A bread problem

[kyosa]

I made two loaves of whole-wheat bread today and after they'd risen in their pans I noted that instead of rising high, they sort of drooped over the sides of the pans. They didn't rise in the pans for an excessive amount of time, so I'm wondering if there is a problem with the dough itself. Too 'wet'? Would adding gluten help? Advice needed!

[nan]

If your weather has been whacky...that can do it and some days you just need a bit more flour to make it stiffer and to hold its shape. You can also add more gluten...it makes it raise better and is spongier...do you usually add gluten? I add about a TBS for every cup or so of whole wheat..but we like ours really squishy. That also sometimes happens when it raises too quickly to hold its shape and sometimes when it gets jolted. The main times that mine have done that...is due to needing a bit more flour and the dough being too sticky! It tastes the same though...even though it isn't as pretty!

[nan]

Oh...sometimes that can happen if it raises in too warm of a place! I forgot about that too! Because it makes it rise too quickly to keep its shape.

[Deleted]

I've been having a problem with my bread lately, too. Sometimes it does what yours did, Darryl, but mostly it just won't rise at all. It barely crests the level of the pans. Since it first started doing this, I've gotten another new batch of yeast, so it's not that the yeast is old, and I've gotten more flour, so I don't think there's anything wrong with the flour. I just keep ending up with these, dense, short loaves of bread.

I use 4 cups of white and 2 cups of whole wheat for mine, because I've never been able to make a loaf with more than that ratio of whole wheat that was even remotely edible. Normally, I let mine rise twice in the bowls, then a 3rd rise in the pans before I bake them, and I've even tried only one rise in the bowl (it rises just fine there), then into the pans, and I still have the same short loaf in the end.

I thought maybe it was the temperature in the house, so several times I warmed the oven slightly and let them rise in there, and that didn't work, either. Yesterday, I finally got the house to a comfortable temperature, so I left them out on the counter to rise, but got the same results - short loaves.

If I let them rise longer, they just end up with huge air bubbles in them that I'm constantly poking with a knife, then the finished loaf has all these weird pockmarks all over it. No big deal, it still tastes good, but I miss my nice, high bread loaves and fine texture. I don't want to go back to using all white flour, either. But I've tried everything I can think of and I can't seem to make it work anymore.

~Lannie

[Kathy]

Try crushing a couple 250mg vitamin C tablets & adding it to the liquids in your recipe.

I make 100% whole wheat bread and so far, I've always had it turn out well; soft, wel risen and tasty.

A Mormon friend of mine who made 14 loaves of bread a week for her family is the one who told me about crushing up the vitamin C tablets.

[nan]

Lecithin helps to keep WW bread from spoiling...which is probably what the C helps to do too! Oh...if you have a milk based recipe...don't put the c in with your milk or it is kinda disturbing looking! ;D ;D It doesn't hurt the bread..it just kinda curdles the milk....

I have found , in winter, that if I don't grease the loaf well before letting it rise...that it will get "crustier" and not rise as large. It happens MUCH more often in the winter than the summer because of the drier heat. You can stick your loaf in the oven with the oven light on...or preheat it a tad...stick it OVER a large open pan...like a jelly roll pan...of water...and the heat and the extra humidity will make beautiful loaves! You might also try mixing up your dough and sticking them directly into a bread pan to rise only once, but for a longer period of time. I do that with 100% whole wheat sometimes when it is really cold outside! Makes it more moist and squishier since it doesn't have as long to dry out trying to rise. I don't use quite as much flour in the winter as the summer either....but that is because it is usually on the dry side in our house....doesn't sound like that is Kyosa's trouble though....sounds like he needs a tad MORE flour! LOL! Bread is such a "living" thing....with the same likes and dislikes...and sometimes the same Pain in the neck tendancies! ;D

[Deleted]

Hmmmm.... maybe I'll try more flour. I might not be using enough, but I thought the texture of the dough was much better with less flour - more elastic, ya know? I don't use Vitamin C, so can't try that. I can't figure out how that would help the bread rise, anyway.

I have to make bread again today, so I'll see if more flour helps. I already put it in a warmed oven to rise (the gas oven produces LOTS of humidity!). And maybe it's just that I got two batches of bad yeast in a row. I get Fleischman's in bulk at Sam's.

OK, off to make more bread. Short bread or tall bread, it doesn't matter, I guess! LOL!

~Lannie

[nan]

Hey...it's all good.....just tell hubby it is unleavened bread and play passover! Hava, nageela hava ....or however you spell that?

I'm wondering if your yeast WAS bad...I got a batch ...a BIG cotton picken 2 pound thing of it..at Costco a while back...and I don't think it was as "young" as it said that it was! It doesn't work as well as my "old" stuff did! Wonder what they would do if you took it back and asked for a "do over"! Next time you go clear into town that is....or maybe you could call the 1 800 number for the company and tell them about it! Have you tried proofing it to make sure it is or isn't the yeast?

[Deleted]

Can you proof yeast without sugar? I have no sugar, so I haven't tried. Should I just put some in warm water and see what happens? Or would that just be wasting yeast?

