How high can I go with white sandwich bread hydration??
I've been making white sandwich bread Japanese style at 76% hydration for some time now. I've changed the original recipe to reflect larger pan size, and, I've incorporated an XLG egg as part of the water weight.
I was wondering if it would be any softer with higher hydration so I tried it at 80% but can't honestly say it felt softer if I rule out my imagination.
Then, I pushed it to 85% hydration and it really does feel a bit softer now. The dough is stickier to work with though so I'm wondering if it's realistic to push to 90 or even 100% hydration so I thought I'd ask more experienced people that may have already done so.
I was worried about getting to much of an open crumb like my Ciabatta buns have at 80% hydration but even with the white bread at 85% it's not even close.
My loaves are 12" long, 4.75" wide (half way up), 5'' high (in the middle) and final weight runs a touch over a kilo per loaf, giving me 25 slices @ .475" thick plus the crusts .
I really like using my "inserts" (in my last posts) when baking so I don't get the rollover at top of pan. This gives me even sides on it to make cutting slices on my meat slicer so much easier.
For softer, don't develope as much gluten/add fats/use lower protein flour. Much easier that way. Enjoy!
Thank you for your reply.
This is an extremely soft bread to begin with as it's a Japanese Milk Bread. It does have butter in it but for lower protein flour, that's not economical here in Canada where our AP flour is standard 12-13% protein and doesn't come in lower protein like in the US. I would have to use cake flour and maybe mix it with AP to come up with a combined lower protein product. Cake flour is MUCH more expensive here.
I've tried kneading less to lessen the gluten formation but then I ended up with sunken loaves, perhaps because of insufficient gluten formation.
I second Benny's suggestion about scalding. You can change scalding percentages.
You can also look for some softer flour other than generic AP.
Cake flour prices change radically depending on time of year and the store. I just checked the flipp app (great for searching for sales across all stores) and saw the price ranged from $4 at Real Cdn Superstore to $6.50 at London Drugs for 2.5kg. Xmas is on the horizon so should be lots of sales.
Again, thank you all for your replies.
Yes prices do change and that is why I buy when I get the best price. Thursday in my curbside pickup (I can't go into stores with the risk due to my kidney disease) I got 6 10K bags of AP flour for $6.97 CDN. That is the usual price range I pay for AP flour in 10K bags as I always look for sales in advance of need.
As for cake and pastry flour at RCS, there is a minimum purchase order plus a charge of $3.00 for an order to be able to get from them for curbside pickup.
As for London Drugs, They are all located in western Canada and I would have to pay shipping to London Ontario on top of the cost of the product.
I like to get the soft table bread but not any ANY cost, just something within reason for an old man controlling his pension funds.
Basically, if it can be softer AND still workable by just upping the hydration, it will be at NO cost to me so that part is attractive in itself.
I posted just because I thought there would be a lot of people making their own sandwich bread that might already have experimented more than I have.
I go through a LOT of flour, making all my own sandwich bread, ciabatta buns, hamburger buns, various donuts and other deserts.
Even though i am in the us,i don't like using <13% protein (i like a little texture). You're left with gluten control, as in limit development. Wait, when i do a water roux and want really soft, i go higher % of roux. Could try that. When all else fails, control the gluten. Enjoy!
Thank you for your reply. I've tried a LOT of % ranges up to around 35% flour for the roux back when I was doing it that way. I basically had to switch to the Youdane though as pain in wrists and hands got too bad when I had to stop meds due to kidney disease.
Since this is a Japanese milk bread are you using a Yudane or Tangzhong? That is a great way to get the crumb soft and moist.
Yes, I've tried both but prefer using the Yudane method. I've also experimented with various levels and mixes and have settled on 150g each of flour and water. I've been using that now since late spring.
I like Tangzhong for the 1:5 ratio of flour to liquid. I usually use milk for the tangzhong and love how soft the crumb comes even with our strong Canadian bread flour.
Great suggestion, Benny.
I LIKE the Tangzhong method but my hands don't like the pain when I'm doing it. With the Youdane, I can use electric power and save the pain.
I have experimented with a wide range of mix up to 1:1 and for me, I had settled on the 1:4 at the time, but stopped when I found it so much easier to use the Youdane and I don't really notice a difference in taste or softness. With the Youdane @ 1:1 I can actually get the hydration level up much easier.
While I don't use milk directly, I use water but add powdered milk instead. I can't get out to buy milk frequent enough as I only get it in my curbside orders so powder works best for me. I tried powdered whole milk but it was REALLY expensive and I never found any difference in the end product.
