When it comes to bread recipes (machine or manual), the flour measurements are just a good guess (and sometimes they're not even "good"). Gluten amounts in flour will vary from bag to bag and brand to brand; and gluten is a main determinate for proper hydration. If your flour is stored in the bag in a humid kitchen, then there will be more moisture in the flour than someone who stores flour in an air-tight container in the dry environment of the freezer/refrigerator - as a secondary source for some hydration. If you change the type of flour called for in the recipe - from all-purpose to high-gluten bread flour (or vise versa) - or you substitute part of the high-gluten flour for a low-gluten flour (rye, spelt, kamut, barley, oat, etc.) - you'll also need to alter the hydration. As others shared, you MUST check and adjust the hydration as needed. Start checking it about 5 minutes into the mixing/kneading. You want the dough to be formed into a soft, sticky ball. A solid ball is going to be too dry. When you touch the dough ball with your finger, a tiny bit should stick to your finger. A dry or stiff dough ball will result in dry bread just like making bread by hand. You can also switch from sugar to honey and you may find you have a crumb that is more moist. I'm another who never bakes in the Zo - it's just my main tool for mixing and kneading. I won't even let the dough rise in the machine - I'd rather control that in a dough rising bucket. Sometimes I want a long slow cool rise, which you can never get in a bread machine. I use freshly-milled flour, so allowing a timed rise in the bread machine tends to over-proof the dough. Freshly-milled flour doesn't have the extensibility commercial white flour has. Bread machines were designed to use commercial flour in them, and I never use commercial flour. I also bake breads to temperature - checked with an instant read thermometer. -Grainlady

Here is the recipe that I finally got to work. Salt-Rising Bread Source of Recipe southernfood.about.com This makes the most incredible toast. Recipe as written makes 4 loaves. I was successful with cutting it in half. INGREDIENTS: 1 cup milk 1/2 cup sifted cornmeal 4 cups milk 1 tablespoon sugar 14 to 16 cups sifted all-purpose flour 3/4 cup shortening 1/2 cup sugar 1 tablespoon salt melted butter to brush tops of loaves PREPARATION: Scald 1 cup milk. Add sifted corn meal and cook until thick. Place in a quart jar with top and place in warm place to sour overnight. (Starter can be stored in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 weeks.) When bubbles form, it is ready to use. (I placed it in the oven with the light left on overnight, about 12 hrs) In a saucepan, combine 4 cups of milk and 1 tablespoon sugar and heat to scalding. Cool slightly and add to the cornmeal mixture in a large mixing bowl. Gradually stir 6 cups of flour. Set in warm place to rise until double (approximately 2 hours). Next, add shortening, 1/2 cup sugar and salt. Mix well. Gradually add 6 cups of (warmed) flour and work in. Put a generous dusting of flour on board and turn dough mixture onto board. Work in more flour and knead for about 20 minutes. Divide into four equal parts and put in greased and floured 9 1/2 X 5 1/2 X 2 3/4-inch loaf pans. Brush tops of loaves with shortening and place in warm place to rise double (takes approximately 2 hours). Place in preheated 200° oven. Gradually turn heat up to 300°. Bake for 45 minutes. Take loaves out and brush tops with butter. Continue baking until done. Loaves will sound hollow when lightly tapped on bottom. Turn out on rack to cool. Total cooking will be approximately 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. My Notes: I had success using Bob's Red Mill organic corn flour and the AP flour I used was King Arthur's Unbleached. Somewhere I read that making sure you used corn meal with the germ was important, much of the corn meal today is degermed. I warmed the flour before adding it in the last part by placing it in a pan on the stove after measuring it. The cooked corn flour was very thick, I placed it in a qt. jar with lid, then in to the oven right away for the night. This develops the wild yeast and it is important to keep between 80° and 120°. ................................. I have a couple of other recipes, glad to share if you want them. Nancy

