After Decades in High Tech, Nathan Myhrvold Wants Us All to Make Perfect Bread at Home, Part 2

Dr. Nathan Myhrvold has had a long career as co-founder of the software company Dynamical Systems Research, as head of advanced technology and business development at Microsoft for fourteen years, and as the founder of Global Good to invent technologies for global health and development, and the Institute for Disease Modeling. Today, he devotes himself to Modernist Cuisine, founding in 2007, The Cooking Lab, a culinary research laboratory, photo studio, and publishing house, which in 2011 produced the 2,500-page book Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cookingfollowed in 2013 by Modernist cuisine photography, SO In 2021 three volumes on modernist pizza, and this spring, with Franciso Migoya, Modernist bread at home. I interviewed him about how and why he clearly went where no one else has gone before on these topics.

You say it was a mystery why German rye bread tasted better than American bread. What did you discover?

In our quest for great rye bread around the world, we keep coming back to one question: Why are bakers in Germany, Austria and the Nordic countries, countries that love rye bread, able to produce light and fluffy rye breads using only rye flour, while baking the same bread in the United States results in a dense, brick-shaped loaf? Our research on this topic led to one of our most important discoveries: Austrian and German rye flour and American rye flour differ significantly, which has a significant impact on the breads baked with them.

We consulted baking experts, grain chemists, and millers, but no one could explain the difference between rye flours. Finally, we found the answer in a paper written by German grain scientists, which helped us understand two things: First, rye grown for the Austrian market is different from that grown in the United States; second, particle size matters.

In Austria and other countries where rye is a staple food, considerable research is being done to improve rye grain to produce better rye bread. In the United States, most rye is grown as a cover crop, so varieties are selected based on that crop and not on the grain’s baking characteristics. At harvest time, more rye is used for animal feed than for human consumption.

The other key difference between Austrian rye flour and American rye flour is how it is milled. Austrian flour is often milled finely, to a very fine particle size, with almost all of the bran and germ sifted out. It is much finer than American bread flour. American rye flour, on the other hand, is not milled as finely. It is often marketed as a coarsely milled “flour.” Additionally, most American rye flour also contains bran and germ, making it similar to whole wheat flour.

When working with breads that contain a high percentage of rye flour, especially our 100% Rye bread, you will find that the consistency of the dough is quite different from that of wheat-based doughs. Very little gluten will form, so the mixture will have a texture more like a dough or clay. Fortunately, the texture of the bread will become lighter through fermentation and baking, although rye breads have a naturally denser crumb than wheat breads.

What’s the key to a crispy crust?

If you simply bake a loaf of bread in your oven, the water that evaporates from the surface of the dough will begin to dry out and thicken. Even if all the water in the dough evaporates, it will not produce a crispy crust. To create this, you need steam. When steam is injected into the baking environment while baking bread, it condenses on the dough, instantly and dramatically increasing the surface temperature of the dough. When this happens, the starch on the surface gelatinizes into a thin film called a pellicle. It is this thin film that will dry out to produce a super crispy crust.

Professional bakers use steam-injection ovens, which can fill the baking compartment with steam at the push of a button, to ensure that some loaves have a crispy crust. This is not an option for home bakers, who over the years have come up with a multitude of tricks to try to fill their ovens with steam. We tried these ad hoc solutions (such as putting a heated brick or stone in a pan of water at the bottom of the oven) and many others and found that none of them worked particularly well. The method that does work is much simpler: baking the dough in a sealed container. This not only creates and traps steam, but also improves heat retention, a problem with most home ovens.

The combo cooker consists of a skillet and a deep pot that lock together when nested together. A combo cooker is affordable (you can find them for around $45). This is by far our favorite pot.

Why do you say that adding ascorbic acid makes better bread?

Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is an antioxidant that occurs naturally in many fruits, but in widely varying concentrations. It can interact with flour proteins to strengthen or loosen dough, depending on the conditions. In fact, you’ll find it in many brands of flour, including those marketed to home and professional bakers. We add a small amount to some of our recipes, especially those using low-gluten flours, because it strengthens the dough and improves its structure. It’s also a key ingredient in our Your Daily Bread recipe, which makes enough dough that you could harvest a piece and bake a loaf every day for two weeks. In this case, ascorbic acid significantly reduces oxidation, which can be a problem for dough that’s been stored for that long.

Bakers can purchase purified ascorbic acid commercially, but crushed vitamin C tablets work just as well. Or, for those who prefer unpurified ingredients, you can use fresh rose hips (the fruit of roses), which are rich in ascorbic acid.

The recipes are, for good reason, very precise but laborious. Have you simplified them for family cooking?

For Modernist bread at home Our goal is to break down recipes in a way that home bakers can better understand not only the what (ingredients) and how (methods) but also the why. To achieve this, we put a lot of thought into designing the format of our recipes.

We provide recipes with centralized instructions and minimal cross-referencing so you have the information you need at your fingertips. Graphical “dashboards” provide a quick summary of the time required, difficulty level and yield of each recipe, as well as the shelf life of the bread.

How important is the oven in home baking?

This is incredibly important, which is why our biggest goal with this book was to ensure that all of our recipes can be done well using a home oven. Home ovens are ideal for many enriched and skillet breads, but are more difficult to achieve successfully for crusty lean breads (fortunately, we have developed a technique using cast iron that will make excellent bread.)

There are two types of home ovens: convection and non-convection (or static or fixed). A convection oven uses a fan to circulate air throughout the oven; the evenly heated air transfers heat more quickly, so a convection oven cooks everything inside faster than a non-convection oven.

Regardless of the type, home ovens present several challenges for the baker: They don’t heat as well as deck ovens; they’re smaller than deck ovens, meaning some loaf shapes or sizes must be scaled down to fit; because of their lower thermal mass, they don’t absorb or radiate heat as efficiently, which can cause your loaves to bake unevenly; and they can’t produce steam, which is key to a crispy crust.

That being said, you can bake excellent quality bread in your home oven (skillet breads in particular work well in the home oven). There are many workarounds for the problems described above and several different methods for creating steam.

Are there really many people who still make their own bread? I guess most Europeans buy their bread from the local baker.

That’s right! In fact, it’s a really fantastic time to love bread, whether you want to make your own at home or support local artisan bakeries. We’ve seen a lot of people get into bread while they’re at home during COVID, and we’re seeing that interest pick up again. Many people have developed an appreciation for really good bread over the last few years. I really want to encourage people to try their hand at making their own bread. Homemade bread is a great joy, and I hope you’ll experience it in your own kitchen.

How many copies were printed?

We currently have over 405,000 copies of our books in print in nine different languages.

What’s next for Modernist Cuisine?

Our team is hard at work on our next multi-volume book. which will focus on bakery and pastry products.