Modernist Cuisine, the ground-breaking cookbook series and kitchen lab from ultimate food nerd (and former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft) Nathan Myhrvold and company, is about to birth another megacookbook. First announced in 2014, Modernist Bread: The Art and Science is, as promised, a deep dive into the world of yeasts and starters, crusts and crumbs. Myhrvold and co-author chef Francisco Migoya — former pastry chef at the French Laundry and culinary instructor at the CIA — applied the scientific method, modern technology, and the hi-res, immersive photography the lab is known for to the world of bread making and baking.

Watch the book trailer, below. Do note the intense, primitive drum beat that accompanies questions like “Can you use any oven to bake bread?” and “Why does bread smell so good?”

The 2,300+ page Modernist Bread is filled with over 3,000 photos of bread, cross sections of ovens and other bread machinery, starter development, microscopic captures of yeast growth, grain, water, and salt — the basic building blocks and resulting alchemy of bread baking.

Modernist Bread was four years in the making. Contributors include: historian Jim Chevallier; grain experts Dr. Stephen Jones and Maria Speck; scientists Stanley Cauvain and Carl Hoseney; and bakers Emily Buehler, Ken Forkish, Richard Miscovich, Apollonia Poilâne, Peter Reinhart, and Didier Rosada.

The six-volume book is now available for pre-order for $625; it goes on sale next May 2017. A companion website, modernistbread.com, is now live. There’s also now a Modernist Bread calendar; those who order the calendar and pre-order the book on Amazon get $15 off the book. The Cooking Lab, Myhrvold’s in-house publishing department, is handling publication.

“Today there is no recognized Modernist bread movement, but there should be,” Myhrvold wrote in a release, “This book is a combination of very practical knowledge and ideas that are right at the cutting edge of bread research to empower bakers of all persuasions. Some bakers will want to make traditional breads in old ways, and some will want to make those same breads in new ways.”

• Modernist Cuisine Announces New Cookbook on Bread [E]

• Nathan Myhrvold on Modernist Cuisine, the Importance of Photography, and Books vs iPads [E]

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