I didn't make bread today - I got sidetracked. Maybe tomorrow!

~Lannie

[nan]

You can proof it in warm water....or proof it in a bit of warm milk...and if it works...use the yeasty milk in your recipe of bread! That would work better than plain ole water. You can also add a teensy bit of flour to the milk...and that would give it something to "eat". Weird isn't it...how yeast works by tooting...so we are actually eating yeast toots! LOLOLOL! Just sometimes I think funny things...scccuuuuuze the off thoughts!

[Deleted]

Nuthin' better than yeast toots with bee barf on it, right?

~Lannie

[Kathy]

Jan 13, 2009 13:39:42 GMT -5 @lannie said:

Nuthin' better than yeast toots with bee barf on it, right?

~Lannie

Oh Lannie, now I'll think of this every time I have a slice of warm bread with honey.

Nan, you're not alone, I sometimes think funny thoughts too.

[Deleted]

I think that's why this group is so special. We're all sick and twisted!

Hey, Nan, I warmed up some milk and sprinkled in some yeast, and NOTHING happened. I just bought this stuff a month or two ago - it should be good for a year! My bread today is like two bricks. It rose a little in the bowls, but after I put the dough in the bread pans, it didn't rise much at all. I finally gave up and baked them, but the loaves didn't even touch the sides of the pan when they came out of the oven. It was THAT bad! LOL! It's edible, but very very dense!

Now my problem is how do I make bread until we go shopping next? Maybe I'll have to make pancakes for breakfast every morning. Oh, no, that would be torture!

And how do I know the next batch of yeast will be any better? Like I said I just got this last batch a couple of months ago, and it shouldn't be dead yet. Sometimes I hate the "once a month only" shopping. It really puts a kink in things if something is bad.

Maybe I'll try putting the dough directly in the bread pans to rise once, then bake them. I'll try that tomorrow. If that works, then I guess I'll just finish using up the yeast I have.

~Lannie

[Kathy]

Do you have any beer? I have used this beer bread recipe that's pretty good, the only thing I did was add 2Tbs of honey.
Here's her website, there's other recipes for flavored breads.
foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/11/beyond-easy-beer-bread.html

Farmgirl Susan's Almost Too Easy Whole Wheat Beer Bread Recipe
Makes One Loaf

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
14 ounces beer (or 12 ounces beer & 2 ounces water)

Optional glaze: 1 egg & 2 teaspoons water, beaten

Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.
Slowly stir in beer and mix just until combined.
Batter will be thick.
Spread in a greased 8-inch loaf pan (I love my Chicago Metallic Commercial Loaf Pans--they're great for yeast breads, too), brush with egg glaze if desired, and bake until golden brown and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.
Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes.
Remove from pan and cool 10 more minutes.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

[nan]

Or get on line...and get a good sourdough starter recipe...wish I had one for you... and use what little bit of oomph your yeast has in it to start a sourdough starter! It makes goood bread! I used to make bread for the farmer's market..and the loaves were all sourdough...but it was potato based and I got the starter from a friend of mine. I think that if you kept a starter near your wood stove it would grow like crazy.....YYYYYYIIIIIIKKEEEESS>>>THEEEE BLOBBB!!!!!

Yeast toots! Bee barf!!!!! EEEEks.....next thing you'll be telling me is that eggs come out of a chicken's bottom!!! ;D ;D ;D Reeeeeeally if you think about it..... some city girls would be gagged out if they KNEW where their food actually came from!

[nan]

whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/SourdoughStarter.htm

I found a very simple recipe for sourdough starter and the site said it had other recipes for different breads! Oh...I would use extra yeast...it won't hurt anything and since yours is pretty dead...it wouldn't hurt adding more....AND....with more yeast...the warmth from the woodstove...you will grow your own yeast(those goomers multiply VERY quickly!)! Once you get a good starter going...you will LOVE it!

[nan]

Oh my goodness.....I just looked at the other recipes on that website....there are TONS! and they look gooooood! I am going to have to get a sourdough starter going again!

[Deleted]

Nope, no beer, either, Kathy.

I've been wanting to start a sourdough, but I was going to do the one without yeast. Maybe this would be a good time to start it. While I'm waiting for it to mature, I'll do the best with my almost-dead yeast that I can. Or I'll just make more pancakes!

~Lannie

[Kathy]

Jan 14, 2009 12:41:44 GMT -5 @lannie said:

Nope, no beer, either, Kathy.

I've been wanting to start a sourdough, but I was going to do the one without yeast. Maybe this would be a good time to start it. While I'm waiting for it to mature, I'll do the best with my almost-dead yeast that I can. Or I'll just make more pancakes!

~Lannie

You could make flour tortillas too.
I don't drink beer but I keep a 12 pack in the fridge for beer bread and beer batter.

[Kathy]

Lannie, do you have honey? I found this recipe for proofing yeast using honey!

1/4 c. warm water, 1 T. honey, 5 t. yeast

Here's the recipe for a Honey Grain Bread, it sounds very good for when I want a hearty loaf.

www.thefreshloaf.com/node/7069/honey-grain-bread-recipe