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I live in a farming community and get free wheat from my neighbours. I mill the wheat to make whole grain flour. Bread made from this flour tastes amazing. Love your channel.

I remember as a kid I used to crush store-bought white bread and somehow enjoy the dense ball of dough. I forgot about it as an adult, but I always felt surprised when people would press into their loaves of bread and seeing them spring back. Now I know why it happens. Didn't even expect to learn that today!

I think the idea of reverse engineering a store-bought sandwich loaf is an excellent idea. I'd love to see that. As for trying to make a cheap homemade loaf, couldn't you save money by using a pinchback or making a sourdough, instead of buying yeast?

The comparison between store-bought vs. homemade bread was mind-blowing!!! I never noticed the huge differences (probably because Asians prefer super soft breads over any other kinds). I heard the same from professional baker that slow fermented breads produce less flatulence and could avoid abdominal distension 👍 Huge thanks for the info.

Thanks for your videos, I'm learning a lot about breadmaking from you, keep it up! It's interesting to me to see the food prices in Great Britain, they're remarkably similar to what we're paying in the USA. Just for fun I converted the prices you showed to the price for the same amount of an equivalent-quality product at my local Walmart (a huge discount department store chain here in North America) - 1.5 kg "whole wheat" flour would be £2.64 ($3.19), 100 g yeast £3.67 ($4.47), 225 g sea salt £1.14 ($1.38), and 500 ml sunflower oil £1.60 ($1.93).

I have no idea what I am doing making homemade bread, my failures are superior to anything I can buy. Taking up saurdough bread making with all the complexities, took 19 days to create an over the top flavour and aroma. I cannot buy bread with the exception of good restaraunts that bake their own bread. I use simple ingredients. As a nerd, I like your scientific methode and it is quite helpful in my new hobby. Thank you.

I started making bread at home again recently. Using a pre ferment I decided to do an experiment after watching so many of your videos comparing loaves. I made 2 identical loaves(weight hydtration etc), but one used the pre ferment(pinch off from previous bakes loaf just because it's easy) and the other was a quick warm ferment. The quick loaf still lasted about 4 days before developing some mold, but the loaf with the pre ferment had much better flavor and lasted about a week before it developed any signs of molding. So totally worth doing especially considering you can toss the pinch off in the fridge for two or three days and it still works.

The playdoh factor of store-bought bread is the reason why I started baking my own over 14 years ago. Took one out of the fridge and it was all smooshed with the slightest bit of crowding.

Great clip. My heart sank when you first mentioned an improver. Then it rose again when you mentioned a yudane. Apart from the taste and the joy of making my own bread my aim was to avoid the all the additives. Years ago I bought a book called 'Bread Matters' by Andrew Whitley. He is very anti modern bread. Its first chapter is called 'What's the matter with modern bread? and the second 'Does it really matter what bread we eat? These chapters are very informative on the history of modern British bread, the processes involved and the chemicals and additives used. The rest of the book is the basis of how I make bread today. It also dispels some bread making myths. I just looked it up on Amazon and you can get a paperback version for just over 12 pounds (don't have a pound sign on my keyboard).

Fantastic video - and some baking math!! Thanks for sharing this challenge video - I just may have to accept this challenge!! Not sure I can keep it at under $1.25, but will get as close as I can using the bread baking ingredients I normally use at home.

Great video as always! I would love to see the reverse engineering a loaf of bread! Also I think it would be cool to see a video comparing cost of ingredients to see if they make a difference like most expensive vs least expensive. Thank you for all you do Charlie 🙏🏾

The things I’m learning from this channel is amazing. Thanks Charlie.

There is a sourdough bread bakery across the street from my house and the bread there is really good, but they are relatively expensive (counting the 20% credit card fee). So making sourdough bread at home is much better for me as a poor student while warming up the room with the oven heat.

