Hi,

We are delighted you are making your own bread. 

Salt plays and important part in bread making.  Salt slows down the growth of the yeast and by adding a small amount to the bread mixture helps prevent the yeast from growing too fast.  Adding a little salt helps to strengthen the gluten, helping the dough to stretch and allow the bread to rise and hold its shape.  Salt also affects the flavour and crust colour.
Baking Mad Kitchen

like vdayeng I use way less salt than any recipe states. I do of course get to the point when the inevitable flop happens and from there I work backwards a bit. Always ending up with at least 1/3 less salt without appearing to compromise the finished product. Course, my taste buds may be that less concerned about less salt
Salt reduction or removal from many cooking and general eating scenarios is actually not that hard to do if persevere... as an example, I used to always eat avocados with salt. Once I'd weened self off the 'usual' constant salt sprinkling (almost unconsciously), I gradually became aware of this fantastic avocado flavour! Soooo much better than the previous salty intake too. Give it a try!

chef2323 details an interesting method - thanks chef! Wow... loads a bread each day or what? Guess you are doing hand kneading/raising/baking? What type oven? gas,elec[fan assist,hot air,??]. I've only got a fan assist elec oven and find it hard to 'get it right' with any type of regularity. Recipes oftentimes fail to consider various oven types and even if do mention fan assist, the times can be plain wrong, imho...

Ah... just found Richard Bertinet Must take some time to delve deeper.

Cheers All

Last edited by ukt (02-02-2010 16:17:00)