success of baking an a dutch oven or perhaps a cloche.

Since I have baked with a few bread books, I want to offer my take on how they compare/rank (for me) to give others who might be looking for bread books the benefit of what I have learned. It can be tough wading through bread books, and this is just another (personal) view on what is out there.

Highly Recommended (5-stars)
Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza - best all around artisan bread for home baking, consistently very good to excellent bread. No worries, just follow the directions, it will turn out fine.
Tartine Bread - beautiful exposition of how to bake artisan bread the 'Tartine Way'. Very Zen-like in the emphasis on repetition and feeling/sensing what is going on, placing the onus on the baker to think, intuit and adapt. A close second to Flour Water Salt Yeast. Robertson's signature 'Country Loaf' is still my favorite bread.

Recommended (4-stars)
Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes - literally a textbook on baking bread, ideal for culinary students or small-scale commercial bakers who have already practiced/learned the fundamentals. I use this book occasionally for rye and other non-wheat breads. It is 'THE Book' of bread, but is not as detailed and instructional as Flour Water Salt Yeast. Not a good first book of bread by itself. It is a reference book for me. The recipes are well-tested and delicious.

Good (3-stars)
Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own - an iconoclastic and sometimes pedantic denunciation of commercial (unnatural) bread, with gobs of excellent information about bread and method and a stable of recipes, though not as foolproof as Flour Water Salt Yeast. A bit British in its context, since the English author writes for a mainly British audience. And the author is a bit cranky sometimes. There are some great rye and alternative grain recipes. The wheat breads are okay/good, but because they are not fired (kiln or dutch oven method), they don't have the wonderful crust of the Forkish breads.
How to Make Bread - not as much description as Forkish but great photos, a clean, easy, consistent format. More bread variety (grains and flavor ingredients) than Forkish and very good results by an excellent international baker and teacher. But here is the problem with the non-Dutch Oven (or Cloche) method --it's all just bread. No caramelized, crisp crust the way you get in a bakery. If you can't bake in a kiln or a modern day equivalent, it just isn't the same.
Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor - Reinhart's previous Bread Baker's Apprentice updated for whole grains. Generally an improvement over the prior book. Same format but healthier recipes and more of them, with less of the instructional detail and background on bread.
The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread - good for beginners. Recipes okay, but not great and a lot of stuff other than core bread. The real benefit its the 100 page background to bread and technique. If you are serious about bread, you will outgrow this book quickly

Interesting Books I Am Still Working Through [update to follow]
Tartine Book No. 3: Modern Ancient Classic Whole - the first book, Tartine Bread, is so great, the third Tartine volume is a natural extension
Della Fattoria Bread: 63 Foolproof Recipes for Yeasted, Enriched & Naturally Leavened Breads - reading through it with interest, but have not baked anything yet. Like Forkish, the author uses a dutch oven on some breads.

Specialized Books For Bread-Bakers -- Recommended
The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens - the best treatise on the subject of fermenting
Bread Science: The Chemistry and Craft of Making Bread - all sorts of helpful hints buried in this bread-baker's dissertation on bread. Well worth purchasing as a Kindle book.

Books I Would Like to Try
The Italian Baker, Revised: The Classic Tastes of the Italian Countryside--Its Breads, Pizza, Focaccia, Cakes, Pastries, and Cookies - I have the author's book on Italian grandmother's cooking and love it.
The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Bread Baking - when I think I know everything there is to know about bread, I want to read this tome.

There are also many good baking books with bread-making sections, like Dori Greenspan's Baking with Julia: Savor the Joys of Baking with America's Best Bakers and King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains (King Arthur Flour Cookbooks), which I have used for non-bread recipes but not baked bread from. So many bread books, so little time...

I have very little criticism of Ken Forkish's book. I wouldn't mind some more naturally leavened recipes, and some alternative grain formulations. Maybe that is stuff for his next book. And I am kind of amazed how much leaven/starter is thrown away after daily feeding and care. As I understand it, the reason for the big dose of flour, when you wind up throwing most of it out is so the bacteria can really bloom. But that doesn't quite make sense to me, because it feels like it should all be scaleable. Andrew Whitley Bread Matters: The State of Modern Bread and a Definitive Guide to Baking Your Own and Emmanuel Hadjiandreou How to Make Bread have much more sensible and less wasteful leaven development / maintenance programs. And in my daily starter maintenance program, I have scaled back the Forkish program by a factor of about 10.

Personal Favorite: Pain au Bacon. A killer recipe!

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Sarah
An awesome bread book; good for any eager home baker
Reviewed in Canada on January 8, 2019
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I am absolutely in love with this book. I've had it for about 2 years, and I have never had a failed recipe.

