Yesterday, I decided to make a rapid buttermilk bread in my trusty old machine. I chose the rapid option because it was too close to suppertime when I decided to make it. While it tasted OK, I ended up with a short, dense, crumbly loaf - I’ve never had a fail like this before.
The first possibility I considered involves the flour. The bread-machine flour was of indeterminate age, plus I didn’t have enough so I supplemented it with all-purpose flour. Second possibility is that I used reconstituted powdered buttermilk. Least likely possibility involves the winter solstice, gravity, and the possibility that my house is built on an ancient burial ground. Or, I suppose, I may have mis-measured an ingredient or possibly forgot one, tho I think I got everything.
So, any ideas? I’d like to try to make it again when I buy the correct flour and real buttermilk, but I still wonder what might have gone wrong.
I would suspect the yeast. We’ve had the best luck with the yeast you get in jars and keep in the refrigerator rather than the little packets. Don’t give up, I’m sure you’ll be making great bread before long.
She specifically said, “my trusty old machine”, so I doubt this was an early try. Just a bread that failed for reasons unknown.
Yeast is indeed a likely cause. We keep the packets in the fridge also. So I’m not sure where the jar is better unless you go through a lot of yeast. It does expire, though the fridge life is a long one.
A sealed package is good for about 2 years, once you open the jar, it is more like half a year.
I use instant dry yeast that is years old (covid-age?) … and it works well/great …
your description of failed bread sounds like the typical bread that you get out of a bread machine … but then again you seem to have previous efforts as a comparison.
more technical now: if your bread was dense and crumbly, that means you didn’t get the yeast’s CO2 to lift it up … which means either no CO2 from yeast - or no “rubbery” gluten matrix to trap the CO2 and have it lift the bread.
My yeast is also COVID vintage, but it’s been double-bagged in the fridge. That and the flour seem to be the most likely suspects. I don’t think I shorted the water, but I may have messed up the substitution calculations - powdered buttermilk vs. real buttermilk. The bread didn’t taste salty and I’m pretty sure it was just 1 tsp.
Thanks for all the suggestions - I will try again.
Yep, either not enough bubbles, or not enough gluten was developed to trap what’s there.
The first would be a consequence of old/dead yeast, not hot enough, or not enough time.
The second is usually not kneaded enough or flour without enough gluten to begin with.
My guess is that it’s probably some of each; old yeast, the addition of AP flour, and the lackluster kneading of a bread machine all probably conspired to make a less than perfect loaf.
I’d test it with new bread flour and new yeast, and see what happens.
We had a similar problem when we were making a lot of bread in our machine. It turned out that we were putting the salt in at the same time as the yeast and the salt was killing the yeast.
Put them in separately with a bunch of other ingredients separating them and see if that’s it.
Very unlikely to have been the culprit. Old age wouldn’t be a factor, and the a/p flour wasn’t a large proportion of the dough. Plus it could have been all a/p and it might have still worked.
Even more unlikely.
The yeast and salt as others have stated are going to be the answer.