My bread making is wildly inconsistent. It ranges between perfect to throw it out. It just can’t be that difficult so I threw out the recipes and approached it scientifically.
Yeast. A packet of Fleischmann’s active dry yeast. I’ve always used the guideline of guesstimating 105 degrees because too hot and they all die. I’ve been seeing 115 as the new recommended and I measured it with my infrared thermometer using bottled (non-chlorinated) water. A shot of sugar (packets are imo the best for this) and best proofing I’ve ever had. So often at 105 it just barely comes to life and I think this is because the water cools off too quickly. This means weak-ass yeast.
Hydration: 70% by weight. This is where I throw out recipes because they go by volume. A gallon of water in 8 1/3 lb. There are 16 cups in a gallon and 16 ounces in a pound so water is 8 1/3 oz per cup. Dividing by 70% this tells me that for every cup of water I use 11.9 oz of bread flour. I bumped this to 12 oz and being easy to remember giving a 69.4% hydration. Close enough.
Autolysing: Last night I put in 1.5C bottled water with 18 oz of bread flour mixed into the refrigerator. Today I added the 1/2C of water with the yeast and another 6 oz of flour (see ratio above) and 2t salt (ratio is 1t per 1C water). I knead by hand by stretching and folding. By 15 min I had good gluten development and by 30 min it easily passed the window pane test. This gluten development has always been the inconsistent part of my bread making. Read above, yeast proofing was consistent(ly bad) due to I believe too low of water temperature.
Proofing time: Because I use weak-ass yeast, I would have to proof for hours to get any rise. My hope is that by doing it right, I can give it a beatdown after an hour or so then second rise takes 45-60 minutes. It is currently in a bowl on my counter so we shall see.
First rise took about 50 minutes. Divided it into two baguettes because it is french bread. First experiment is one was scored now and the other I’ll wait until baking. Second experiment is one is on a pizza stone and the other is on an air-filled baking sheet with a silicone mat.
This second rise is the real test. So often my bread rises out instead of up.
I will be watching, my bread is also somewhat inconsistent. I keep meaning to make a yeast incubator but have never gotten around to it. I seldom make bread anymore but you have sparked my interest. My mom made bread almost daily. She always just set it on the stove with wet towels over it.
What’s your altitude? Have you made adjustments to your recipes to accommodate it?
Contrary to popular belief, the remedy is to use less yeast, not more. Because air pressure is reduced at altitude, it requires less yeast to get the right results. This might help:
I recently went through this while adjusting recipes for my parents, who live at around 4,700 feet.
Also, yeast will activate at any water temperature. You can activate it with cool water, too. It just takes a lot longer. A. lot. longer. But many overnight no-knead recipes start with cool water and it works fine.
Your problems won’t come during the initial rise. They’ll come during either the second rise, or the bake will fail to spring. Or it will spring and then collapse back on itself.
Baking at altitude is tricky! I had several failed attempts at bread while staying with my folks and working out the adjustments for their altitude. It was a good lesson for me. I did ultimately succeed, though. I’m sure you will, too.
About to put them in the oven. Hot water in a pyrex casserole on the lower rack and heating the oven to 375 using convection setting. The bread I scored after the first rise looks like a perfect baguette. The unscored one was a little more out to the sides but I’ll score it and we’ll see what happens when it springs in the oven.
I think I’m doing something right because scoring it did not cause it to collapse but the unscored one did not score as prettily and there were noticible bubbles towards the top. As of now, I think scoring after the first rise is the way to go, but we’ll see after the baking..
I hope your method works! It does sound promising.
Just to mention, you’ll get better spring if you bake at a higher temperature. I preheat to 425F, then lower the temperature to 400F just before I put the loaves in to bake.
Right, I think, at first document every single thing no matter how insignificant, e.g time of day, R/H of kitchen, etc. Then with experience you can apply different approaches. At least the ingredients are cheap to experiment, but time isnt cheap!
Hardest part was waiting for it to cool down to test.
It was a success. Crust had that bite of french bread and the bread itself is moist and chewy. The loaf I scored just before going into the oven had a better spring and as a result slightly more open chumb and was the winner but just barely. Next experiment will be first rise in the refrigerator to get more yeasty flavor but don’t get me wrong, these taste great and as DaveUnknown points out, completely replecatable.
I use much cooler water and just leave it in the water longer before adding flour. Works a treat.
When I started baking, I often used too hot, and though the yeast would proof, those were their little death throes as they boiled alive, and the bread came out as unappetizing bricks. Any proofing you are watching is not helping your bread: let them wait until they’re in the flour.
What I do now is yeast + water, wait, add some flour, mix, add the salt, mix, and then add the rest of the flour, knead, rise, bake. The yeast does fine without sugar.
Years ago, in the back of cooking magazines, a guy from France sold his patented baguette baking pans and his recipe. I still have mine. It is the simplest recipe you will ever see. Just regular flour (no bread flour, no sifting) salt and yeast, I think. But several pages of how to knead the dough. The loaves are slashed and coated with egg whites. The specially textured aluminum pans do the magic. I have never, and I mean NEVER had bread anywhere else that even comes close to this perfection. Cut each baguette in half and wrap in foil and they freeze well and reheat just as good as fresh.
One thing for ME at least that lead to highly variable baking was using the aforementioned single-serving packets of Fleishman’s yeast. Very likely to the vagaries of shipping, age, storage and what have you, sometimes they’d rise like champs, and sometimes they never rose to the occasion.
Since then, I’ve shifted to buying the one pound bulk options, decanting into home storage, and giving them a good shake to distribute before storing in a cool dry part of the pantry. Still have other possible baking screw ups, but almost no complete failures to rise.
A friend that does bread machine bread was having similar issues with their yeast, and often found the packets to be borderline on best-by dates. They have also since switched to buying the bulk packages and have had better results.
I prefer sourdough and my starter died and my quest to make some from wild yeast turned to mold. I need to buy a new starter and I have a thread here as to San Francisco for bread or Yukon for pancakes. I think the consensus is that San Francisco sourdough is so special because of the yeast, bacteria and the San Francisco environment. Kind of like how New York bagels and pizza crust depend on New York water and even with every other ingredient the same, you ain’t never going to replicate it somewhere else.
When it comes to developing gluten by hand: During kneading, a coating of gluten accretes onto the palms of the hands and the kneading surface. Because these are the places where the dough is worked the most. Once it has built up, scrape it all off the hands and the surface, return that to the dough, and continue. When I have removed it and reincorporated it three times, that’s a signal I’ve kneaded enough.
What’s your flour? How much whole grain flour do you use?