Reasonable Success!

Hello everyone!

So, I had a bread epiphany lately. I've been thinking about the whole concept of bread volume/ingredient amount/yeast activity. If you saw the last post, you saw that the recipe of "double everything" ended up poofing up way too much. It was an interesting experience, as it didn't just become bigger, but it poofed up so much that it filled up the entire bread machine.

This made me ask the question of "do you actually need to double the yeast if you double the ingredients?"

I have an answer on this!

I did a double "Standard Recipe", with the exception of the yeast and mistakenly more than double sugar. (50 grams)

For those just checking in this is the Standard Recipe.

Flour: 330 grams
Water: 220 grams
Sugar: 15 grams
Salt: 7.62 grams
Yeast: 4 grams
Butter: 25 grams.

So, the recipe I went with is:

Flour: 660 grams
Water: 440 grams
Sugar: 50 grams
Salt: 15 grams
Yeast: 4 grams
Butter: 50 grams.

I ended up getting a very good result with this!

The bread ended up rising to just past the top of the bin.

So, at the end of the day, this was a successful loaf. However, I feel that I am going to decrease the ingredient amount slightly (maybe do a 1.5x Standard Recipe), and increase the yeast to 6 grams. I'm hoping I can hit the magic zone where the bread is light and fluffy.

Double the ingredients, triple the bread?

Well..

I'm about to make a statement that is going to cause a lot of ruckus and chortling.

I don't understand yeast.

So, I did something rash. I decided that I was going to double all of the ingredients, except for the yeast. I did a double batch of the "Standard Recipe" with the exception of the yeast, which I kept at 8 grams.

I sure got a result.

I don't think it is out of line to say I got too much of a result.

With a 1/2hr left in the baking the bread had risen so high that it had lifted the top off of the bread maker. I actually popped the top of it so it wouldn't touch.

This all ended up forcing me to ask a difficult question: Exactly how does the amount of yeast affect the rise?

It is a tricky question to answer. I think that the rise is a function of the mass of the dough, the width of the pan, the amount of yeast, the "rising efficiency", and magic.

What I think the problem is is that rise isn't a linear function. I suspect that it is partially linear, then it hits a plateau with diminishing returns for a given dough mass. Where the problem comes in is finding the butter-zone of dough mass/rise. Too fluffy and you have a bread where it is impossible to cut or process (as well as being too crispy/weird), too heavy and you have a bread that isn't palatable.

The pickle with this loaf is that it has a nice interior cell size and decent fluff, however, it rose way, way, wayyyyyyyy too much.

I'm thinking I'm going to use the same mass of ingredients, but lower the yeast by 2 grams.

A new machine and interesting results!

Hello all!

So, I recently picked up a dual paddle horizontal pan machine and decided to give it a whirl using the "Standard Recipe".

Flour: 330 grams
Water: 220 grams
Sugar: 15 grams
Salt: 7.62 grams
Yeast: 8 grams
Butter : 25 grams.

Mythbusters say that failure is always an option.

I had the most peculiar experience with this.

First thing I noticed is that the dough took quite a while to become "not sticky". It wasn't until the first rise that the dough would be able to be handled by human hands. It's texture was akin to mush instead of nice dough.

After it came out, the outside crust was quite dry, although the insides were extremely light and fluffy; almost too fluffy. I practically mangled the bread when trying to cut a reasonable thickness slice. So, for dinner we had "Texas Sized" pieced of bread over an inch thick.

Sadly, I didn't take pictures of the final result.

Things I think I've learned from this:

1. For a given pan size, there is a minimum amount of dough you should use
2. The amount of yeast can provide too much lift if you have less constraints. (e.g. a long narrow pan that doesn't require as much height for a rise)
3. The crust moisture content will different depending on the rise/dough density.

Things to work on and work through. So, even though I've pretty much nailed my bread recipe for the other machine, this one requires a modification.

Things I'm going to try:

1. Decrease the amount of yeast
2. Increase the ingredient quantity
3. Increase the water content

What I think I'm going to do is to first decrease the yeast ratio, then increase (proportionately) the entire recipe. The rational behind this is that I'm getting a product that is too light and fluffy which is causing the crust to dry out before it has a chance to bake hard. As well, I think that there just isn't enough dough in the pan, further exacerbating the condition.

I'll keep the updates rolling!

The Standard Recipe and an oil change!

Hello there!

