What to look for in Bread (seeking advice)

[Euclid]

I love good bread but I honestly dont know a thing about what im looking for in a loaf when i buy it.
Ive recently discovered an old world style baker in my town, i went into his shop and i realized that while the french bread looked good, i had no idea if it was good or not.
I mean im in college, if i want to show off i buy a loaf of french bread from walmart, pop it in the oven for a bit before the lady im hosting for comes over and we have not just bread but warm and CRISPY bread. Its very impressive.
Anyway, the stuff this guy has looks fantastic but i dont know much about choosing bread loafs. Is it like choosing produce, bad spots on tomatoes, on apples, firmness in avocados, thunk in watermelons, ect, or is there something else to it?

 

[holiday]

Bread from an artisan baker like the one you mention is likely to be worlds apart from the Walmart loaves. It is likely to have a real crust with a nice open crumb structure, rather than a thin flaky crust a lot of supermarket bread has. I often find supermarket bread to have no substance to the crumb and be overly light, when squeezed it kind of goes flat and stays squashed. I'm guessing the artisan baker will use some kind of slow ferment which will improve the flavour dramatically. Supermarket stuff is all about the profit which in turn means how quickly it can be produced. I would say try a loaf from the baker, you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Artisan bread is a real treat and to be able to buy it everyday is pretty rare where I come from.

 

[WhosYerBob]

I love good bread, too. I tried to convince my wife to make it for me, but she just laughed and told me I could do it myself. So I did.

Three ways to do it:

• Buy a frozen loaf of dough from the grocery store and bake it.
• Buy a bread maker, load it with the ingredients, push the button and bake it.
• Make it from scratch yourself and bake it.

The bottom one delivers the best results.

If you don't want to do it yourself, artisan bakers are hard to beat. Just shop around until you find one that make bread that appeals to you.

 

[thebikingengineer]

I love good bread, too. I tried to convince my wife to make it for me, but she just laughed and told me I could do it myself. So I did.

ONE way to do it:

• Make it from scratch yourself and bake it.

The bottom one delivers the best results.

If you don't want to do it yourself, artisan bakers are hard to beat. Just shop around until you find one that make bread that appeals to you.

Fixed

Head to your local library and grab a book on breadmaking. There's a lot of good information and interesting facts in there which will make the process much easier on you and yield very tasty bread. If you're buying ask to try a sample of the same type of bread, I'd bet that the baker would be more than happy. If not then buy a roll for $0.50, that should give you an idea of the baker's quality (though he'll almost certainly be willing to give you a sample, maybe even a recommendation).