So, what did I do wrong with the bread?

[eridani]

I used the following recipe from the KitchenAid book, sort of

Basic White Bread

1/2 cup low-fat milk
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 packages active dry yeast
1-1//2 cups warm water (105°F to 115°F)
5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour

Place milk, sugar, salt, and butter in small saucepan. Heat over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in warm water in warmed mixer bowl. Add lukewarm milk mixture and 4-1//2 cups flour.

Attach bowl and dough hook to mixer. Turn to Speed 2 and mix about 1 minute. Continuing on Speed 2, add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and mix until dough clings to hook and cleans sides of bowl, about
2 minutes. Knead on Speed 2 about 2 minutes longer, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough will be slightly sticky to the touch.

Place dough in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover. Let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk. Punch dough down and divide in half. Shape each half into a loaf, as directed on page 70, and place in greased 8-1/2 x 4-1/2 x 2-1/2-inch loaf pans. Cover. Let rise in warm place, free from draft, about 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk.

Bake at 400°F until golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from pans immediately and cool on wire racks.

OK, I got my new grain grinder attachment that I wanted to try out, and ground 3 cups of wheat on the finest setting. That produced 4 cups and some of flour, which I topped off to 5 with unbleached all-purpose flour. I didn't have low fat milk, so I used evaporated milk (left over from omelets a couple of weeks ago and refrigerated), topping off the measuring cup with water. My water and the cooled margarine/sugar/milk mix were closer to 105F than to 115F.

I wound up adding another 1/2 cup or so of all purpose flour to get the dough to come off the sides of the bowl. The first rise easily doubled in bulk. After I divided the dough, rolled it out, and made loaves, there was more rising, but not quite to the top of the pans. For rising, I set my electric oven to 200F and turn it off, leaving the doors almost closed. The bread seemed to fall after 15 minutes or so, but I left it in for the recommended time. The knock on the loaf thing indicated that they were done.



So, how come they are about half as tall as expected? What did I do wrong? BTW, the bread tasted pretty good, so should I just STFU and be grateful for that?

[TygrBright]

1. What's the altitude where you are, eridani?

Bread is one of those deceptively "simple" things that in fact has an almost endless list of complex interrelationships and variables that affect results.

Did you prove your yeast?

Possible that the oven was a wee bit too hot for the yeasties when you put the dough in for the second rise. What was the time for the rise?

Also, that doesn't sound like very much kneading. I use the Kitchen Aid w/ dough hook for the "main" knead, and let it run for ten minutes or so on the second-lowest setting. Before that I use the paddle mixer on the lowest setting to get the ingredients mixed.

Did you do any hand kneading at all?

Keep trying, and vary the technique a little.

Good luck!

encouragingly,
Bright

[eridani]

2. Sea level in Seattle

The yeast bubbled a little in the water, and slightly more when I added the sugar/milk/margarine. I should probably get an oven thermometer instead of relying on the accuracy of the settings--this is probably the first thing to check out. I didn't do any hand-kneading, other than spreading out the divided dough before rolling it up. The paddle mixer sounds like a good first step also--maybe the ingredients weren't mixed enough initially.

I have used the paddle mixer with chocolate chip cookies, and the results are much better than with hand mixing--probably the same would apply with the bread.

[sandnsea]

3. Takes longer to rise at sea level

I also never knead the bread long enough so I tend to have rising problems too.

[Warpy]

6. My best guess is too much liquid.

Don't forget that ambient humidity can also change the moisture content of your flour. Underkneading can also be the problem.

A machine will knead bread rather quickly, much more quickly than by hand. I usually give it five minutes on the lowest speed, just to make sure.

Your bread might look like a brick and be quite dense, but the flavor should be wonderful with that list of ingredients. One great thing to do with brick bread is to slice it thinly and put it onto cookie sheets in a low oven, turn it into Melba toast.

I don't go from paddle to hook. I do give all dry ingredients a stir with the dough hook before I add liquid, though, to make sure the salt is distributed evenly and doesn't poison the yeast.