Thanks for all the answers, folks: I'm glad to hear from other bakers! Of all the breads I hear about here, plllog's are the ones that speak to me most. But, although, if I really set about it with determination and a decent financial investment, I might be able to get the tools and supplies necessary to make bread as I see described here, I'm not willing to do that. I live in the country in Italy, and 98% of my groceries come from our small local supermarket. There is no Costco. No Whole Foods. I have no store that offers rye flour, grain berries, molasses, bran, wheat germ, reasonably priced oatmeal, or a host of other ingredients for baking standard in the U.S. I don't like to drive, I don't like to run around, I'm reluctant to add to our terrible air pollution, and gas costs about $7 a gallon. Add to this the absolutely horrible dis-service offered by our post office-affiliated package delivery company, which, after my last traumatic experience, caused me to swear that I would never again order by mail anything that would have to be delivered through them (there are other couriers, if one has a choice). So I work with what I have. This suits me, from a philosophical and practical standpoint, and while it's likely possible to make better bread, mine makes me happy. I've gotten used to the fresh yeast, which is reliable, and I have a fair variety of recipes I've worked out. The last one was potato and buckwheat (I was able to find buckwheat flour again, thank goodness!) and it turned out really tasty. That one was majority whole grain, simply because I had run out of white, and that improved it. Plllog's comments make me think, again, about how much I could learn about bread baking. The "soaker" is new to me. Who knows, this may stimulate me to some modest experimentation. Like Annie, if I want substantial nourishing bread, I have to make it myself. The Italian bread is good with a bowl of beans and broth but it just doesn't work as standalone food. Add to this that Italians don't really eat breakfast, so there's not much of an offering of sturdy food for the start of the day. I think my tolerance of grain-based foods has diminished as I've grown older, and it may be that baking with a sponge, and adding a variety of ingredients improves the digestibility of my breads. My diet is relatively low in cereals--I eat them regularly, but in much smaller amounts than when I was younger--and I mostly eat bread as the centerpiece of breakfast. It powers me up! in the most satisfactory way. Today is the potato and buckwheat bread--we're on our last loaf; I'll have to make more. There's a non-sweet almond bread in the freezer, made with milk, olive oil, and lots of almonds. If it gets cold enough I might even want to try a sweet bread. I made one last year with raisins, fennel, and orange juice and peel that I remember as being good. The basic dough of that one was similar to that of the almond bread, made with milk and oil. The loaves made with fats don't need butter. All my breads are part whole-grain, usually one third, though I may try upping that in some cases.

I made another loaf of rye bread yesterday and forgot to follow my recipe carefully. It's a recipe that I made up myself, and so it should not have been difficult, but in my recipe, I call for 2 Tbsp of dried onion flakes, but I also say that I can substitute 1/4 cup of minced fresh onion and reduce the water by 2 Tbsp. Well this time I used fresh onion and forgot to reduce the water, and I perhaps added too much onion, but that is not a bad thing, although it did throw off the proportions of liquid to flours. Anyway, I ended up adding more than 1/2 cup extra flour to the recipe, which I think made it too large for my Pullman pan. That was okay because I forgot to put the lid on the pan for the second rise, and in one hour, the dough was way over the top, and so I had to bake it without the lid. It came out okay except the it has a very light and airy texture, and I wanted it to be a bit more dense. I did remember the salt this time, but I forgot to reduce the salt, and I really should have because the Reuben sandwiches that I made today were way too salty. I blame the pastrami for this, but if I had left the salt out of the bread, the sandwiches would have been perfect. I think I will purposely leave it out next time and also pay attention to how much fresh onion I use. I liked the bread without the salt anyway. Another thing I noticed was that I need to use a lot more flour here than in the desert in proportion to the liquid. I think the flour in the desert has less moisture in it and therefore requires more liquid. This is going to be a balancing act for me. Anyway, I find it easy to add salt to bread that has been baked but it's impossible to remove it after it is done. I used turkey pastrami, since Kevin won't eat beef pastrami, and this may have had some influence.