I'm just getting started and have turned out a few crusty breads for the family to enjoy...feeling a little bit like I might be ready to start baking "everyday-driver" sandwich loaves to wean us off storebought, but I haven't found a recipe/method that I love....I was just sitting here thinking about what sort of search terms I should try this time, and then all of a sudden I noticed this post.
I realize you're way beyond where I am and are actually posting these pictures looking for advice on how to improve, but to me this load looks incredible.
Would you be willing to share the recipe you're using (and/or point me towards any resources you might have used when getting started with this style of bread)? I've never even heard of japanese style milk bread, and of course I could give it a quick google, but I thought maybe I could jump a couple of steps by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Well, hopefully some "giants" can chime in and help you.
I used google when I started and sometime later was looking for a way to produce a softer loaf and came upon the Japanese Milk Bread using Youdane or Tangzhong. I think the page that I went by most was one that had bakers percentages as my bread pans are large and I had to adjust the quantities to suit, using those percentages to get my original recipe.
Have to edit to add the page I forgot: https://www.chopstickchronicles.com/shokupan-japanese-fluffy-white-bread/
Over time, I adjusted after some experimentation by upping the amount used for the Youdane, adding egg as part of the water weight and even trying ascorbic acid. (at this time I'm no longer using the ascorbic acid)
Methodology is different based on experiences and my physical limitations.
For instance, based on my method of adding the ciabatta starter to the full recipe, I add the Youdane to all the dry mix plus grated butter into the stand mixer bowl, cover it with the dry mix and flatten it followed by criss cross cutting with pizza cutter, basically chopping the Youdane into small pieces.
I also make enough Youdane for 4-6 loaves at a time so I can put the flour in the stand bowl, add the boiling water and use the stand mixer to mix it up. It won't work with just enough for one loaf and it's too painful to do one loaf amount by hand.
I ran myself into trouble a while back, wanting to make my loaf lighter weight wise and cut back on the amount of dough. Over time, I found some of my loaves collapsing but not constantly. Posting about it here pointed out it was over proofed and was a hit and miss, probably a case of short variations in proof time one to another. I solved it by increasing the dough weight slightly again and haven't had the problem since.
When I first started, I had a problem then but it was due to not baking sufficiently to maintain the crumb when removed from the oven.
It seems you are quite experienced and you would have a lot of knowledge to offer here on the forum.
Maybe someone will pop up with the right answer that perfectly fits your needs and restrictive lifestyle choices. But your own experience and experiments may well provide the answer and inform the rest of the community as well.
I'm encouraging a sharing perspective rather than a consuming one. You might want to share your bakes and experiments in a blog and engage people in what you're learning.
Thanks so much for taking the time. This is exactly what I was hoping for. Will definitely give it a try and start some experiments of my own.
A 100% white flour, 76-80% hydration bread, with 20% yudane, enriched with sugar, milk, egg, and butter should already be fairly soft in both crust and crumb. I would even say...very soft. Is this not what you're seeing with your bread?
(I'm going off the recipe link you posted, but if you don't mind it could help to post the actual formula you're currently using, your procedure, more pictures etc.)
I'm afraid you may be going off on a red herring with higher hydration. 80% hydration is already a fairly wet dough, even with yudane. If you increase the hydration further, the dough will become more difficult to handle, but is unlikely to make softer bread.
In fact with all the sugar, milk, egg, and butter, you shouldn't need 80% hydration for soft and fluffy bread. If you go back to the Chopsticks Chronicles recipe, the hydration there is 63%. I would say 68-70% is more typical (of course to some extent depending on the flour used). 76-80% within reason. But 90-100% is definitely unusually high.
My point is, at least on paper, your bread should already be very soft.
So any further changes will likely only result in marginal improvements.
I suggest the question really is...what specifically about the bread you're making now are you not happy with and want to improve? For example, do you want it remain softer for longer? Or do you not like the texture of the crumb i.e. you want it to be fluffier, or more 'shreddable'? Or do you want more loaf volume?
A couple of comments on topics that have come up above:
Flour - Japan imports 90% of its wheat, the vast majority from the US/Canada. So the most common bread flour from the biggest brands is actually milled from North American wheat. There's nothing special going on about the terroir. It's just the milling. The flours most commonly hyped about for making fluffy shokupan are Nippon Casarine and Showa Hi-Neon. They are 11.6-11.7% protein and 0.35% ash. In short the 'ideal' flour is (much) whiter, but the protein content is ~12%.
