About us

 What We Stand For:

Our belief in using the simplest natural ingredients:
Bob’s Well Bread Bakery products are hand-made with only the finest ingredients and natural starters. No added preservatives will be found in any of the things we bake, and we strive to source our ingredients locally using farmers and growers who practice the purest growing initiatives.

Our standards to the very best quality:
We allow our loaves to take their time, and we practice old world European traditions and techniques to make the very best breads and baked goods we can.

Our commitment to being Well Bread--It means doing good things:
We support the community that supports us, by donating what we don’t sell to local food banks.

 
Caring for your bread

From our natural fermentation, to our high-hydration doughs, Bob’s Well Bread is artisan bread that will last for many days (if you don’t eat it all!).

We recommend that you eat your bread at its peak of freshness. But, as the days go on, you can be creative with what’s left: toast, croutons, bread crumbs, sweet or savory bread pudding...be inventive!

We suggest storing Bob’s Well Bread at room temperature in a paper, wax or cloth bread bag. To refresh and serve, place your loaf in a 325˚ oven for about 10-12 minutes for a fresh from the oven experience. This will also help revive the crust in more humid climates. Do not place bread in the refrigerator as it dehydrates and will turn your bread stale quickly.

Freezing your bread
If you buy loaves to freeze, it’s best to do it while the bread is still fresh. For the best result, and to prevent freezer burn, tightly wrap each loaf in plastic wrap, and seal in a good quality freezer bag and plan to consume your bread within a month. You can also freeze pieces of fresh bread that you don’t finish right away, to come back to them later in the week. To defrost your frozen bread, remove it from the freezer and, leaving it in the open freezer bag, let stand at room temperature for three to five hours or overnight.

Refreshing
Place your thawed, unwrapped bread in a 325˚ oven for 10-12 minutes before serving. Let it stand on a rack for five to 10 minutes before cutting. This method also helps restore the bread’s crust on humid days.

The Artisan Test
Our high hydration, combined with long fermentation and baking in stone-deck oven creates an irregular and open cell structure in our loaves. Artisan breads are a labor of love, made by old-world, European-inspired traditions. Although the ingredients couldn’t be simpler (flour, water, yeast and salt), the process of creating the finest quality bread is long and somewhat complex.

A day at Bob’s Well Bread Bakery begins as early in the morning, when the bakers arrive to scale the ingredients and mix the dough. Many recipes call for a “starter,” a fermented mixture of water, and a combination of white & whole grain wheat flour that infuses the bread and provides a natural preservative. The baker must keep this mixture alive by “feeding” it,  which for us means twice daily, once in the early morning, and again in the evening.  

Once the dough is mixed, the baker divides the dough into batches and sets it aside for several hours for the process called “ bulk fermentation.” Later, the baker will divide the dough by weight, pre-shape each piece and set it aside, after it’s final shaping, in baskets or couches for many hours for a final proof.

Finally, the baker checks the proofed loaves, scores them with marks to identify the type of bread they are, and only then do we bake them in our custom made stone-deck oven. With stone decks , these ovens maintain a constant high heat, which when combined with a burst of steam, causes the gas to rise in bubbles within the dough, and form a delicate crust. Baking this old-fashioned way creates a perfect crust and an even golden brown color. After baking, the fresh loaves are cooled, and ready to be sold, or packed and delivered.

The process from beginning to end, of preparing a loaf of bread for baking takes in excess of 15 hours and as many as 20 or more.   But the results make it worthwhile – a tantalizing aroma, a crispy burnished crust, and only the simplest natural ingredients.

One of the best things about artisan baking is that the same elements that give our bread its wonderful taste and texture also make it a healthy choice, as our breads contain only the finest, simplest ingredients, natural starters and absolutely no preservatives.