October 29, 2019 - 12:29pm
Excess yeast = wetter dough?
My question is in very broad terms - baking a regular loaf of bread (bread flour and some WW flour if you're interested), not sourdough or anything fancy...
But, does an excess of yeast (leading to over-fermentation) cause the dough ball to appear as if it is over-hydrated? Can too much yeast, during the bulk fermentation stage, cause your dough to get very runny/slack/wet-looking and not keep its "ball" shape?
I am grappling with the first stages of learning basic breadmaking and this is currently happening to me....which is resulting invariably in over-proofed and bad loaves.
Thanks!
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Very vague question there. A: Not usually but could given certain circumstances.
More details are kneaded. :)
Whats the recipe, your temperatures and rough location? What flour is being used and type of water? The more detail the better.
MiniOven!! I can't believe you of all people replied to my post! I mean - without sounding like some kind of creepy stalker....I have lurked on here for months and have read countless posts by you and tried to take them to heart! Thank you for responding to me!
OK. I appreciate that I wasn't exactly forthcoming with details in my post - although I was just curious. But - admittedly - I DO need help. A lot of it. I am trying to bake my first loaf of bread for home use to avoid buying commercial bread and it is NOT going well. I am trying to do it in my basic bread machine, mainly due to several issues. I have arthritis in my hands, I cannot afford a good stand mixer, my left wrist is a bit knackered due to a large recurrent cyst that gives me daily pain, and I work full time and do not have the time or energy very often to complete the whole process by hand.
With that being said, and understanding that bread machines can give bad results for a variety of reasons, here is the recipe I am attempting:
270g bread flour (I use either Gold Medal or KA, neither has made any difference)
113g whole wheat flour (I use Bob's Red Mill whole wheat)
44g oats
1.5tsp salt
2tsp active dry yeast
1tbspn honey (I vary it downwards occasionally as I do not like sweet bread)
2tbspn margarine (I am using margarine right now so as to not waste expensive butter while I try to get it right, yes I am aware that margarine has sodium and other gunk in it but right now this is all I am prepared to use because I keep throwing my bread in the trash. I have used butter on occasion and it has not improved anything)
Water (I calculate the grams based on the hydration I am aiming for - I do not have my notes to hand as I am at work right now, but I generally aim for 66-68% hydration in this recipe so about 278 - 286g of water+margarine.)
This recipe is continually failing me - both in my bread machine and the one time I did it manually. The fault is mostly my own. I canNOT for the life of me figure out when the dough is fully proofed. It invariably overproofs in the bread machine. Due to this, I tried a "rapid cycle" which cuts the time from start to finish from 3.5hrs to 2.5hrs, and when I do that the loaf underproofs.
I have tried poke testing the dough ball - I am not apparently subtle enough to tell any difference except that when it is visibly overproofed it is very voluminous and fragile, and sometimes has semi-translucent bubbles bursting on the top. When it starts to bake, it craters within ~25 mins. I have NEVER experienced oven-spring with this recipe. Prior to this, the dough proofs rapidly and aggressively. During the first bulk rise phase straight after kneading, it goes from looking like a ball of dough to looking like quickly-growing blob of slack stuff. Then the machine stirs it down (usually with strands or thin sheets of spidery-looking dough clinging to the sides of the bucket), and it starts rising again. It subsequently never fails to overproof.
I really want this recipe to work IN the bread machine for the reasons stated. I have had one or two other recipes turn out OK in the machine so I know it is possible.
I need help. I have read everything I can about the poke test and none of it feels any different to me. I really want to be able to tell VISUALLY when the time is right to bake. Note I CAN stop my bread machine during the last phase of proofing and just manually tell it to bake whenever I like.
Am I using too much yeast? Am I over-hydrating? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!
how does your recipe compare to recipes published for that specific bread machine? Things like hydration, % of yeast, etc.?
If your recipe uses significantly more yeast, as a percentage of flour, then it is much more likely to over ferment.
Paul
Hello sir!
The recipe I posted is practically verbatim from the manual for the machine. The only thing I have done differently are reduce the sugars, and increase the salt a little.
It should, however, be noted that this recipe in the manual is WAY, WAY low on the hydration. It barely had 50% hydration and I just had breadcrumbs in the bucket. So obviously I had to get my (more mathematically minded) hubby to help me figure a better hydration level - which I believe I am at now. The manual's recipes have never worked for me until I tweaked them (I have maybe made ~35 attempts at loaves so far, and maybe three have semi-succeeded).
Bear with me. I tried this recipe but with less yeast this evening. I am about to post photos.
The extra information is helpful.
