bread making

[2pig2sheep1cow]

tryed making bread for the first time today,
it has turned out very heavy here is the recipe i used,
650 grams of holemeal flour
15 grams butter,
5 grams sugar
10 grams of salt
420 ml warm water
1 sachet of easy blend yeast.
i did every thing it said on the recipe. left it for 30 minutes in a warm place,and then put it in to the oven for 30 mins any sugestions of what i might have done wrong.
for it to turn out heavy.
cheers robert.

[missie moo]

i use the measuring stuff that came with my bread machine (which i only use to make the dough - i cook the bread in a proper oven). i use 1.25 teaspoons of yeast 2.5 teaspoons of sugar for 300g flour. so my suggestion is maybe not enough sugar?
jane

[2pig2sheep1cow]

thanks i'll try that i think that i had the oven on to high as the crust had hardened but the bread hadn't stopped rising.
don't know.
cheers rob

[Thurston Garden]

Wholemeal flour generally makes heavy bread. We are used to bags of air from the shops!

I have often used John Seymore's brown bread recipe which involves making a batter with all of the water and about 2/3 of the flour - let it sit overnight and then mix in the last of the flour and proceed as normal. It makes a lighter brown bread.

We mostly mix our flour 50/50 strong white/wholemeal and this helps too!

I sometimes just make white - it took me a while to realise that it was still tasty and good for you 'cos I was buying very good flour. I just had in my head that white bread was bad from supermarket shit3ywhite

[Annpan]

I have never made a good loaf from wholemeal, it is usually solid, it tastes nice, but you could hammer in nails with it.

I also use a mix... about 70% white to 30% wholemeal, but I do also make white loaves occasionally.

Also.... do you only leave it to rise for 30 mins?

I'd usually do 1 hour, then knock it down, shape it and leave it to rise for another hour. I also sometimes put the bread in a cold oven then turn the heat on, the dough rises more before the heat bakes the crust.

It has been a while since I baked bread though. I now have a bread maker, haven't bought a shop loaf in weeks and I can wake up to fresh bread every other morning.... hmmmmm...... fresh bread.....

[snapdragon]

Ditto what AnnPan said :D


or leave in the fridge to rise slowly overnight

[ina]

i use the measuring stuff that came with my bread machine (which i only use to make the dough - i cook the bread in a proper oven). i use 1.25 teaspoons of yeast 2.5 teaspoons of sugar for 300g flour. so my suggestion is maybe not enough sugar?
jane

Never use any sugar - it really isn't necessary. 30 minutes is NOT enough time for the dough to ferment properly, though; this is what the commercial bakeries use - and we don't want crap bread like their's do we! For those short-time breads you need a lot more yeast, too. I make sourdough breaed, which needs 2-3 days; or, if I do need a quicker loaf, I leave it overnight (in the kitchen , which in my case is cold enough...).

[Thurston Garden]

There's a good account of the Chorleywood Bread Process in Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence - another reason to read it!

[Clara]

I have never made a good loaf from wholemeal, it is usually solid, it tastes nice, but you could hammer in nails with it.

I also use a mix... about 70% white to 30% wholemeal, but I do also make white loaves occasionally.

Also.... do you only leave it to rise for 30 mins?

I'd usually do 1 hour, then knock it down, shape it and leave it to rise for another hour. I also sometimes put the bread in a cold oven then turn the heat on, the dough rises more before the heat bakes the crust.

....

that´s exactly what I was going to say!

[Mal]

I have a colleague who did a stint at a bread factory - the place that makes the supermarket bread, the hovis bread, and all those other ones that try to pretend they're home made by a legion of little old grannies in rural yorkshire.

Anyway, he said that most of the ingredients were identifiable - flour, yeast, salt, and then there was a spoonful of chemical stuff - the raising agent - that you didn't really ask about. Voila! Perfect bread in a half an hour! Fluffy and light and air-filled.

He also said that to spray the potassium sorbate on the longlife bread (it's the chemical, not the foil packet, that makes it last longer!), they had to put on masks and gloves. Lovely, and then we shovel it down the throats of little kids.

[wulf]

One of the most important elements of bread, that often gets forgotten in consideration of ingredients, oven temperatures and methods, is time. My best loaves have generally come when I have been distracted by other things and given the dough more rising time than the instructions suggested.

A starter (mentioned by Thurston above) can also help with heavier doughs like brown and wholemeal. Essentially, you mix some of the ingredients (often everything except for half the flour or so) to create a batter and leave the yeast to get to work - overnight in a cool place is often a good time frame.

I rarely remember to do that but often rely on the other trick - instead of using pure wholemeal or brown flour I will use white with some of the darker flour added (sometimes 50/50 but more often 75/25 or even 90/10).

Wulf

[MKG]

Oh time ... just what Wulf said ...

Magic ingredient, along with love, respect, patience ... you know the stuff.

[Birdie Wife]

Some thoughts:
1. In many wholemeal recipes I've come across, a small amount of crushed vitamin C tablet is added, which is supposed to improve the rising.
2. I would echo the info about time as well, in fact if you leave bread to rise for a longer time at a lower temperature, it is beneficial to the texture. 3. Don't knock it back until it is double the volume.
4. If you cover the proving bread with a clean teatowel or oiled clingfilm, it won't dry out on the top while the yeast is doing it's stuff.
5. I usually let it rise and knock it back twice before putting it in its tin and letting it rise again. I find the texture much lighter and less grainy. okay, it takes more time, but it's perfect for those days when it's chucking it down outside, you dodge the showers to get jobs done in the garden but really all you want to do it snuggle up with a big mug of coffee and read the weekend papers!:coffee2:

Hope some of this is helpful!

[ina]

There's a good account of the Chorleywood Bread Process in Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence - another reason to read it!

I gave that book to my boss to read - he stopped halfway through, it was too depressing... But he started making his own bread.

So, if you need that last kick to get you into making your own, read it!

Oh, and I think it's well know by now that with the introduction of the Chorleywood method cases of wheat intolerance/coeliac disease rose sharply. The wheat only becomes really digestible after a lengthy process of fermentation, which is cut out in this "fast food" process.

[2pig2sheep1cow]

Thanks for the suggestions, I will have another go .

In the meantime this stuff is great with soup, it doesn't go squidgy and you don't have to spoon it out the bottom after you've eaten the soup .