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Comment by jdc | Hacker News Reader

A very on-brand comment from that fellow. But if you not doing it to pass the time, I'd suggest using a bread machine!

If you do it the no-knead way, making bread in the oven is less work than a bread machine and less noisy. Less clean up, and better bread.

No-knead bread needs high-hydration dough, which is fashionable nowadays but not to everybody's preference. If you prefer something like normal sandwich bread then a bread machine will make it for you.

Making bread with extremely limited time commitment involves 6 steps that each are very quick, but have to be spaced out correctly.

1. Use a mixer to mix flour (measured by weight), salt, yeast, water for 10 minutes.

2. Let sit for 4 hours

3. Kneed for 5 minutes

4. Rest for 30 minutes in a cold Dutch oven while you preheat to 425

5. Put it in the oven for 30 minutes

6. Remove lid and Lower temp to 375 and weight about 20 more minutes until bread gets to 200 degrees.

You do that. It’s 15 minutes worth of work, but you have to be home which makes it optimal for wfh days. You will get awesome results every time

I use a similar technique, but I throw it on a pizza stone for 45 minutes in total with a cup of water evaporating from a heated oven tray underneath the stone to provide steam.

Making bread yourself is incredibly delicious, easy to do, and takes no time at all.

Edit: I also set my oven to 510 Fahrenheit to get a consistent bake, but that may be a quirk of my particular oven.

By using a Dutch oven you get a more consistent temp since it holds the heat like a stone, and doesn’t let moisture evaporate until you take the lid off.

So yeah, the variations make sense

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