Paul
The bulk rise and second and third proofings went much more.....'normally', I guess. The dough ball did not get as slack during bulk and it remained a bit more in control throughout. During the third and last (50 minute long) proofing, it did start running away from me; as a result, I pulled the plug with about ~20 minutes to go before baking and started a manual bake.
Thoughts on the photos? This loaf is the most successful so far, but I still feel like it is.....off somehow. It doesn't appear to have sprung properly.....there are still very very dense areas in the bottom. At least the entire dome this attempt isn't ALL bubbles and falling apart. But it almost feels like the proofing did not successfully incorporate all of the flour into the rising action. How can I remedy this? I can't let it proof any longer as it overproofs. What is going on?
That loaf doesn’t appear to have been overproofed. Looking at the perimeter of the slice in the last photo, I see a compression zone all the way around. That, coupled with the more open crumb in the central upper part of the slice, suggests that the crust had already set before oven spring was complete—and there wouldn’t be oven spring if the dough were overproofed.
You can also see tearing of the crust along one side of the loaf, probably just above the edge of the pan. That also points to oven spring which occurred after the crust had set.
So...I don’t know diddly about bread machines. If I pulled a loaf like that out of my oven, I might suspect that the oven temperature was too low, allowing the top crust to dry out and set before the interior of the loaf got up to temperature. Dunno what's going on inside the bread machine, though.
Paul
to mind is that I have very limited knowledge of bread machines. I do understand some folks use them just to mix up the dough. I also think the yeast amount is too high or that the active yeast needs warmer water to activate depending on the package directions and those of the breadmaker. I see Harrison is freezing at the moment (in the middle of the night) so a good time to make use of the kitchen oven now that Fall is here!
I'm sure you will figure this out even if to mix the dough twice in the machine before bulk rising, reducing the yeast (might wanna reduce it further to 1 1/4 tsp or dissolve the yeast in the water first before throwing everything together in the breadmaker to just mix and bulk. Take note of the water temp. It could be making a difference. Take the dough out to flatten and shape, let rise and bake in the oven. I've even read where loaves have been dropped out of the breadmaker dropping them back in upside down to brown the tops. Love the way you unplug the machine when it gets unruly!
I was too busy with my folk's house and getting them moved to fuss with mom's breadmaker there in Arkansas. But just looking at the recipe I can tell it needs additional water. Oats are thirsty, so is whole wheat and bread flour. If you tolerate milk, a splash of that would help too, upping the hydration to 70% while the machine is mixing. A tablespoon of honey is still too much for my tastes but sugars act more like liquid during mixing and baking. Hydration figures only include water so subtract 10% if using skim milk. 100g of skim milk is 90g water for figuring. Whole milk one includes the fat so to figure water, also subtract the fat %. Whole milk might be as high as 13.6% milk solids or 86.4g water. If you want to use and figure it. :)
How many rises do you get on the dough before it is baked?
In the photos, the bread does look like it could bake longer. I don't see lumps in the crumb but my husband says he can't see much from here, too far away. Funny guy. The crumb does looks pretty even. If the bread dough falls while it is rising, knock the air out and let it rise again before baking, you'd be surprised how many times you can do that.
I wanted to bump this thread and say a big thank you to both pmccool and Mini Oven...your insights and theories were very welcome!
I ended up taking advice from both of you when I attempted my next version of the loaf. I upped the hydration a little to around ~68%, and I only used the bread machine for the mixing and initial kneading. I also eliminated all sugars from the recipe.
The attached photos show the loaf that resulted. The dough ball bulk fermented for about ~40 mins, and after punching down and shaping it proofed for another ~35 mins or so. I know that those times are a little on the short side but I honestly can't seem to let anything go any longer.....things over proof immediately. I purposefully included an image of the unbaked loaf just as it was about to go into the oven, and you can see my finger dent remaining there. It's no wonder - relying on my bread machine with its' three periods of rise and a total of about ~125 element-assisted minutes or proofing - that the loaves were almost exclusively over proofed and sunken at the end of baking!
The loaf was baked for approx. ~35 minutes at 350oF. It is on average a small, 1.5lb loaf. I would love to read any thoughts on the appearance of it! I do still have a slightly "weak" area near the upper 1/4 of the slices......not too noticeable in the photos but the crust and an attendant ~1" of bread do break away from each slice when encouraged to do so. But in all - I am VERY happy.
It's nice to see such good results!
If you are willing to experiment a bit more, try another batch with reduced yeast. The dough in this bake moved very fast, based on the times you reported. Less yeast would help to slow that down further.
You've solved the big problem. From here on, it's a matter of small adjustments to get precisely what you want.
Paul