Twelve Steps from Grain to Bread

Did you know that baking bread is a multi step process? 

There are 12 steps from wheat to a crusty fresh bread to be exact. It’s not a rocket science, you know. But choices you make at each step will affects the final result: the taste, shape and texture of a loaf.

So let me to take you through an amazing journey of making handmade bread.

Step 1. Grinding the grain 

Freshly ground grain is first and only way to healthy baking. If you want to eat healthy baked goods than the main ingredient has to be healthy and wholesome. We mill our own flour every time we start a new batch of dough. Our grain is 100% organic and our flour is fresh and wholegrain.  

Step 2. Measuring and Mixing

It’s important to measure a right amount of ingredients. As I said before it’s not a rocket science so you can tweak here and there, play with the recipe in order to reach the desired results. But it’s important to pay attention and do your math, if you don’t want to put too much sugar or forget about yeast altogether. Mistakes at this stage are usually costly.

While mixing baker sets for herself three mail goals: distribute the ingredients evenly, activate the yeast and help the gluten start to develop. At 7 Grain we do everything by hand. It takes about 10 minutes a loaf to mix the ingredients well. And it’s a hard work I have to say!

Step 3. Fermentation (Rising)

It’s a miracle step. That’s the time when yeast starts working and transforming still ingredients into a living dough. Because we are making large batches of dough, we are making a starter (or bulk ferment). Often it’s done one day before actual baking. The flavor and texture of bread to be are developed during the fermentation process. So if your bread is too sour or bland then probably the fermentation didn’t go too well (may be yeast was too old, or it was too cold or too hot). Yes, the dough is rising itself, but it doesn’t mean that baker can relax. While the dough is rising you may need to punch it down few times in order to degas it.  

Step 4.   Dividing

When dough is ready it feels like the baby’s skin. It’s soft and warm. And it’s a pure joy to touch it. You should handle it very gently, but quickly, dividing it into individual units that will become loaves. At 7 Grain we use the scale to make sure that all our loaves are the same.  

Step 5. Pre-shaping

Usually Steps 4 & 5 go together. One of us is dividing the dough, the other forms it in the round balls or torpedo shapes, depending of what we are making to do with them. This step insures that the loaf will have an beautiful smooth crust.

Step 6. Resting

Dough was punched and shaped so it has to rest a little bit before it will get the final shape. It’s needed for gluten that became very tight during the pre-shaping to relax and become more elastic again. The rest time depends on a bread type. It takes from few minutes to few hours. Fermentation process by the way still continues in the units.

Step 7. Final shaping

The dough balls are finally shaped into loaves, baguettes or buns. Don’t think it’s that easy. It’s an art. Every shape has it’s own tricks that you learn over time. If you shape the dough gently, the bread will have large irregular wholes in it. In some types of bread it’s not desirable, so you need press it harder to degas the dough. There are variety of different shapes: traditional brick, torpedo, ball, baguette, round and knotted rolls, braids and wreathes. These are traditional, of course, I’ve seen bread in the shape of bunnies, lambs, letters and even Christmas tree. So some bakers run wild.

Step 8. Panning

This step takes seconds, while you are putting the loaf in a bread pan where it will be baked.

Step 9. Final proofing

The dough “proves” it’s alive and well by filling the baking pan. It grows and takes its final size. This step may be short or long, depending on a temperature and humidity. If you don’t give the dough enough time to proof, the bread will not be as big as it could be. If you give it too much time, the middle of the top can fall down during baking. Any way right timing is everything here or your bread will be small, dense and won’t bake through.

Step 10. Baking

It’s the process of transforming the live dough into bread. A moment of truth so to say, that shows if all the preparations you did were in vain or not. The proteins in the bread coagulated by the heat, the starches gelatinized and sugars caramelized. You’ve done your best, so now you are just admiring the golden glow of the baking crust and enjoying the aroma of fresh bread.

Step 11. Cooling

When you get it from the oven and let it cool, the bread continues to bake for a while, driving off the unnecessary moisture. It’s very tempting and hard to keep yourself from breaking the fresh loaf and biting into the moist and hot bread. But the truth is that bread still is not ready, it doesn’t have the right texture and flavor. To be healthy and digestible the proteins need to cool down and firm up for 6 to 8 hours.      

Step 12. Packaging and Storing

The bread goes into paper or plastic bag and we bring it to the farmers markets for you to enjoy. Our fresh bread has to be refrigerated. It has no preservative that’s why its shelf life is very short. You can freeze it up to one month.

It’s complicated but fun process. We go through it with every type of bread over and over. But we love to bake for you, guys.