So, I've decided that my "Standard Recipe" (SR) is going to be the following:

Flour: 330 grams
Water: 220 grams
Sugar: 15 grams
Salt: 7.62 grams
Yeast: 8 grams
Butter: 25 grams.


Now, keeping this in mind I did my first intentional variation off of the standard. I did a loaf replacing the butter with 25 grams of Peanut Oil.

The internal texture and rise heigh of the product was practically identical to the SR. However, the crust was "crunchy" relative to butter based baseline. The flavor wasn't really affected, but you could tell that something was different, even if you couldn't put your finger on what it was.

I would make this variant again.

Variant:

Flour: 330 grams

Water: 220 grams
Sugar: 15 grams
Salt: 7.62 grams
Yeast: 8 grams
Peanut Oil: 25 grams.

My little microbes were all dead!!

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

-Albert Einstein

This is the part where everyone pats themselves on the back and goes home, except I did get different results!

I had to ask myself the question of why my bread was getting so bad when I was doing the same thing and not getting reasonable results.

The loafs were getting smaller and smaller over the span of two weeks. I thought to myself that maybe I was going nuts. Or I had the water temperature wrong. Or... Something?!?!?

I ended up testing the yeast and it was dead as a doornail. I ran out and bought new yeast and...

I got a loaf about the same size as my under performing loaf from before. It was 4cm from the top. But that was a far cry from the "basically flat" loaf that I had made the night before.

So, just for Shiggles (shits/giggles) I decided to make a loaf with 8 grams of yeast, but keep everything else the same. And I got a result, and whattaresult!

Recipe:

Water: 220.0 grams @ 27'C
Bread Flour: 330.0 grams
Butter: 25.00
Sugar: 15.0 grams
Salt: 7.61 grams
Yeast: 8 grams <- Up from 3.65

WOAH NELLY!

THAT'S A RESULT

That is a seriously puffy lady!

So what happened?

Well, from what I can gather, I had two problems:

1. I wasn't using enough yeast.
2. My yeast died extremely quickly.

My recipe was exactly the same as the previous one, with the exception of the amount of yeast, which was 8 grams.

So, why did my first couple loafs do so well for height? (2cm from top)

I got a good result with fairly hot water, and I'm thinking I may try that again, once I've replicated my monster loaf. I'm going to do the 37.5' water and see if that makes this work better (with the original 3.65 grams of yeast)

I'll keep you posted!

The hydrogenated difference?

This next loaf is going to be very similar to the first couple loafs that I made. The only difference is going to be that I am only using 220 mg of water (at 37.5 deg C) and, surprisingly, margarine. I didn't choose to use margarine this time for any other reason other then all of my butter is frozen.

One thing that is new aside from the butter is that I tried to use as few dishes as possible when I made this. I only used a small piece of saran wrap a single spoon and a small plastic container.

The idea is that I am trying to cut down on the amount of dirty dishes that I generate.

Now right after I put this in the mixer I started to read up on the effect of water temperature on dough. I think I've been doing this all wrong!

I have been using fairly hot water. And it is entirely possible that the water is just too flaming hot for its own good!

Now, according to The Accidental Scientist the recommended water temperature for bread machines is 21-27'C. I'm nearly 10 degrees hotter than the upper limit! YIKES!

So, this recipe is nearly identical to the last one, with the exception that I actually put the fat in it.

Water: 220.0 grams @ 37.5 <- Up from 210 grams
Bread Flour: 330.0 grams
MARGARINE: 26.00 <- WOAH is me! I had to use the fake stuff!
Sugar: 15.0 grams
Salt: 7.61 grams
Yeast: 3.650 grams

Pictures are forthcoming.

A Culinary Turd

Well,

I'm afraid I really screwed the pooch on this one. Now, I'm not going to name any names on this. But someone may have forgot to add to butter to this. And what a difference it made. And someone may have touched the amazingly sticky dough and screwed up the rising... Not mentioning any names though.

Here is the recipe I used:

Water: 220.0 grams @ 37.5 <- Up from 210 grams 

Bread Flour: 330.0 grams

Butter: NONE <- Someone may have dropped the ball..

Sugar: 15.0 grams

Salt: 7.61 grams

Yeast: 3.650 grams

Now, the loaf was a reasonable consistency and would have been quite tasty had it not been molested by some dumb-ass trying to remove the paddle. It may have even risen properly!

I didn't take any pictures of this train wreck, so you'll just have to take my word on it.

Le sigh. You live and learn.