bbstx- Great information has already been shared, but I'll steer you in a little different direction for low-sodium bread recipes. I recently added the cookbook, "Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., & Joe Francois (also authors of "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day"), to my collection. In traditional bread recipes salt controls the yeast action, and when you decrease the salt in a standard recipe you need to also lower the amount of yeast used. As a general rule-of-thumb if you reduce the salt by 50%, then you also need to reduce the yeast by 50%. But just as these "Artisan Bread in 5-Minutes" recipes defy bread-making "norms", they give this information about adding salt to their recipes: "Because our dough is slack in the first place, and is stored for so long, we don't detect differences in dough strength between high- and low-salt versions of our breads. In our recipes, salt makes its appearance mostly for flavor, so adjust it to suit your palate." Therefore, I'd suggest checking out a copy of these books from the library, or check their web site (lots of information there - see link below), and this would give you some really great, easy-to-make, recipes you could adapt to low-sodium choices. Great for beginner, or busy, bread bakers. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

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

I'd like to see the ingredients list for recipe as well. The rule-of-thumb for salt is generally for reducing salt from a recipe, so I suppose it could be reversed for adding salt. For instance- if you reduce the salt by 50%, then reduce the amount of yeast by 50%. I find it very odd there wasn't any salt, unless it was specifically designed to be a low-sodium recipe. You will find lots of great recipes to make baguettes using a bread machine that include salt. Try the one at the link below by Sue Gray and P.J. Hamel from King Arthur Flour. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Baguette-Ciabatta Recipes

The yogurt shouldn't be a problem reacting with yeast. Yeast actually works best in a mildly acidic environment, which is why ascorbic acid is often mixed with dry yeast products. To improve the rise of breads containing wheat germ and whole wheat flour (which contains wheat germ), I always add an acid ingredient to counteract the gluten-damaging effects of glutathione in the wheat germ. Bacteria (in yogurt and also present in bread dough made without yogurt) produces those tasty acids in bread dough that improve the flavors of bread when we refrigerate it. The acidity already present in sourdough starters help sourdough breads keep longer, inhibit mold growth and also slows staling, and you'll see the same qualities in breads made with yogurt. -Grainlady