"I'm not sponsored by anyone here by the way...although I wish I was😔" 😂❤ I'd like to say due to the last part of the video, the reason I started making my own dough is because every time I was having pizza I was just dying (I'll save the details). So I just started making my own. Assuming there's something they are putting in it. Not only have I had no stomach issues at all, I've even felt nice too and my own bread/pizza or whatever is better than I would get at a generic restaurant, a store or whatever else. I don't think it's a gluten intolerance though but it could be, I did have some skin stuff too once before that went away, either way nothing beats fresh homemade bread. Keep up the great content, love your channel and overall vibe!

The bread we buy at the small local store in my home town in Russia costs much less than a dollar per loaf (I think they're about 600-700g tho). They ship it fresh every day from a local factory (not bakery, factory!). I think it's made from a mix of rye and white flour, but the most interesting thing about it is the taste: I made my first ever sourdough loaf the other day (abt 1/3 whole wheat) and it tasted strikingly similar to the bread I'm used to eating at home. So that got me wondering if it's sourdough, because no yeasted breads I've ever made (not many but still) have tasted even remotely close.

I also am gluten intolerant, and find that if I preferment, I'm very happy, no issues. Great video!

Recently found your videos. Excellent work, brother.

Thanks for the interesting video! I bake for an organization in the U.S. that donates high quality sandwich bread to local food banks. We estimate our costs at $2.58 for an 850 g loaf. The formulas we use call for very high quality, locally milled flours, olive oil, honey or molasses, and whole oats. We use a preferment and autolyse our flour. It makes me really happy to create such a quality product to help nourish food bank clients.

Thanks!

Great point, on the gluten problem, possibly being unfermented flour.

great video!! ive learned so much from you its crazy. Ive been practicing making the Japanese milk bread per your recipe, with a cold bulk ferment and the yudane. Its been amazing! I added an egg and it made it even better, great recipe. Today I started an experiment. A hybrid of the high hydration yogurt bread and the Milk bread, I took out the butter but left everything the same including an egg. It handles pretty well conceding its 90%+ hydration! Im using exclusively white einkorn flour, which has been delicious! Its a little more of a challenge to work with, and breads don't have the same oven spring, but the milk bread recipe has helped with that! anyway, I just want to say thank you for this channel! You have helped me understand bread making the principles behind it. Now the possibilities are endless! :)

Its a great Idea to reverse engineer. i was helping in a food lab for a while. learned so much that is usefull in diy stuff as well. Like bond water and non bond therefore fungal control and so on.

Since following your channel and making my own breads, I have a hard time eating store bought bread. They really don't taste good. As for costs, I'm sure mine is higher since I buy organic flour.

Your content is so good. I swear all my bread baking questions can be answered by one of your videos.

I just discovered your channel. I’m looking forward to learning how to make bread. ❤

Timely video...thank you

Hey! Look who is in the town! What a pleasure! My favorite mysterios bread maker with the voice of archangel Michael!😃

My first error was to try to recreate the shop's bread because that's the one I was used to. Then I realized I needed to learn and discover the bread I can bake that suits my needs. I don't really calculate the cost of a home bread but one sure thing is that under the right conditions it stays ok for many days.

Charlie, great video. King Arthur bread flour is around $5 for 5 pounds here in Florida...and rising. (No pun intended) At some stores, whole wheat is the same price. (13.8% protein) Summer is a month away and it was over 32C today, so more inside time soon! 🔥

I was the first viewer of this useful video. The screen said there had been no views. This is great! Thank you! I like your idea of reverse engineering store bread. I am always trying to make healthier bread that has that soft store-bought feel, because one of my family members loves soft store bread. I add vital gluten to help the rise and softness of whole wheat bread. I'm going to try that thing you did with boiling water. I forgot what you called it. I'm always excited to learn more about making good bread. I haven't bought flour in a while because we have quite a bit in our basement, but it is definitely going up in price. Happy baking to all.

I'd love to see a reverse engineered bread video.

Great video. I live in Mexico and produce is cheaper here, with that in mind, I've just made an 800 g sourdough bread with just flour, water and salt. I think I have spent around 80 cents to make it.