I'm a solid amateur baker. Prior to reading Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast, I had made the NYT no-knead loaf many times, had dabbled in various pizza dough recipes, and I had made a lot of bread-maker loaves and challah. When I wanted to try something new, I bought FWSY based on some research into good, reliable bread books.

The book is a well-organized, easy read. It is divided into sections based around the preparation style for the bread, with some introductory chapters which will help you to understand the science of bread-making and improve your overall results. I would certainly recommend reading those before diving in. Forkish provides suggested schedules for your bread-making, which is very helpful if you want to plan your weekend (or weekday) and quickly know what kind of bread commitment you've made. He has suggestions for slowing down the proofing process, for folding the dough, and for equipment that are all very useful. He's also provided accompanying youtube videos to learn some of the techniques described in the book. Those were incredibly helpful and instructive.

The results have been excellent. I've made most of the breads that call for autolyse, biga, and poolish. They are all incredible, with my personal favourite being the 50% whole wheat bread with biga. I have yet to venture into the world of sourdoughs since I don't have houseroom for the starter, but when I'm making bread regularly, I'm in the habit of saving a small piece of raw dough in a container one week so that I can add it to the dough the next week (after blitzing into the warm water) - a technique my father-in-law uses for his own bread to give it a little extra fermented flavour and a better shelf life.

The only drawback to this book - which may be true of other bread books - is that it calls for a LOT of kitchen equipment that not everyone has readily available. I purchased an instant-read thermometer and a new kitchen scale so I could check my dough and water temperatures precisely. You'll definitely need a dutch oven if you don't already own one. Instead of banneton baskets, I use well-floured kitchen towels lining metal bowls, and it works ok but isn't perfect. Finally, Forkish calls for large plastic containers for mixing and proofing the dough. I had a large canning pot with a clear glass lid which I use instead, but if you don't have one of those, you may need new equipment. All in all, that brought the price up from around 40 CAD to about 70. However, since I already used a kitchen scale and needed a replacement, this wasn't a big deal for me. Additionally, the instant read digital thermometer has now become a household staple and is a huge improvement compared to our old one.

I love this book and heartily recommend it to anyone willing to devote a little time, attention, and energy to learning beautiful bread-making techniques. Best of luck!

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Darío Couixin Capistrán Guerrero
Excelente libro
Reviewed in Mexico on March 16, 2020
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Muy bien libro! Lo recomiendo mucho para todos aquellos que deseen adentrarse en el mundo del pan y las masas. Información muy completa y súper bien explicado.

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Chattahoochee Tern
For a professional result
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 25, 2020
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I've several books on bread making, but this one has guided me to the most professional end result. Ken Forkish has done a superb job of taking the methods and techniques employed by a craft bakery and converting them for home use.

Making bread the Forkish way required several leaps of faith though. For example, I'd been told to strenuously avoid having the yeast coming into contact with the salt. Here, yeast and salt are sprinkled across the top of a flour and water dough. He recommends using ordinary plain flour rather than strong bread flour. The amount of water can seem excessive (and actually some reviewers suggest reducing the amount by 5% to allow for UK rather than US flour). Quantities of yeast can be extremely small.

I followed the instructions for the most basic recipe, Saturday white bread, and am extremely pleased with the end result. It's a notably professional looking crusty loaf with a pretty good flavour (more advanced recipes produce ever more flavoursome loaves). It involved learning some new dough handling techniques but wasn't painful at all. I watched the author's accompanying short videos via YouTube - well worth it. (Just Google ken forkish flour water salt yeast youtube). The elapsed time was 7 1/2 hours, but very little of my time was required. The method is no knead, just some stretching and folding. I followed the instructions carefully, though I halved the recipe amount to produce dough for just a single loaf. (I did not adjust the % of water, at 72% for this recipe, it was close to the 70% I am used to).

The author specifies quite a lot of kit: accurate electronic scales (ideally measuring tenths of a gramme), instant read probe thermometer, mixing tubs, proofing baskets (bannetons), and 1-2 cast iron casseroles (Dutch ovens). I used the large bowl from my stand mixer, an oval banneton, and the oval cast iron casserole I use for chickens (others have used pyrex to good effect).

The recipes use either dried yeast or levain (sourdough) or a hybrid of the two.

It's a good eBook with linked lists of recipes at the start of each recipe chapter. For the most part the author repeats instructions in recipes rather than referring back. Photos to illustrate techniques are a reasonable size.

Just one less enthusiastic note. His method of creating a levain (sourdough starter) involves a large amount of flour and is very wasteful. However, others have simply scaled back on his recommendations.

Thoroughly recommended.

