Saving Bread

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Jill Nguyen didn’t grow up baking. In fact, she didn’t start until 2020.

What began as a pandemic bread obsession eventually became Capitol Jill Baking, her Washington, DC microbakery known for naturally leavened breads, inventive pastries, and colorful, highly personal cakes.

In this episode, Jill and I talk about how she built a baking style that feels unmistakably her own. We get into how she develops new products, why she often starts with a feeling rather than a flavor, and how she balances creativity with the realities of producing food consistently at scale.

We also talk about building a business within a community: collaborations with local restaurants and shops, earning the trust of customers and other business owners, asking for help, and why those relationships take time.

Jill shares how she went from making her first cake during the pandemic to creating completely custom wedding cakes, why smell and texture matter as much to her as flavor, and what she has learned from pursuing ideas she hadn’t necessarily been trained to do.

Toward the end of our conversation, Jill describes breadmaking as a practice rather than something you ever completely master. You pay attention to the flour, temperature, humidity and fermentation, make the best decision you can, learn from it and come back the next week a little better.

And for Jill, Saving Bread also means something very literal: keeping good bread local, honest, seasonal and accessible.

A conversation about creativity, consistency, community, trust and giving yourself permission to get good at something you didn’t start doing until later in life.

Find Jill:

Instagram: @capitoljillbaking

Capitol Jill Baking: capitoljillbaking.com

Follow Saving Bread:
Instagram: @savingbreadpodcast

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This week on Saving Bread, Allison sits down with Jon and Amanda of Proof Bread in Arizona.

Proof began in 2017 with hand-mixed dough, one farmers market, a few wholesale accounts, and a home bakery. Today, Proof has grown to five locations, nearly 100 employees, an in-house milling program, relationships with local grain producers, and an entirely sourdough menu.

Jon and Amanda share what that growth has actually looked like behind the scenes, including hiring their first employees, investing in equipment, building systems, developing an efficient menu, scaling production across multiple locations, and learning when holding onto control can eventually hold a business back.

They also discuss Proof's transition toward locally grown and house-milled grain, how they work with farmers to plan future wheat crops, and why creating a stronger local grain economy has become such an important part of their work.

The conversation also gets into the Proof Intensive, their hands-on program for bakers. Rather than presenting one version of what a bakery should become, Jon and Amanda give bakers an opportunity to see what growth can actually look like and decide for themselves where they want to land.

And ultimately, the conversation comes back to something much bigger than scaling a bakery: bread as craft, tradition, community, and something worth preserving.

In this episode:

• Growing from a garage bakery to five locations
• Hiring and learning to let go of control
• Choosing equipment that actually gives time back
• Building a more efficient bakery menu
• Scaling sourdough bread and pastry
• Milling flour in-house
• Working directly with local grain producers
• Building a stronger regional grain economy
• The Proof Intensive and education for working bakers
• Why bigger isn't necessarily the goal for every bakery
• Bread, community, and preserving human craft

Find Proof Bread

Proof Bread
https://www.proofbread.com/

Instagram
@proofbread

Proof's bakery locations, classes, and additional resources can be found through their website and Instagram.

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Leah is back for another Rabbit Hole episode, and this time we’re talking about what we’ve been eating, where we’ve been traveling, and the loaf everyone in the bread world seems to have an opinion about.

Leah shares her visit to Moulin in Napa, where whole grains and freshly milled flour are worked into breads and pastries. Allison takes us through her trip to Mexico City and Panadería Rosetta, including the guava roll, pan de elote, whole wheat croissants, and the tres leches cake that was good enough to order twice.

Then we get into the $60 rye loaf in New York City. What actually makes bread worth more? Where should that money be going? Does a price like this help bring attention to rye and traditional bread, or does it turn bread into a luxury product?

We talk through the cost of good ingredients, supporting farmers and millers, paying bakers fairly, local grain, marketing, scarcity, and why the conversation around this loaf has become almost as interesting as the bread itself.

Plus, a little preview of The Grain Ritual and what we’re hoping to create with this upcoming three day baking experience.

Have thoughts on the $60 rye loaf? Come find us on Instagram at @savingbreadpodcast and tell us what you think.

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pH is one of the topics I’m asked about most often, but the number on a meter is only one part of understanding fermentation.

In Lessons E08 of Saving Bread, I break down what is happening inside a sourdough culture and explain how I use pH in my own baking and production.

We talk about the relationship between yeast and lactic acid bacteria, the enzymes naturally present in flour, how starch becomes available to microorganisms during fermentation, why organic acids cause pH to fall, and what happens to dough structure as fermentation continues.

