Youtuber Steve Gamelin was the first artisan bread instructor that I stumbled upon. Prior to discovering him, I was just a bread-machine guy. I liked his videos so much that I bought one of his Kindle books, just to send some money his way. He got me into long-ferment baking, and that got me here.
His formulas are pretty forgiving, they don't have to be exact, so he does volumetric-only measuring. His method uses an overnight bulk ferment, and a 90 minute proof.
http://www.youtube.com/user/artisanbreadwithstev - - - no final "e"
I've made a few dozen of his loaves with near 100% whole wheat flour. First, follow his recipes closely, and you'll learn how the high hydration feels, before you substitute in more whole wheat flour like I did, which needs extra water.
He uses commercial yeast only, no sourdough. But with an overnight rise, all you need is 1/4 tsp per loaf.
No starter, no biga, no poolish, no barm. No weighing. No kneading. No stretch-and-folds.
He has mainly 100% white flour recipes, and then some 50-50 whole wheat/white flour recipes.
He has two broad cateories, 1) the 8-16 hour rises, and 2) the "turbo" process.
The 8-16 hour rises are more open crumb, I think, than the speeded up process. The longer rise loaves taste better, imho.
Watch a few of his videos. His mixing method is so easy, it's much easier to clean up than a bread machine's mixing paddle and pan.
Granted, it's not the kind of "Instagram-worthy" open crumb and big oven spring that you can learn here on this web site. But if you are looking for K.I.S.S., I have not found anything simpler than Steve's method for basic "good enough" bread.
Here is my favorite recipe from his channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcmS7uahscI
it's a 50-50 white/whole wheat. Enjoy.
Some purists may scoff, but I often recommend these videos to people who feel intimidated about how "complicated" making bread can be. It consistently gives decent results, benefits from a long, slow ferment with not much yeast (at least in the non-turbo version) and does yield a good loaf. Artisan it may not be, but if it encourages some folks to at least try bread baking, good stuff.