Don't know how I'm only just discovering this channel, but I am now obsessed and have watched nearly every video! Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into your work, I can't wait to try this one :)

Your smiling face at the beginning is always a warm welcome to a great video! :)

Yessir Mr. Chainbaker. Reverse engineering the Dempsters malt bread from Ontario Canada would be a sweet dream project for sure!!!

Great video! Thank you!

Okay, I accepted this challenge - sadly, I did not meet the goal of £1 ($1.25) for the cost of the loaf. I suppose I could have used cheaper ingredients, but I wanted to use what I would normally use for baking. And while I may have not beat the challenge, I am very happy with the end result. This whole wheat bread is soft with a bite and a wonderfully wheat flavor. I can spread my homemade clotted cream without tearing the bread - add just a light sprinkling of Jacobson Sea Salt Flakes - what a fantastic taste combination!!! Thank you for challenging me (yet again) , ChainBaker . 🍞🍞🍞🍞 Photo as been posted.

damn. Oil is cheap in the UK. sunflower mix with olive oil in thailand is about 2 pounds for half liter. Normal wage for bachlor degree grad is about 355 pounds a month.

That organic bread flour is way cheaper than it would be in the US

I’m impressed with your results! The food and energy costs in California make it pretty much impossible to produce a cheaper loaf for me. The exception would be more specialized loaves like focaccia, baguette, etc. The price of these loaves are so inflated for me that it’s always worth it to make it at home.

I tend to buy store brand flour and yeast. Some health food shops will sell bulk organic flour. Some bread and AP/plain flour have the same protein content.

I don’t buy commercial bread anymore, they All have additives to have long shelve life and keep the bread soft… The cost of the basic home made bread couldn’t be too much more expensive, and I buy the good quality ingredients.. The only “downside “ is, even though I seal it good, it’d taste dry after three days…however, I am addicted to trying different kind of bread now, and we tend to eat more bread because it tastes great..😋☺️ Anyway, very interesting experiment you are doing, I hope more people are enjoying making their own bread, thank you for all your wonderful instructions! 🙏🏻😋❤️

Having worked in an industrial bakery (we did make fresh bread every day, not the bagged crap), the margins on bread are tiny. I think the bakery made 0.05 to 0.1 euro profit per bread. We made about 11000 floor baked breads per day. and about the same amount of bread in tins.

Excellent excellent video, Reminds me of my material and energy balance course😆 I need to work on the details of this recipe a lot more. Gonna be my go to.

I love your analysis, thanks!

One loaf of 780 gr. cooked cost me 1,66 $ Can. (without taxes). So far, I'm at my second batch and the results are very interesting. Thank you for the receipe and the knowledge!

love your videos

When I started baking my own bread it did take me a little while to get over how fundamentally different a decent loaf is compared with mass produced ones and I was at least initially a little disappointed that I did not achieve a similarly light and fluffy texture (preferably without turning into a doughy mush at the slightest provocation). But it did not take long to come to appreciate the superiority of home baked, even if it is hard to emulate the very few desirable features that mass produced loaves have. I don't have time to bake as often as I would like but now I'll take even a basic 2 hour ferment white loaf over shop bought whenever I can. Not all mass produced are equal and some of them do have a slightly better texture, albeit still not a patch on a competently home baked one. Your bog standard loaf of Hovis or Warburtons white bread (or supermarket own brand equivalents) is something that I avoid eating as much as possible and consider to be just about passable for toasting at best. Wholemeal breads can be at least a little bit better, I think because using more of the grain provides a bit more flavour and texture that is otherwise missing. Fresh from the bakery supermarket breads are at least a little better, though I assume that they still tend to cheat and take shortcuts, including reduced fermentation time. I suspect that it would be difficult to impossible to properly recreate mass produced at home (even just in the name of science), as the processes apparently involve things like precise temperature and pressure control. Which may not be feasible at home even if you acquire all of the correct adatives.

After years of baking my own bread, I have found "shop" bread is to bread to what frozen pizza is to pizza. As you emphasize in your videos, baking basic bread recipes is time and organization. And the more you have of the latter, the less you need of the former. .

