I sat down today to try to begin work on the Sour Flour Training Manual, and didn’t really know where to start. I created a Word document, wrote “Sour Flour Training Manual” on it, and then stared at it for a while. I ended up deciding that I would be writing an outline of topics, and started a list: History (of Sour Flour), Philosophy (of Sour Flour), Ingredients, Scoring, Steam, Activity of Starter, Loading the Oven, along with a few others. I quickly got overwhelmed with the task at hand, and ended up closing the document without saving.
I do have a bubble chart similar to the Sour Flour Structure for the Training Manual, but it is currently being borrowed by someone else. I made it at the same time, and I will be interested to see what my thoughts were surrounding the Training Manual 10 months ago. But more importantly is what my thoughts surrounding it are now. I want to teach people how to make bread. Not just make bread, but master bread. I want the bread from any Sour Flour Baker to be the best bread any person eating it has ever tasted.
The 4 reasons I initially gave for why I would be working with bread were:
- Everyone eats it
- It’s been around for a long time
- It’s very simple
- It’s very complex
The Training Manual is supposed to combine the complexity and the simplicity. It is supposed to show how easy it is to make bread, but also how customizable it is.