[hippywife]

4. I wish I still had

Shirley Corriher's book but I took it back to the library. She goes into all the reasons why and the hows of getting bread the way it should be. I don't retain well after I read something so I really need to have the book in front of me.

But I'm going to guess that it could be a couple of things. My first guess would be that you used whole grain in a white bread recipe. The other was the additional 1/2 cup of flour you added to get the dough off the side of the bowl. Maybe the amount of moisture in the recipe wasn't enough to compensate? I've found that keeping my hands wet when working with a sticky dough really helps. She also had a great chart in there with the protein content of various flours and what that content affects.

You might be right about the heat, though, too. I've not used my oven for proofing my dough. I just preheat it and set the dough near it if it feels like the house might be a little too cool but I think your method would be more fuel efficient.

All that being said, that looks like a delicious loaf of bread, though. I'd butter it! :hi:

[hippywife]

5. I forgot to add

that she warned against going by the protein content listed on the bag. Due to some weird ruling or another, they are permitted to round up the actual amount so they tend to be inaccurate, sometimes grossly so.

[ginnyinWI]

7. maybe next time try bread flour instead of all-purpose.

It might give you better results in your situation. Also, when you put bread into a warm oven to rise, better to heat the space with a pan of boiling water under it, then close the door all the way and don't turn it on. The moisture helps it not crust over while rising, and it won't get too hot for the yeast.

[housewolf]

8. First, be aware that that making high-rising bread with home-ground whole wheat flour is a challenge

although not impossible. Freshly-ground whole wheat flour is very different to work with from commercially-ground white flour.

Second, it sounds as though your yeast is not at its full potency, based on your description of little bubbling when you proofed it, although you do say that first rise doubled in size, so it may actually be okay.

Third, the use of a recipe that starts with a sponge (usually all the liquid from the recipe plus half the yeast and half the flour, let sit for some number of hours) results in a much better loaf of whole wheat bread than a "direct method" (such as the one you used).

The evaporated milk is fine, as is the 105 degree temp of your mixture. A 200 degree oven seems to me to be pretty hot for proofing the loaf - professional proof boxes operate at about 90 degrees and temps over 120 or so kill yeast cells. An alternate method would be to heat a pan of water to a simmer, then place it in the cold oven (a microwave works well for this too) along with the loaf of bread, shut the door and let it rise. This adds warm moisture to the dough, which helps it rise, and creates a moderate temp that helps yeast rise without killing them.

I think I have a recipe for you that might work well for you - give me a bit of time and I'll post it later for you.

[eridani]

9. That would be great

This is the first time I've tried the KitchenAid on bread. Never had time to make it from scratch before retirement. Preheating the oven worked fine for pizza dough, but that is apparently much more forgiving.

[wildflower]

10. My first thought was, you need to add gluten...

When I saw you used whole wheat flour instead of white flour. These are the other things I do to make sure bread comes out:

Proofing
Bread sponge
Warm temp
Wet dough

If I follow all four of those (plus ensuring enough gluten, as I mentioned above), my bread usually turns out pretty well.

[Vinca]

11. I always toss in a quarter of a cup of wheat gluten.

A couple of times I've had a similar thing happen and blamed it on old yeast. I now buy only the bulk stuff in the refrigerated section of the natural foods store. It looks tasty, anyway.

[eridani]

13. How long does that stuff keep?

Yes, the bread did taste pretty good. I'll check for separate gluten at the food co-op this week, and probably use less of the whole wheat next time.

[Vinca]

19. The gluten keeps as long as flour. I store bulk yeast in the freezer

and keep a small jar ready to go in the refrigerator. The wheat gluten I usually buy is made by Hodgson Mills and is sold in a small box in the regular grocery store. Most of the time I make bread with King Arthur White Wheat flour. It seems to work as well as bread flour for me.

[eridani]

20. I saw some large yeast packages at the co-op yesterday

It was refrigerated, but looked like the granular dry stuff in the Fleischmann's packets. Is this what you mean? Just got some Red Mill gluten and am storing it on the shelf with the flour.

[Vinca]

22. Yes, it's the same as the stuff in the little packets only fresher (we hope).

1 tablespoon = 1 packet.

