My bread never turns out very good!

[bryanricker]

Whenever I try to make my own bread, it always turns out not quite right. It's always very dense. I want it to be the consistency of store-bought sliced bread... fluffy and light. But it always turns out almost like cake, and when I cut into it sometimes it just crumbles apart.

Any tips? I have been following this recipe:
cookingbread.com/whole_wheat_bread.html


Thanks!

[ImaStupidBaby]

Are you letting it proof long enough? When I was a baker for a local sandwhich place, I'd usually let it proof for 45minutes to and hour. I'd let it proof until it was about the size of a loaf of bread, then put it in the oven.

[bryanricker]

Yeah I am letting it proof sometimes even an hour and half... for the first one I let it get huge, and then I punch it down and roll it up and stick it in a pan and let it rise again until it gets about the size I want the loaf to be (usually another hour or so), then I bake it.

[KYHeirloomer]

Whole grain breads are a real bit.h on wheels, particularly if you are new to baking.

I'm thinking, too, that that's an awful lot of flour, even with the amount of yeast, for that recipe. Are you actually adding all of it? Or just enough to reach a good dough?

I would recommend you get a copy of Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, and learn his delayed fermentation method.

I never could bake a decent whole grain loaf---not even a transitional one---until following his method. Until then they were dense, heavy, and not so tasty.

[bryanricker]

No I don't add that much flour.

Even when I just make white bread, though, it's not the light and fluffy texture that I want. Is there something special I need to do to make it like that?

[lentil]

Try cutting the WW flour with white. Maybe a third white or a half even. It seems that maybe the recipe doesn't get specific about kneading. If you make your bread in a kitchen aid, let that knead it for a few minutes then take it out and finish it by hand. Kneading makes the gluten work and that may be what's happening with your crumbly bread.

Make sure you let it rise enough and perhaps try letting it rise in the bowl for the first time then knead and shape and let it rise again in the pan. When you can poke the bread and leave a dent, it's ready for the oven.

[bryanricker]

I don't have a mixer so I always do it 100% by hand, and I do use the method of first letting it rise in a bowl, and then in the pan.

[lentil]

Originally Posted by bryanricker

I don't have a mixer so I always do it 100% by hand, and I do use the method of first letting it rise in a bowl, and then in the pan.

Maybe you need to knead it longer. It's easier, although not as satisfying, using a mixer. I always push the dough away from me with the heel of my hands, turn it a quarter turn then pull a chunk of dough toward me folding it over itself, then push it away again. Keep this up for 10 minutes or more adding a little flour on your board as needed. From your recipe, it doesn't look like too much flour, but that's just my opinion.

[bryanricker]

I usually knead for about 10 minutes by punching it and using my knuckles to dig into it. Is that a bad method?

[lentil]

I don't know if it's a bad method, or not, but the method I mentioned is very rhythmic and seems to work in the flour easier and more consistently.

Give it a try!

[siduri]

I posted this in another thread. I find this method works perfectly. I now have very light bread, using 100% whole wheat flour.


I learned to make light breads after using laurel's kitchen bread book. She has developed a way to make 100% whole wheat bread (whcih everyone says is impossible to make light) and it comes light and fluffy and just what you want. (I applied these techniques also when i make bread with white flour and it is amazing. but it works unbelievably well for 100%whole wheat bread.)

several things you shoudl keep in mind

1. the recipe you have could have some mistakes. You never know, some are typos, some are just because an author can make a recipe by eye, and then guess at the measurements.

2 sometimes the ingredients vary from place to place - the kind of flour, the kind of butter, etc.

3. that said, one trick that works amazingly well is that since butter or other fat that is melted and added with the liquid tends to make bread heavy, you need to keep it cool and then add it AFTER having kneaded the dough. When the dough is smooth and elastic, add COOL not warm butter, little slice at a time and knead it in (whether byu hand or by mixer dough hook). The gluten has already formed then and the butter is not absorbed into the flour, and actually seems to grease the gluten strands so they slide easier and rise. You can incorporate surprisingly large amounts of butter into the dough this way.

4. don;t "punch down" the dough at any point. Your whole purpose in life here is to preserve all the gluten strands intact. Gently pull the dough away from the sides of the bowl and press down.
5. fold the dough gently always towards inward - that is, when you make a ball to rise, you put the top side down on the floured board and pull the sides in folding them towards the center, THEN TURN IT BACK OVER so the same part is always on top. This preserves this outer gluten layer so the air won;t escape.

6. don;t over rise - forget time and forget doubling in bulk. Press a finger into the dough. If it leaves a hole it's done. If it fills in it's not. If it collapses all around the hole, you need to squash and re rise it, it's gone too far and will end up dry and cavernous inside

I also like to use buttermilk as all or part of the liquid, which makes a tender crumb.

I recently tried to put together laurel's kitchen method with beranbaum's bread bible method, and it came even better.

Mix well, beating a couple of minutes: all the liquid, half the flour, and half the yeast.
MIx the rest of the dry ingredients (salt, remaining flour and yeast) and sprinkle on top. Let it sit covered in plastic for 1 to 4 hours. Then proceed to knead it all together, by hand or machine. At the end knead in some cool butter and proceed as usual, with one rising in the bowl and one in the pan.

try these and probably your bread will be high and light

[lentil]

Siduri,
I have Laurel's Kitchen and will have to look at her bread recipes. I've never heard about adding cool butter and half the yeast at a time. I'd love to give it a try!

[bryanricker]

great thanks!
Just one question...
You say to add the butter one "slice" at a time... does this mean to not melt it at all? if it is cool then it will stay in chunks in the cool dough, won't it?

Actually, another question too:
For that last section, you say to sprinkle the rest of the dry ingredients on top of the mix you already made... does this mean just sprinkle it all on top of the mix and don't mix it in until after it sits for a few hours? What's the point of that?

[bryanricker]

Let me just say that I just tried this method and it turned out AMAZING bread. Soft, REALLY tasty... thanks for the help!! I think the big thing was definitely mixing in the butter after kneading it. It was a little extra messy but definitely worth it.



edit: Actually, upon second taste, it could be a little less dense, but this is definitely a huge improvement.

Any ideas to get that last tiny little bit of denseness out? I did let it rise a little bit too long, do you think that may have been the mistake? I also didn't knead in the butter until after the first proof... should I have done it just before the first proof? The bread is fantastic, it just sort of reminds me of pound cake and I want the really light bread.

[Luc_H]

Tons of advice here.

I checked the recipe and there are many counterproductive ingredients in the recipe that go against what you are trying to achieve (fluffy texture).

There is lots of fat in the recipe. fat/oil goes against gluten and volume development. (for fluffy: lose the fat/oil)
The egg is also counterproductive (and adding it to 100 to 115F water/milk goes against many food safety rules) (for fluffy: lose the egg)

My advice: go purchase some gluten as the supermarket or healthfood store and add 1 tbsp per cup of flour. Ordinary WW does not have enough gluten to make bread.

Proceed as for many advice above here. (that's my take).

Good luck!
Luc H.