Among Dugan's favorite flours are King Arthur's Sir Galahad, a white flour, and Caputo Tipo an Italian flour that is ground as fine as talcum powder. He also roasts barley malt and adds it to some bread doughs.
For yeasts, he uses Saf Red Label and a starter or biga that is now almost 20 years old and was given to him by a man who smuggled it in from Italy. He replenishes the biga regularly, feeding it flour, water and yeasts but never letting it sit more than three days without being renewed. After three days, its sour notes are too strong, Dugan said, and it also begins to "eat" the plastic bucket that holds it.
Dugan spoke speaks highly of Baltimore water and its native airborne yeasts. "I think if you put our yeast in a bucket with San Francisco sourdough, ours would take San Francisco's lunch money," he said.
When mixing his dough, Dugan uses ice water, putting it in the bottom of the vessel. Next comes the biga, then the flour, then the yeast. The ice water slows down the action of yeast, producing more flavor in the dough, he said.
The bread gets two spins called Speed One and Speed Two, in the machine that mixes the dough. He adds salt after Speed One, and uses only kosher salt, because it is a "softer salt" that does not break the gluten, the protein that forms the structure of the bread and holds the carbon dioxide produced by yeast.
Dugan knows his dough is properly mixed when he "panes" the dough, taking a small portion in his hands and stretching until it form a translucent layer, like a window pane, that he can see through.
He scores his loaves, making shallow cuts in surface of the bread, with either with a razor blade or a fillet knife. He started using a fillet knife to score the Pugliese (bread from the Puglia region), after he saw a photograph of an old Italian baker holding such a sharp knife.
He bakes in a hot, 450-550 F degree, oven, first spraying the loaves with water, rotating their positions in the oven and turning them by hand to ensure even browning. He wears $6 leather gloves when he handles the hot loaves, and goes through about 30 pairs a year.
Dugan grew up in Turtle Creek Pa., outside Pittsburgh. His grandmother, Molly Dugan, a Mennonite, got him interested in baking. After high school, he joined the Army, became a Ranger and parachuted out of airplanes After the Army, he made his way to Baltimore, where he began his professional baking career.
