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!