I bake almost all my own bread these days. I use a sourdough method, which gives the bread a deliciously tangy flavour and significantly reduces the need for added yeast.

The sourdough method is actually very simple and requires only a minimal amount of effort. The easiest and fastest way to get started is to take a bit of ready sourdough starter from a friend, like I did. You can also take a piece of store-bought sourdough bread, grind it into crumbs, and add water and flour. I've even made my own starter using buttermilk as a base.

Your starter, whether it's rye, wheat, barley, or whatever, should have a "goopy" consistency, able to be poured, but not so watery that you get a thick layer of water building up on the surface as it ferments and settles. The starter needs to be refreshed once a week by adding ~100 mL of flour and a proportionate amount of fresh water and keeping it, loosely covered, slightly above room temperature for ~24 hours. (I put mine in the cupboard above the fridge.) The rest of the time you should store it in the fridge, tightly covered. If you're not going to use it for a while, you can freeze it or dry it out. Drying is best done by spreading it out onto a sheet of baking paper, about half a centimetre thick.

What I do when I make bread dough is I take 100-150 mL of starter and add a bit of dark syrup, 2 tsp sea salt, a sprinkling of dry yeast, plus half a litre of warm water. If I'm using any whole grains, spices, or seeds, I add those too. Then I stir in the flour, first using a wooden fork, then working it in by hand as the dough thickens. When the consistency of the dough is hard enough, I add a dollop of vegetable oil and finish kneading it into a ball. Then I let the dough rest and rise overnight. In the morning, I heat up the oven and bake some yummy bread!

For more handy information on sourdough, check the Wikipedia article. There are many more ways of using it than the way I've described, and it also has a rich cultural history around the world.