So I’ve been baking bread for years. I’ve used Julia Child’s white sandwich bread recipe (see below) and it’s always done wonderfully. I buy bulk yeast and bread flour at Sam’s Club. A while back I bought some fresh flour and new yeast. It was a different brand of yeast (Fleischman’s) and the same flour I’ve always bought. I did everything I normally do - proofed the yeast, knead in my Bosch mixer, first rise, etc. In look and feel it was the same dough, made a beautiful dough ball, kneaded by hand well. The bread didn’t rise properly on the 2nd rise. It’s like it lacked structure. It would rise, but rather than rising up from the loaf pan it sort of flopped over on the sides and fell. It’s like the dough doesn’t have the strength to rise vertically. It’s continued to do this ever time I’ve tried since.
The things that are different - it’s new flour and new yeast. The weather is colder, so I’ve been rising in a warmed oven that is turned off. Same pans, same recipe.
Any ideas?
Julia Child’s white sandwich bread
2.5 C warm water (about 105 degrees. I have an instant read thermometer - great investment)
7 C bread flour
4 T Butter, softened
1 T sugar (I use honey for a little extra flavour)
1 T salt (I use kosher salt)
1 T yeast
In a bowl mix warm water, sweetener and yeast. I use a tupperware type plastic bowl
with a lid so I can shake it up to mix it. Let sit for 5 minutes to proof the yeast.
Put the rest of the water and about have the flour in a mixing bowl and combine A
stand mixer is your friend. Add the rest of the flour and the yeast mixture. When
the dough comes together, add the butter one tablespoon at a time. Mix again until
the dough comes back together. Add more flour if the consistancy warrents it. The
flour/water ratio is roughly 3-1, but humidity and other things can change it. Knead
about 10 minutes with your mixer, then put it on a floured surface and knead by
hand until you get the dough right. You’ll know it when you feel it, but you can
do the window test and take a walnut-sized ball of dough, flatten it out and pull
it until the dough has a membrane, rather than just breaking apart.
Rise your dough until it’s doubled. When putting the dough in the bowl (or whatever)
to rise, grease the bowl and turn the dough around in it so it is coated with the
grease. Turn out your dough and knead it a bit to get the air bubbles out. Divide
it in two. Shape into loaves and let rise again in the bread pans, covered with plastic wrap.
Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 35 minutes or until the internal temp of the
bread is between 190-200 degrees. I use my instant read thermometer to check it.
Cool on a wire rack.
Whenever I see a thread like this I wish I could be THERE and see the product!
Assuming you changed nothing but the yeast brand/type I think that’s where you need to look first. Is there an expiration date on the yeast, as it’s possible you got yeast that was past date and lacked the life it should.
The yeast you used before, was it the “quick rise” type, or just regular? And is the style the same on the new product?
If it’s none of the above, then it’s possible the flour changed. Even if it’s the same brand as you’ve always used it’s possible that the gluten content changed somewhat. And the recipe calls for bread flour, did you use regular by mistake?
No temperature changes? The same water? No? Then cuberdon may have had something, about the rising and kneading times.
I wish I could do more. Keep asking questions, I’ll try to help better. Bread is my absolute favorite thing to make, any bread.
I’m using bread flour, specifically the Sam’s house brand, Bakers & Chefs. When I buy a 25 lb bag, I break it up into 5 lb ziplocks and store it in the crisper section of my refrigerator. The yeast is a similar bulk product, active dry yeast.
When rising, I do the first rise in my mixing bowl, so it’s hard to judge the structure of the rise. On the second rise, it starts okay, but after it clears the side of the pan, it seems to go over the edge of the pan instead of rising straight up. The loaves were previously very lofty, but now have been at least 2" shorter than normal. The dough weight is still the same, about 750 g per loaf. (I use a scale to get even loaves)
It’s winter, so it’s colder in my house. It may be drier or damper. It was raining today. The new bag of flour, the new yeast (kept in a tupperware container in the refrigerator, exp-Oct. 20124) and the season are all the things changed since the baking went bad. Today I bought a new bag of flour and a different brand of yeast (Red Star). I won’t have time to try again until next weekend, but look forward to any comments.
FWIW, I use the bulk Fleischman’s yeast from Sam’s without any problems. In fact, I used some yesterday for pizza crust and it came out fine. YMMV, of course!
Doing a little research online about winter bread falling, I’ve seen a recommendation to slightly reduce the amount of yeast and water in the recipe. I think I’ll try that. Although, it’s supposed to warm up this weekend, so maybe I’ll have more success.
“The weather is colder” so you’ve been doing the first rise in a turned off warm oven. That heat is making the yeast give its all on the first rise. The way bakers do it is, a lonnnnnng cool FIRST rise - that develops the wheat taste rather than the yeasty taste.