[hippywife]

12. I have this recipe in the process at the moment.

http://www.recipezaar.com/Amish-Soft-Honey-Whole-Wheat-Bread-229232?scaleto=2

Well, sorta, kinda. I don't have any gluten so that part was out and I mixed half bread flour and half whole wheat with a little additional wheat bran. I also ditched the shortening and subbed in a half canola, half olive oil mix.

I gave it two risings in the bowl and it's now rising in the loaf pans next to the heated stove (I've got the cheesecake in right now.)

I purposely didn't buy sandwich bread at the grocery so I would be forced to do this and, hopefully, get a couple of good loaves of bread for lunches this week. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[eridani]

14. What advantage to two bowl risings?

Keeping the least more active or something like that?

[hippywife]

15. I dunno really. LOL

It just seemed like the thing to do. When I made the Italian Wheat Rolls, it only called for them to be shaped and allowed to rise on the pan before baking, but when I let them rise in the bowl first and then rise again on the pan they were really soft and fluffy. I'm really still just learning and experimenting.

I've always had the same problem you did with short dense loaves so I decided to try letting it rise twice and them letting the loaves rise in the pan for quite a while. It worked! This is the first time I've had loaves that actually rose to proper height. And the bread is very tender. It'll make great sandwiches. I think the bread flour was a huge difference, too. I don't think you can get good sandwich bread using nothing but whole wheat.

[eridani]

16. That's more like what I was expecting

Maybe I cut off my second rising too soon.

[hippywife]

17. Like I said earlier

I don't retain much that I read in books but the one thing Shirley Corriher did say is not to go by time when letting it rise. Go visually by how much it's grown.

I sat the bowl, and later the loaf pans, on top of my oven while I was baking the cheesecake and simmering my stock since my kitchen tends to be on the cool side.

I would just keep experimenting. That's all I've been doing and this is the first time it's worked. It's not like the results aren't edible, no matter if they don't turn out quite the way you expect. I've only had one inedible loaf of bread and that was one the other half made in the bread machine a couple of years ago. Even it went to bread crumbs, so no real loss.

You'll get the hang of it. I know you will.

[sandnsea]

23. Oh yum, that looks great

I think I will try it that way. Making bread is such a lot of work that it's very discouraging when it doesn't turn out. I like the wheat rolls they used to serve in school, that bread has the exact consistency of those. Maybe it's that extra rising step that does the trick.

[hippywife]

24. I'm finally in love with my stand mixer

because of making bread. I really didn't want it and thought I didn't need it but it really, really helps.

I'm still not quite happy with the crumb on this. I like it a little less "crumby." LOL Unfortunately, my other half has decided he likes it just like this. :eyes:

[sandnsea]

25. Oh yeah, I have a stand mixer

and I've even got kneading hooks. What the heck have I been thinking about. I will have to try that. lol. :silly:

[housewolf]

27. I knew you'd love it...

They just make baking SO much easier and quicker. So glad you got yours!

[housewolf]

18. It's for flavor development

When it comes to flavor in bread, time is your friend. The more time you can give it without over-rising it, the more flavorful it becomes.

Also, you get a better rise if you treat the dough gently and don't squeeze all of the air out of it. When they say "punch it down", it's much better to sort of fold 4 sides into the center, then turn the loaf over in the bowl rather than giving it a hard punch-down. And using your hands to sort of gently shape the loaf rather than flattening it all out helps too.

I haven't had time to type that recipe in for you yet, but I'll get to it pretty quickly. Sorry for the delay.

Also... when using freshly milled wheat flour, it's important to use the flour within an hour of grinding, otherwise you need to wait about 2 weeks. Sounds strange, I know... it's an enzyme thing. Certain enzymes that interfere with bread making get released about an hour after grinding and don't dissipate for about 2 weeks. This isn't an issue with flour that you buy already milled.

[eridani]

21. I used the flour right away

However the rising took a couple of hours.

[housewolf]

26. That's fine, as long as it's mixed within the hour

it's the sitting around that's a problem.