湯種 (tang zhong) vs. 湯種 (yu-dane) - Pre-gelatinised starch gel is pre-gelatinised starch gel. Either method will work. It's really what's convenient for you. There is some research available on the effects of yudane on bread and the possible mechanisms but not reams of it, and some with differing conclusions. But with that in mind, I will say that the yudane method is usually used to a) make soft fluffy moist bread without having to add lots of enrichment, b) extend shelf-life.
Gluten development - To make light high-rising sandwich bread, it's difficult to get around intensive kneading. You can search around on the forum for more about this. It's definitely been discussed. For soft and light (rather than chewy and light), lower protein flour is helpful but not the only way. Don't seek out 13-15% high gluten flour. Otherwise it should be fine.
First off, thank you for taking the time to read this thread and reply.
Actually you must have an error in calculating as the hydration in that Chopsticks recipe is 76%. (60% milk and 16% Yudane water).
Now I know I have a very soft bread, but I love to play around and my target is softer and better staling if I can do it, but I'll live with what I have if not.
Based on this past weekend, 85% is perfectly doable and workable, IS slightly softer than the original 76%, and I'm currently testing for staling. I was just curious to know if anyone HAD pushed the limits further and was it worth me trying.
Now for protein content, that recipe talks about using 12% protein flour.
Here in Canada, all our AP flour runs 12 to 13.3% so I would have to mix with cake/pastry flour to lower the level of protein and it's not economical when pricing c/p compared to what I actually buy my ap at. I'm 78 living on pension and watch my pennies every way I can.
I have probably all the research on Youdane/tangzhong I could find on google bookmarked and really did want to use the Tangzhong much more but couldn't find a way to mechanize it like I can the Youdane way.
Fortunately for me, the milk bread way produces soft and light even with the high protein level. I make a lot of Ciabatta buns and for those I want VERY chewy and yet fluffy. I even add Vital Wheat Gluten to the bun dough to make it chewier.
While I've been making Ciabatta buns for MANY years, I only started making sandwich bread about 3 yrs ago when it got too painful for me to properly knead the Ciabatta dough and ended up buying a stand mixer.
The stand mixer then led me to making sandwich bread and other dough products.
I'll post my recipe separate. It is based on the 80% hydration but has figures aside that I used for making my trial 85% but I didn't change all the ingredients bakers percentage for the trial.
Yudane
150g flour
150g boiling water
Dough
1 Yudane 85% H
dough total weight 1130g hydration 80%
410g flour 400g final weight 1044g
35g sugar
50g powdered milk 55g
7g salt
7g instant yeast
23g grated butter
298g egg and water combined 318g
~~ ascorbic acid (not currently using)
For Yudane:
Add 150g boiling water to 150g flour, stir until fully mixed and hydrated. Let sit overnight covered.
For Dough:
Add dry ingredients plus butter and then add Yudane, flattening it out in the dry mix and cover with the dry ingredients. Use pizza cutter to cut Yudane into small pieces as the flour will keep the pieces separated.
Add the egg and water and mix well.
Use stand mixer to knead about 20-25 minutes on medium until dough all pulls away from bowl and has shiny surface. (do window pane test)
Cover and let rise for: 45 minutes if in oven with only oven light for heat source.
25 minutes if using oven “proof” setting. Slightly less than double is fine.
Deflate using stand mixer with dough hook, knead until dough pulls away clean again and air all removed. Then dump out onto oiled surface and shape in rectangle.
Place this into the baking pan and let rest for 10-15 minutes to relax dough so it can be evenly distributed within the pan.
Cover with oiled plastic and set to rise until highest point is almost level with top of pan. Turn on oven to 390°F.
Once oven is up to temperature, wait for dough to reach ¾” above pan and then place in oven, reducing heat at that time to 365°F and bake for 28 minutes.
I see stand mixer mentioned above. If using 1, don't. Just let the rise develope the gluten (I'll bet that's a new 1 for ya)! Hard wheat = strong gluten = tougher chewier bread. So limit it as mentioned way above. Enjoy!
Yes, that IS a new one for me. I've NEVER heard of making white sandwich bread without kneading.
For me, when I experimented some time ago with only partial kneading, the loaves kept collapsing and I was told at that time it didn't have enough gluten development to maintain the loaf at the size it was.
QUOTE: "Hard wheat = strong gluten = tougher chewier bread. So limit it as mentioned way above."
Do you mean limit the use of strong gluten flour or limit the kneading?
Don't know if this could help but you could reduce mechnical kneading and replace some of it with autolyse... just let water and flour soak 15-30 mins or so to develop gluten before adding anything else. This would be separate from the yudane which could be combined after or during. I've done both.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, I did do that and ended up with collapsed loaves and was told at that time that it was because not enough gluten developed to maintain the crumb in that size loaf.