I also walk through the actual pH ranges I use for my country bread and higher whole grain doughs, from levain maturity through bulk fermentation, shaping, cold retard, and baking. These are not universal targets. They are examples of how I use pH alongside dough temperature, time, flour choice, expansion, structure, and experience to make fermentation decisions.

In this episode:

• What yeast and lactic acid bacteria are doing during sourdough fermentation
• How amylase and other flour enzymes affect fermentation
• What pH actually measures
• pH versus total titratable acidity, or TTA
• Why whole grain flour has greater buffering capacity
• How I evaluate levain maturity
• Protease activity and changes in dough strength
• My pH checkpoints for country bread and high whole grain bread
• Why fermentation continues after dough enters the refrigerator
• Why a lower pH does not necessarily mean a bread will taste more sour
• What sourdough fermentation does and does not do to gluten
• Why pH targets should be developed around your own flour, formula, temperature, and process

You do not need a pH meter to make good bread. For me, it has become a useful way to record fermentation, repeat results, and connect measurable data with what I can already see and feel in the dough.

The goal is not to chase one perfect number. It is to better understand the dough in front of you.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Hanna Instruments Bread & Dough pH Tester
Hanna HI981038 Bread & Dough pH Tester

San Francisco Baking Institute
San Francisco Baking Institute

Modern Bread and Viennoiserie at SFBI
Modern Bread and Viennoiserie course

Follow Allison and Matriarch Bread on Instagram: @matriarchbread

Follow Saving Bread wherever you listen to podcasts.

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What does it take to build an incredibly open, delicate sourdough crumb when you are working with different flour, a different climate, and different equipment than the bakers who originally inspired you?

This week on Saving Bread, I am joined by Anujay Krishna, a baker in Lucknow, India, whose beautifully open, lacy country loaves have made him one of the most requested guests on the podcast.

Anujay did not grow up eating this style of bread. His early relationship with bread came through the rotis and parathas made in his family kitchen. He discovered sourdough years later online, built his own starter, and began learning through videos, baking communities, feedback, experimentation, and a lot of repetition.

That process eventually became a bread style that is unmistakably his.

We talk about what it means to learn sourdough when the flour, temperature, humidity, equipment, and ingredients available to you are different from the conditions behind the formulas you are studying.

Then we get into the dough.

Anujay shares how he evaluates a new flour before committing to a hydration, including a small flour and water test at several hydration levels. We talk about the difference between elasticity and extensibility, why protein percentage alone does not tell you how a flour will perform, and what he is looking for when he checks a windowpane.

We also get into his approach to gluten development. Anujay prefers to mix his dough to full development and then allow fermentation to inflate the structure he has already built. Instead of folding on a schedule, he waits for the dough to relax and only folds when he believes the dough needs it.

We talk about:

How he maintains his sourdough starter in the heat of Lucknow

Why he moved away from expensive imported flour and learned to work with flour available in India

How to test the hydration potential of an unfamiliar flour

Elasticity versus extensibility

Why flour protein quality can matter more than the number printed on the bag

Long cold autolyse for hand mixed dough

Managing dough temperature during mixing

Full gluten development versus relying heavily on folds

Why too many folds can work against an already strong dough

High hydration sourdough in the 85 to 86 percent range

Using a larger percentage of younger levain

Why bulk fermentation is one of the most important parts of his process

Gentle shaping and preserving the structure created during fermentation

Accounting for continued fermentation while dough cools inside a home refrigerator

Cold retard timing

Adapting country dough into a sandwich loaf without mixing an entirely different dough

Building a sourdough bakery and bread culture in Lucknow

And throughout the conversation, one idea keeps coming back: becoming a better baker is not about copying somebody else’s numbers.

It is about getting enough repetitions that you begin to recognize your own flour, your own starter, your own environment, and your own dough.

Anujay learned from bakers working in completely different conditions and then adapted what he learned until the bread became his own. That may be the most valuable lesson in the entire conversation.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

Anujay Krishna on Instagram
@anujayanstar

Trevor Jay Wilson, author of Open Crumb Mastery
Open Crumb Mastery

The Bread Code by Hendrik
The Bread Code

TWF Flours in India
TWF Flours

TWF T55 Bread Flour
TWF T55 Versatile Bread Flour

Brød & Taylor Sourdough Home
Sourdough Home

Three One Farms
Three One Farms

Leviosa microbakery in Jaipur
Leviosa on Instagram

Follow Saving Bread on Instagram at @savingbreadpodcast.

If you enjoyed this conversation, send it to another baker who would love it.

Happy baking and long live real bread.

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How do you choose the right whole grain flour when the names on the bag start to feel overwhelming?