Definitely want to see a reverse engineering video series! Claire Saffitz did something similar when she was at Bon Appetit and those videos were loads of fun. Would love to see you reverse engineer bakes from supermarket breads to mass-produced bakery goods and the like (such as Hostess donuts)

Thank you. One major contributor to cost I found (after Dutch oven baking in electric stove) was power costs. Got a bit of a shock with the higher bill after enthusiastically getting into bread-baking as a beginner. The high heating of stove prior and then baking is all on highest power device in a home. It won't stop me but it made me be more aware of that cost. I seek efficient use of the oven too.

Things I do to help lower cost just out of habit... I buy AP flour in 20+ lb (10kg) bags I fortify the flour as needed with vital wheat gluten to "make" bread/strong flour (AP Flour costs less and I don't need to store large qtys of two different types of flour) I keep the flour in a 5 gal pail with a waste bin liner & lid which is better than a big paper sack with a hole in it. I always make at least 2 batches at a time and freeze or give away the extra I buy the big pk of yeast and keep the extra in the freezer I make my own bread / rolls / eng muffins/ bagels / pizza dough / pita so I don't need to drive to the store just to get bread. In the summer I bake pizza / eng muff / pita on a steel in my BBQ which helps keep the heat out of the kitchen. I give my neighbors something I bake once a month and I get invited over for a lot of dinners I have no interest in rev eng factory bread, I would much rather learn about popular breads made around the world that I probably have never heard of.

I do always calculate cost on my bread, I have an excel document where I make recipes and have control over hydration, salt content, amount of yeast, and additives like diastatic malt powder and glucose syrup. I also calculate the cost in the same document. I tend to use high quality ingredients and my standard loaves in 850-900gr tend to be €/$1-2 Euro/US/piece. The one I make the most have 70% Montana Unbleached Wheat & 30% whole wheat, 25gr of sunflower seeds, 25 gr Wheat Berries, 25 gr Flax Seeds, glucose syrup, sunflower oil, honey, egg yolk, salt, malt powder, enriched skimmed milk powder. I also do plain wheat 900gr for just under €/$1

To cut down on energy cost you can use a smaller oven. On hot days, like today, I use a toaster oven setup in the garage. Keeps the heat out of the house.

Thanks for the tip. I noticed that I scratched one of my pans.

I use white spelt, khorasan and einkorn for my regular loaf, so it probably comes out a little more expensive than yours. But since I honestly can't eat supermarket bread, theres no comparison.

Great video

It is not yet cost prohibitive for me to do sandwich bread. Currently raising my own wheat and practicing baking for the time when it is necessary. I make my own pita and flat breads as those are stupidly expensive where I live because they are exotic to us. But I'm interested in creating a sandwich loaf that holds up to use like the store bought kind. Because in America we are so dependent upon the supply chain for our bread, I had no clue how to even begin with it; like the loaf pan etc. The off brands of sandwich loafs are still only $1. I like to make my own tortillas, but they don't hold a candle to the store bought kind which is why I found your channel. So, thanks for that. I will be trying many of your recipes.

seeing all that vegetable oil in your supermarket for that low price makes me want to cry. here in germany we are bottlenecked when it comes to oil for some reason and the prices for that (and also other goods) have skyrocketet in the past few weeks

Subscribed!! 💜

Hi its like you sad it’s enjoying baking nt the cost love you videos, sourdough is my downfall cheers Neil

I'd recommend any serious bakers to make an excel sheet for cost. It's so much easier to remember the recipes and calculate the cost.

I make my bread at home because, we’ll, I can. And it just simply is a better product that tastes better. Everything from Brioche to sourdough.