You have not mentioned using a timed autolysis anywhere that I've seen. Anyhow, best of luck with this.
Sorry, I guess I didn't measure a "timed" autolysis but what I did was to add all the ingredients including the Youdane and after mixing enough to not see any dry mix left, I let it sit for 25 minutes each time before proceeding to knead. For the knead, I stopped at about 10 min. instead of the usual 20-25 mins.
Is that what you meant?
autolyse is just flour and water, no salt or anything else
it builds gluten without agitation, improves flavour and browning as well
OK, thanks for that information. On the browning however, I certainly don't need more of that as sometimes I get concerned about too much browning and take it out a couple minutes early.
you can always shield a loaf with some aluminum foil above it
After considering all the replies I've decided not to increase the hydration but instead, I'll play around with the butter and egg and see what happens with varying the amounts or even leaving one or the other out.
Thanks again for all the replies.
Regarding the hydration on the Chopsticks Chronicles recipe, 63% is indeed not right. I stand corrected (must have been a calculator error, sorry). But 76% is also not right because the average water content of milk is ~87%.
(.87)*60% milk + 16% yudane water = 68.2% hydration
Based on your current recipe, a couple of things you could try:
- Double the butter. 8% is not that high, particularly if using skim milk powder. Whole milk contains 3-4% butterfat, so there's more fat in the original recipe than explicitly indicated.
- 80-85% hydration with no yudane. At very high hydration there may be limited benefits to yudane method.
- Autolyse (as has already been suggested). Only mix together room temp water and flour until homogenous. Rest for 30 min. Proceed as normal.
Last note on yudane methodology:
An alternative method of adding scalded flour is to measure all of the flour into a bowl, then pour the boiling water directly into the flour and stir. Stop when water is absorbed. The mixture will not be homogenous. Let cool to warm. Proceed as usual. This is the traditional way to make 燙麵, or a hot water dough. If you find the process of making a separate yudane/tangzhong difficult, you can try this method.
I would not advise making a lot of yudane and then storing it, particularly in the fridge. The starch gel will recrystallise (harden), similar to how bread stales. At low temperatures this will happen more quickly.
Happy experimentation.
Very interesting information, thanks.
Starting at the end, I don't do individual loaves so all the Yudane is used same day. I may 4-6 loaves in a day, 4 if I have to make hamburger buns as well.
I've not seen ANY of the many sites that DON'T say leave the Yudane 8 hours or overnight so I'll experiment to see if there is a difference.
I did use the Tangzhong same day after it cooled but then the process is different in "cooking" the roux so it is almost translucent making for I thought was a more complete process and that the Yudane did basically the same through being hot to start and then using time to complete the process.
I've not done an 85% hydration without a Yudane although years ago when trying for a more moist bread I did go higher but don't actually remember now the actual percentage. It was before I had even heard of milk bread, and, it ended up producing a much more open crumb which I didn't want.
I used to use 38g of butter, but one day when I needed to make 6 loaves and didn't have enough butter, (I can't just go out and buy more, I need curbside orders with minimum purchases and order delay time) I cut back to present level and in the end, didn't really notice a difference. I'll still play around with it.
The most important information was about the hydration.
I never thought about the milk solids, although for my actual recipe it's a separate item.
However, it THEN made me think about the extra large egg weight that I use as a part of the liquid.
Looking up, I find that the water content is 74% of egg weight, and, as my shelled eggs average 55g then there is only 40.7g of water in them.
That means my hydration of 80% is actually 77.5% and the 85% is only 82.5%.
That fact in itself is not a determining factor in my results, but is a perceived level not representative of difference from original recipe.
In fact, my long ago trials using my calculations of 70% were actually quite close to the original hydration properly calculated at 68.2% if I remove the egg solids weight from my equation.
Again, many thanks.
I think people may be wondering why I'm doing all this.
It's because I'm old and limited in what I can do other than read or watch TV so I do the baking of breads and other dough products, AND I make all my own sausages and sandwich meats to have other interests. These are things I can do as I can lean on the counter while doing them, like leaning on the platform of my walker, or walking on my treadmill with a floating platform across the arms to lean on.
However, once you can make the bread, or sausage, it's basically mundane activity so I try to challenge the thought process by considering variations.
This leads to also time spent afterward, thinking about what I will do or want to do with the next batch and then Googling for research. It cuts down on wasted TV time or number of books I have to order from the Library.