Baylin Speidel, head baker at Chimacum Valley Grainery, returns to Saving Bread for a practical conversation about grain selection, flour functionality, extraction rates and scalds.

We break down hard red, hard white and soft wheat, along with rye, spelt, buckwheat and einkorn. We talk about which grains provide structure, which may work better in cookies, scalds or pan loaves, and how to choose flour based on what you actually want it to do.

We also get into full extraction and high extraction flour, why a T85 does not mean 85 percent extraction, and the questions to ask a farmer or miller before buying a new flour.

This is the companion to our whole grain Lessons episode and a practical guide for bakers who want to work with more local, stone milled and whole grain flour.

RESOURCES

Follow Baylin Speidel

Chimacum Valley Grainery

WSU Breadlab

Listen to Baylin’s first Saving Bread interview

Follow Saving Bread

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What actually changes when you start adding more whole grain to sourdough?

In this Lessons episode of Saving Bread, Allison White breaks down what happens when a familiar country loaf moves from mostly white bread flour toward 40, 50, 60, or even 100 percent whole grain.

Whole wheat is not white flour with a little extra color. It is a different raw material, and as the percentage increases, it can change water absorption, gluten development, fermentation speed, starter activity, dough strength, pH, handling, and ultimately what a successful loaf looks like.

We begin with the wheat kernel itself and look at the role of the bran, germ, and endosperm. Then we move into the basic microbiology of sourdough, including what yeast and lactic acid bacteria are doing during fermentation, how naturally occurring flour enzymes help make sugars available to those microorganisms, and why changing the flour can change the behavior of both your starter and your dough.

We also get practical with inoculation and pre fermented flour. Why does adding more levain usually shorten fermentation? How can lowering inoculation help when freshly milled whole grain is moving too quickly? Why can two bakers both say they use 20 percent levain while actually working with very different amounts of pre fermented flour?

Then we bring it back to the country loaf and talk through how to begin increasing whole wheat without changing every variable at once.

The goal is not to make 100 percent whole grain bread behave exactly like a loaf made with strong refined bread flour. At higher percentages, you are allowed to redesign the bread.

We also touch briefly on pH and why a target developed for a mostly white flour dough should not automatically be applied to a high whole grain dough. A full Lessons episode on pH is coming soon.

At the end of the episode, I challenge you to choose one whole grain flour and bake with it for ten loaves. Keep the other variables as consistent as possible, take notes, and learn the flour in front of you instead of chasing one universal hydration or fermentation number.

This Friday, Baylin Speidel joins me again for the companion conversation. We will talk about hard red wheat, hard white wheat, extraction rates, flour terminology, flour blending, and how to choose a grain based on what you actually want it to do in your bread.

This episode is the fermentation and dough side. Friday is the flour selection side.

RESOURCES

• Andrew Janjigian and Wordloaf: Wordloaf

• Preorder Andrew Janjigian’s Breaducation, publishing November 17, 2026: Breaducation from Ten Speed Press and Penguin Random House

• Thomas Teffri Chambelland: Thomas Teffri Chambelland

• Sourdough Baking: A Treatise by Thomas Teffri Chambelland: Sourdough Baking: A Treatise

• Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie by Thomas Teffri Chambelland: Sourdough Panettone and Viennoiserie

• École Internationale de Boulangerie, founded and directed by Thomas Teffri Chambelland: International Bakery School

• San Francisco Baking Institute classes: SFBI Classes

• Modern Bread and Viennoiserie with Thomas Teffri Chambelland at SFBI: Modern Bread and Viennoiserie

• Hanna Instruments HI981038 Bread and Dough pH Tester: Bread and Dough pH Tester

• Listen to my first conversation with Baylin Speidel on stone milled flour and whole grain sourdough: Saving Bread with Baylin Speidel

• Chimacum Valley Grainery: Chimacum Valley Grainery

• Follow Baylin Speidel: @thedustedstone on Instagram

• Saving Bread: Saving Bread Podcast

• Follow Saving Bread on Instagram: @savingbreadpodcast

Questions for an upcoming Lessons episode? Send me a message through Saving Bread or contact me through Matriarch Bread.

Happy baking and long live real bread.

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Jenny Berg of Crumb Sourdough Microbakery joins me for a conversation about what it actually looks like to build a home-based bread business and how many different paths that can take.

Jenny started baking sourdough in 2020 and eventually turned that obsession into Crumb Sourdough Microbakery in Central Oregon. Along the way, she helped organize a grassroots effort to change Oregon’s cottage food laws, built a wholesale business supplying local grocery stores and farm stands, and worked her way up to producing 230 loaves a week on her own.

