Jürgen Krauss

Jürgen Krauss was born and grew up in a village near Freiburg, Germany, in the Black Forest. During his childhood Krauss enjoyed playing with the plentiful tools that were around – his grandpa was a miner, and his father is a master locksmith. At age 12, he managed to make a noise on his father’s trombone, and he has been playing ever since, in the town band, in specialist ensembles for Renaissance music, and, more recently, in a community big band. Krauss’ love of baking started as soon as he could stand, helping his mother when she made Linzer torte or the many varieties of biscuits for Christmas. His love of science also started early: he sporadically read a children’s encyclopedia he had been given for Christmas, dipping in and out at random when he had the leisure. Later he also had a chemistry set, and physics seemed to come to him naturally at school. After Abitur (a German exam required to pass secondary education) and military service, he studied physics in Freiburg.

Krauss re-oriented and for a while split his time between early music gigs and kitchen fitting before settling into IT and computer programming around 1999. His musical development introduced him to the Feldenkrais Method (body work), which he studied and then graduated as a practitioner in 2002. The Feldenkrais Method brought him to a course in Lewes, England, where he met his wife. He lives in Brighton, England and works as a database administrator and analyst programmer.

Apart from baking and music, Krauss enjoys outdoor activities (hiking, running, swimming), engineering, architecture, and anything that tickles his interest. He started making bread in earnest in 2010, when he was longing for German-style bread, and it is his strongest baking skill. Making bread has taught him to work systematically and with precision, and he used this successfully in The Great British Bake Off (2021) and The Great New Year’s Bake Off (2023). He applied his sense for flavor combinations, architecture, and engineering to create his memorable bakes.

Krauss teaches baking classes online and in person, gives demonstrations on food festivals, and his book, German Baking, was published in August 2023.