The second rise is the quick one, and then it goes whoosh in the oven. I have taught bread baking for years and have watched bread being made in France and Italy.
It is a common error of home bakers to think they need warmth for the first rise. In fact the slower that first one, the better your bread, the finer the crumb.
StGermain: Heat makes yeast work fast, and if dough sits in heat for the first rise, a lot of its ‘oomph’ is gone. Oven heat doesn’t “Kill” yeast although too-hot water for proofing can kill it. There should be great “lift” of the loaves when they first enter the oven, which is why we slash them.Some very experienced bakers even do three-rise bread - the flavor really develops.
Ideally, do a long, slow first rise - sometimes mine is 3-4 hours or longer. I don’t use plastic bowls, but some kind of pottery or ceramic, and a bowl that is deeper than it is wide, so the dough can rise UP and not spread out, as it rises.
It should be set to rise in a draft-free spot, but doesn’t have to be warm for the 1st one. (it will even rise if you put it in the fridge and go away for a day, then take it out - it will resume where it left off). Punch it down, knead a few times again, form into loaves or put in pans or in a couche or however you do it, cover with a clean towel and put it in a warmish spot. I generally put it on top of the stove where I’m preheating the oven (keep it away from the grate where hot air comes out). It should double in bulk in about 30-45 minutes. Slash the loaves, put them in a HOT oven, 425F, spray the floor and sides to make steam, close the door quickly. I use a convection oven. After about 15 minutes turn down the heat to 350 or so to bake through. all of this is predicated on my French loaves which are baked “naked” without a pan after being formed in a couche. My house is usually about 68. I have tiles lining the floor but took them out and saw no difference. The steam spray does work.
I do exactly as you do with the mixing, let the stand mixer do the hard part, knead it by hand once the messy part is done.
I don’t think there is any “bad bread.” It might not rise the way we want, but it is all good, even if just for croutons or crumbs, and that first warm slice slathered in butter… And the more you make bread, the more those yeasty, wonderful things are floating around in your kitchen and aiding each loaf you make in the future. Have you ever tried making a starter? That is essentially making your own yeast, from the wild yeasts floating around in your kitchen.
Well that is pretty much the main parts, except for the water.
Different harvests of wheat can have dramatically different effects on the flour that is produced. Either it is higher in moisture content (easy, depending on where it was stored prior to purchase, or humidity levels during milling) or it’s protein level is different.
Higher hydration levels or lower protein level (gluten content) will both cause the symptom that you are experiencing.
Also, bread making by volume (flour measure) is a dangerous thing when it comes to consistency. It’s easy for the weight of flour in a cup measure to vary greatly, depending on how it was scooped or how packed it was in your storage container.
Starter is actually mostly made from the yeasts that are already on the milled flour, not what is in the air. If you really want to try to make it from the airborne yeasts, you need to sterilize your flour first, and, mostly likely you won’t be able to get a viable starter. Best bet is to actually get a known, strong starter from someone. Plenty of sourdough bakers give starters away for free. Just look online.
>>Starter is actually mostly made from the yeasts that are already on the milled flour, not what is in the air. If you really want to try to make it from the airborne yeasts, you need to sterilize your flour first, and, mostly likely you won’t be able to get a viable starter. Best bet is to actually get a known, strong starter from someone. Plenty of sourdough bakers give starters away for free. Just look online.<<
Hmm, that’s contrary to what most experienced bakers say and do. The local wild air-borne yeasts are the reason San Francisco has sourdough bread. It’s “terroir”, just like wine. Baking bread with “sterilized” flour is sort of the antithesis of everything good bread is all about!
There is of course nothing wrong with using commercial yeast (cake yeast is the best but it has a short shelf life). But there is also something wonderful about “capturing the wild yeasts” which are present and are different in each part of the world and have a kind of unpredictable magic - I find it interesting that cheese, wine and bread all depend in some degree on unpredictable factors dependent on nature’s whims. That’s why I love baking bread. Each batch is as individual as a fingerprint, or a snowflake.
for more information on this, I can recommend some books: Crust & Crumb by Peter Reinhart, Secrets of a Jewish Baker by George Greenstein, and Bread Alone by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik.
Thank you so much for this information!!! I’ve been learning how to bake bread and I tried the Julia Child recipe above last weekend. It’s so good, but I thought maybe it could be even better. The info on the rising is what I’ve been missing.
There’s plenty of mythology surrounding sourdough. If you really wanted to make it with the local yeasts, you would have to sterilize the flour first. Most of the yeasts are already in the milled flour.
Now, over a long period of time, the local yeasts will eventually take over. But what you get the first time? Pretty much just what is already in the flour.
YAY! Success. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t rush the first rise, the new bag of flour (I used the old yeast) or the fact that it was in the 70’s today, but finally my bread looks like it used to. Here’s a pic.