We talk about why she moved away from direct-to-consumer sales, how she found and approached wholesale accounts, wholesale pricing and payment terms, her production schedule, and why predictable income has been worth giving up some margin.

We also talk about something that doesn’t get said enough: growth doesn’t always have to be the goal. Jenny shares why she’s no longer interested in building an empire, how she thinks about quality of life and burnout, and what it means to create a business that is actually enough.

And at the end, Jenny gives a beautiful answer to the question I ask every guest: What does Saving Bread mean to you?

Find Jenny + Crumb Sourdough

Crumb Sourdough Microbakery website

Jenny on Instagram — @crumb.sourdough.microbakery

Cottage Food Resources Jenny Mentioned in the Episode

Forrager — Oregon Cottage Food Law

Forrager — Oregon Domestic Kitchen Law

Institute for Justice — Selling Homemade Food in Oregon

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This week on Saving Bread, we’re stepping away from the pH meters, fermentation charts, and troubleshooting for a conversation about the other side of bread: history, culture, memory, and story.

Allison sits down with Eric Pallant, author of Sourdough Culture: A History of Bread Making from Ancient to Modern Bakers, to ask a deceptively simple question: What actually makes an old sourdough starter old?

From there, the conversation travels through thousands of years of bread history. Eric and Allison talk about whether the age and origin of a starter really affect the bread it makes, how humans may have discovered fermentation, the people whose labor shaped bread history, what industrial bread production gave us — and what may have been lost along the way.

They also explore why sourdough continues to pull people back, why making bread doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive, and how a starter can carry a story from one baker, kitchen, and generation to the next.

Plus, Eric shares what he’s working on next, including his forthcoming book Loaf and The World Atlas of Bread.

This is a conversation about sourdough — but also about why bread has remained such an enduring part of human life.

In this episode:
• What does it actually mean for a sourdough starter to be “old”?
• Starter microbiology, lineage, and terroir
• How humans may have discovered leavened bread
• Bread, labor, and the history of food production
• Industrial bread vs. slow fermentation
• Making good bread accessible
• Why sourdough doesn’t have to be complicated
• Why humans keep returning to bread
• Eric Pallant’s upcoming books

Find Eric + the book:

Eric Pallant — Official Website
EricPallant.com

Sourdough Culture — Book information + purchase options
Sourdough Culture by Eric Pallant

If you’re enjoying Saving Bread, follow the podcast, leave a rating or review, and share this episode with someone who loves bread.

Saving Bread — Long live real bread.

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Why is your sourdough flat? What causes huge tunnels surrounded by dense crumb? How do you know when bulk fermentation is finished? And when a loaf goes wrong, how do you figure out which part of the process was actually responsible?

In this Lessons episode of Saving Bread, Allison walks through the basic country loaf from start to finish and breaks down some of the most common sourdough problems and what to change on your next bake.

We cover:

• Starter and levain strength
• Hydration and flour absorption
• Dough temperature
• Bulk fermentation
• Under-fermented vs. over-fermented dough
• How to judge when bulk is finished
• Basket rise and final proof
• Preshaping and shaping without overhandling your dough
• Cold proofing
• Scoring placement and depth
• Steam and oven spring
• Why a flat loaf or missing ear doesn't always mean your fermentation was wrong

The biggest takeaway from this episode: bread is a system. Starter health, flour, temperature, hydration, fermentation, handling, shaping, scoring and baking all influence the finished loaf. One symptom rarely tells the entire story.

Allison also shares an unexpected lesson from a recent three-day sourdough class at Central Milling's Artisan Baking Center. One batch of country loaves baked beautifully. The next batch, made from the same dough, came out completely flat.

The difference came down to what happened in the final moments before and during the bake: where the loaves were scored and how they were steamed.

It's a great reminder that you can get the fermentation, mixing and shaping right and still dramatically change the final loaf at the oven.

Plus, a reminder for home bakers: loving bread does not mean you need to turn it into a business. You are allowed to bake because it's fun.

Resources mentioned

The Sourdough Journey — Tom Cucuzza
Bulk fermentation guides, starter education and sourdough resources.

Central Milling Artisan Baking Center — Petaluma, California
In-person bread and baking classes.

Hillary Austin — Backyard Terroir
Instagram: @backyardterroir

Follow Saving Bread

Saving Bread Podcast
Instagram: @savingbreadpodcast

Allison White / Matriarch Bread
Instagram: @matriarchbreadco

Music by Joshua from DOAP.

Saving Bread is a podcast about sourdough, whole grains, fermentation, baking science and the people working to keep real bread alive.

Long live real bread.