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No matter where you are on the bread baking ladder - absolutel beginner - serious home baker or professional baker, if you love bread, stepping into the SFBI is like finding the Holy Grail of bread baking.
You will talk, learn, touch, feel, smell and taste bread all day!
I came to the SFBI as a total beginner for weekend courses and continued as serious home baker with weeklong courses. In each and every workshop I was taught and worked along absolute amazing professionals!
Meanwhile I feel confident enough to share my knowledge with others in my part of the world and even to write a specialty baking book.
I cannot wait to attend more workshops at the SFBI - you live and learn and nowhere is learning about baking more fun than here.
Thank you SFBI - may the Flour Power always be with you.

Susanne Weissenberger@whitemountainsourdough

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I spent 2 weeks at SFBI doing Artisan Bread1&2. It was a well-organized program covering most of the knowledge and skills of bread making. Every day we got to spend an hour or so in the classroom with lecture materials and recipes for the day before putting the knowledge into practice afterward. We were able to slowly build up our knowledge and skills from artisan 1 to Artisan 2. I had Stephan as my instructor for both of my courses, he was very knowledgeable and willing to answer questions throughout the whole time (even after class!). Not only did he teach us about “how’s”, but also “why’s”. All the demonstrations were explained clearly and he taught us what to look for during the dough development, as well as analyzing the outcome. The program could be quite intense and overwhelming for home bakers or beginners since we were doing KGs of doughs every day with the industrial setting. Overall, I really enjoyed my time at SFBI and I would highly recommend to those who want to improve their skills in bread making.

Christa ChanSFBI Student

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The course was very helpful for me, as a baker and owner of a bakery. It gave me insights on different types of production lines. I believe that the course can be helpful for every person depending on what student wants. In my case, I was very interested in how to organize a large production, how to retard bulks of dough, how to retard shaped bread, what kind of equipment I would need to scale my production up. It is an intense course, with lots of dough to mix, shape and bake, so it was perfect for me, since that's the reality at my bakery.

Stephan, the instructor, was very interested in answering all of my doubts, even some time in advance before the course started. As an example of Stephan's kindness: I took with me a bag of the flour we use at my bakery. During the course, Stephan reminded me of that, and we used it in one of the recipes, to compare my flour's performance vs. the one we were using at the course. This was a nice gesture and it helped me to test it in a "school" environment.

Matias PascualBaker/ Owner of Bakery

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Last June 2019 I attended the “Bread and Viennoiserie Training Series” at the San Francisco baking institute.
During the course of my career as chef I always made and baked bread without knowing the real chemistry and the real reason of how to perfectly use salt, yeast, water and flour...4 ingredients that mixed at the perfect temperature and perfect timing can change the world of breads and laminated dough! I wanted to personally say Thank you to Chef Instructor Stephan Barbiero and Miyuki Togi and their team for teaching me and making me fall in love with the dough, the levain, sourdough breads, perfect baguettes,laminated dough, puff pastry, and many others amazing tips that only a professional can gives us; they have an answer for every single question and this is for me what make SFBI special because you can confront yourself with a professional team.
SFBI is the best place to make your dream come true.

Stefano QuaresimaChef/ Baker