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Chattahoochee Tern

For a professional result

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 25, 2020
I've several books on bread making, but this one has guided me to the most professional end result. Ken Forkish has done a superb job of taking the methods and techniques employed by a craft bakery and converting them for home use.

Making bread the Forkish way required several leaps of faith though. For example, I'd been told to strenuously avoid having the yeast coming into contact with the salt. Here, yeast and salt are sprinkled across the top of a flour and water dough. He recommends using ordinary plain flour rather than strong bread flour. The amount of water can seem excessive (and actually some reviewers suggest reducing the amount by 5% to allow for UK rather than US flour). Quantities of yeast can be extremely small.

I followed the instructions for the most basic recipe, Saturday white bread, and am extremely pleased with the end result. It's a notably professional looking crusty loaf with a pretty good flavour (more advanced recipes produce ever more flavoursome loaves). It involved learning some new dough handling techniques but wasn't painful at all. I watched the author's accompanying short videos via YouTube - well worth it. (Just Google ken forkish flour water salt yeast youtube). The elapsed time was 7 1/2 hours, but very little of my time was required. The method is no knead, just some stretching and folding. I followed the instructions carefully, though I halved the recipe amount to produce dough for just a single loaf. (I did not adjust the % of water, at 72% for this recipe, it was close to the 70% I am used to).

The author specifies quite a lot of kit: accurate electronic scales (ideally measuring tenths of a gramme), instant read probe thermometer, mixing tubs, proofing baskets (bannetons), and 1-2 cast iron casseroles (Dutch ovens). I used the large bowl from my stand mixer, an oval banneton, and the oval cast iron casserole I use for chickens (others have used pyrex to good effect).

The recipes use either dried yeast or levain (sourdough) or a hybrid of the two.

It's a good eBook with linked lists of recipes at the start of each recipe chapter. For the most part the author repeats instructions in recipes rather than referring back. Photos to illustrate techniques are a reasonable size.

Just one less enthusiastic note. His method of creating a levain (sourdough starter) involves a large amount of flour and is very wasteful. However, others have simply scaled back on his recommendations.

Thoroughly recommended.

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Marko Šubarić
Ultimate bread book :)
Reviewed in Singapore on May 17, 2020
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Book is amazing! Making bread is wonderful, relaxing, form of art. Not just book with the recipes but also an interesting read.

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K. Townsend
Excellent book if you have a strong attention to detail
Reviewed in Spain on February 8, 2018
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I own a large collection of books on bread, and FWSY by Ken Forkish gave me some of the best early results when I started learning how to bake 'artisan' bread at home. There are many excellent books out there (anything by Peter Reinhart, for example), but Forkish's FWSY is excellent if you're a highly analytical and detail oriented person, and you'll appreciate the minute attention to temperature, time and quantity that might turn some other people off. (As an engineer, it scratches the right itch for me, but might drive some people crazy without that being a judgment of them in any way.)

The book is based on baking bread in what Americans call a 'Dutch Oven' (what the French could call a 'cocotte'), which helps simulate a commercial steam injection oven. This is what allows you to have a crispy crust, but a soft, airy interior, since the moisture is kept inside the dutch oven during the first half of the baking process. It gives excellent results in a home oven, but it will require an investment of 50-150 EUR for a good quality 24cm dutch oven (Staub or Le Creuset on the high end). It's an investment that will last years and give excellent results, but it does require an investment up front. All recipes in the books are based on two loaves that can be bakes in a 24cm model (plus or minus a couple cm!). You'll also need a gram level weight scale, and ideally a second scale that goes down to 0.01g units for ingredients like yeast, which are sometimes <1g total depending on the recipe. Thankfully, precise digital scales are readily available and affordable today.

The books will give you excellent white and whole wheat breads in a home oven, and also covers pizza which is a large part of the home baking audience. For anyone technically minded and willing to pull a thermometer out, and work with measurements at the gram (or milligram!) level, you'll find both the process and the results highly satisfying!

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Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza [A Cookbook] Hardcover – September 18, 2012

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Best book to learn from for beginners up to very experienced bread bakers

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5.0 out of 5 stars Learning -- and love this book!

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best food books I've ever owned

5.0 out of 5 stars An Algorithm for Great Bread: OOD + baker's experience + precise instructions = consistently superb artisan bread

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars An awesome bread book; good for any eager home baker

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente libro

5.0 out of 5 stars For a professional result

For a professional result

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5.0 out of 5 stars Ultimate bread book :)

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book if you have a strong attention to detail

Learning -- and love this book!

One of the best food books I've ever owned

An Algorithm for Great Bread: OOD + baker's experience + precise instructions = consistently superb artisan bread

An awesome bread book; good for any eager home baker

Excelente libro

For a professional result

Ultimate bread book :)

Excellent book if you have a strong attention to detail