Interesting! I break out in rather painful hives when eating bleached american bread, especially fast food buns. When traveling to Europe I was happy to enjoy bread products which did not cause hives. Initially I assumed U.S. industrial bleached flour was the cause. I bake bread with better quality flour and do not break out. I do breakout with low end flour. I did an experiment adding an excessive amount of gluten to a quality loaf to see if that was the source of the ailment. I had no reaction. I may play around with this recipe for more data. I really appreciate your video format, I made numerous 100% hydration loafs and learned a lot. I'm amazed that you can keep bread as a sole topic and keep it interesting

The cost for me to bake a sourdough bread is around 8sek witch rounds to £0,63

If your counting the cost of electricity to bake you loaf, you should count the gas money to drive to the store to buy the store bought loaf. You could bake many loafs from one trip over months vs having to drive to the store each time you want a new loaf

Going by your recipe in the video it would cost me $1.36 Australian to make the loaf using basically the cheapest ingredients, maybe $2.20 if I buy better quality flour and around $2.80-2.90 after factoring in electricity prices. For comparison to buy a wholemeal loaf from one of the big supermarkets I'd be looking to at least $2.50 for a 680g loaf and upwards of $3 for 800g and the wholemeal loaves we typically buy in my household (usually from local bakery). So it would actually generally work out cheaper if I make it myself even with electricity prices, and I will definitely have to try this method of doing it.

Hi! Very Interesting video. I would be glad to see a video about how you calculate the baking temperature and time for different kinds of bread

Cool vid, thanks heheh price per kilo works best for everything except some fruit/veggies Oranges, cheapest 1.95 per bag and kilo, has 5 pieces, yet next to it oranges 2.29 a kilo, 1 kilo bag had 7. one eats oranges per piece :)

So, it’s probably a lot more complicated than this, but I believe research is showing that a lot of gluten intolerance possibly even something like celiac disease is linked to your gut flora. If you have a really good healthy gut biome, that is the bacteria that naturally reside in your intestines and help you digest food and bring nutrients through your intestinal tract into your bloodstream, you don’t have as much of an issue. One of the reasons that sourdough is more easily digested is that the long cold fermentation process and the yeast strain partially break down some of the gluten and wheat proteins and help along your digestive tract. The reason that a lot of people have such poor gut biomes in the first place has a great deal to do with food quality available in this “modern age”

Same yeast and salt i use so glad ya think there decent lol

Great channel and videos. Unfortunately, when I add in my labor charge it comes to $20 a loaf.

I would actually like to know what the stores put into the bread to keep it shelf stable for as long as they do... At the same time the answer could definitely ensure I continue making my own at home :-) Edit add* back home I could walk into a store and the bread delivered today has says it will expire 3 to 3.5 weeks from now so that's what I meant by "shelf stable" and speaking to my mom back home (I'm in a different country right now) the cheapest loaf of bread she found was $2.49 plus tax (inflation)

Sure, you're a master breadman with your hands, but what can you manage using a basic bread machine? Are you good enough to make a quality loaf without touching it or using an oven?

I used to have an excel with baker percentage that also calculated the cost of each loaf, but inflation down here got out of hands so is impossible to keep it up to date.

You should recreate Bimbo brand bread. Its a South American brand that's very popular.

Ooh la la --- we've got inflation here at over 9%. I checked on my favorite whole wheat flour yesterday: $5 for 3 pounds. OUCH. And our water costs are considerable: the western US is suffering the worst drought in 1500 years. So, my costs are going to be high. But I'll add it up, because your loaf deserves a cousin in the US. Thanks again for the video!

Great vid, today. I can't imagine how you could possibly replicate or reverse engineer a commercial loaf, but I'd love to see you try. The stuff is vile, but it would be interesting to see if you could get close in your home kitchen. Probably burn up your mixer. I also think your observation about gluten intolerance and the lack of fermentation in commercial bread may be important. It surely makes a lot of sense as a hypothesis.

There's 1 thing quite amazing about the store bought bread: the cost. I studied business when at school, and found out that most products are generally marked up 300%. So the cost of the loaf you bought should be 33p. 🤪 How possible they make it? 😆

"It turned into a piece of play-doh" lol.

Great video any progress on the Hovis receipe ? Many thanks keep them coming

I've been watching you for a long time. I've learned so much but as an American and living within the budget of disability It sure would be epic if you did bread one time where you used measuring cups. I'd like to be able to get close to what you do but I can't translate your measurements into mine.

My home made bread would cost around 0.8 (electricity excluded) but i use regulae white bread instead of whole wheat which is very expensive in my country.

anyone looking for cheap recipes check out king arthurs sandwich bread recipe. Doing to math it's a $0.90 canadian a loaf, or 0.58 pounds, or 69 cents usd. The loaf is about 24% lighter (700g vs 915g), but you can see its approximately 40% cheaper

Great comparison but uk prices are very expensive In Spain I buy organic flour For a lot less

would love the recipe for this too

I'd love to see how to replicate a commercial bread!

Unfortunately, the economy is not going get better. Some stores are running low on basic foods. We do need to learn to make our own bread. Surviving hunger with ChainBaker... *Sandwich 101* 😁🥪🍞🥖

Interesting - but with all respect to Dove's Farm, for this exercise I'd be using a supermarket own-brand: Sainsbury's stoneground wholemeal is, even in these inflated days, still only £1.50 for a kilo and a half - so 50p for a loaf. In Germany, it's a little cheaper for a similar wholemeal flour - prices are all over the place at the moment - and of course a sourdough starter is effectively free.

Great video! I did the math, and when making bread with the inflation prices in the US with Walmart flour, my bread is .36 USD. Three years ago, it was .15, and yes, I had calculated it then. :) Using King Arthur bread flour, which I use now because it was the only thing I could find during Covid, the bread is 1.86. This has me thinking, because is the bread really 5 times better than what I was making for years? I hate to say it, but no. It is a finer milled flour, but the taste? The rising? The kneading? No, definitely not 5 times better. Thanks for opening my eyes. Oh, and supermarket bread, we call ball bread, because we can roll it up into the size of a ping pong ball!😕 Have you or can you do a comparison video on different price grades of the same type of flour? I would find that most interesting.

Interesting experiment. Like you, I do not intend in my kitchen to emulate supermarket bread. I go for a high protein flour, 12% or higher - 2 kilos for 1,5 UK pounds or so, yeast 10p, and a bit of salt (some italians say NO), and water. After fermenting and beating up the dough again, adding the rest of the flour, it goes in the fridge (keep lid on!) The next day I take just the part that I need to get in the oven. Similarly the next day. And the next. Depending on the size of your family, it will last 4-6 days. And every day, you will have newly baked bread. Counting energy, it might still be cheaper to buy supermarket bread to last all week. But the difference ...

Tbf I work in a fairly small wholesale artisan bakery and we get hour flour in at 20p per kilo, I imagine big plant bakery's would get it even cheaper. so definitely much cheaper than going down the supermarket 😂

awesome experiment in seeing how to get best bang for buck for ingredients. I'm wondering if you would do an expensive vs cheap/generic ingredient bread and see if the price justifies the quality of the branded stuff

Great work can you bake one without a oven. Pls would be a lot helpful

And here was me thinking I was the only one that looks at the price per kilo or 100 grams 😁 What annoys me is that the sort option on supermarket websites doesn't include this.

Both the Sea Salt and the Yeast you bought seem to be very expensive, although I'm not from the UK so these may just be the local prices. But I guess their overall cost is just a small part (the flour and electricity is the bulk of the cost) so it doesn't matter much.

Compared to a supermarket bread, baking at home is obviously not cheaper, but it's a different product. Compared to an artisan loaf, baking at home is substantially cheaper, even including the cost of electricity, at least here in the US. I spent some time in France recently, and the bakery breads were much cheaper than here, probably because there is way more competition between bakeries. If I lived in France, I'm not sure I would spend time to bake my own bread quite as often.

If you make a supermarket bread revesrse-engineering series just for giggles and mastery, I'd pay you 100 GBP immediatelly.

Why not sourdough? It is a free leavening agent, because the flour must be there no matter what :)