How to get consistent results
Howdy bakers,
I posted in my introduction what my goals are, to recreate my grandmothers no knead milk bread on a consistent level. Here is my recipe:
26 Ounces flour
2 Cups milk or 2 cups of water and 1.6 oz skim milk powder, or 6TBS whole milk powder
2 Teaspoons salt
3 tbsp sugar
2.5 tsp yeast
2.66 Tablespoons butter
1 egg or 1 tbsp egg powder
This is a 1/3 conversion from my sister's recipe.
For the mechanics of it, I mix all the dry ingredients together except the sugar, butter and yeast. If I'm using whole milk I heat the milk 115 degrees, stir in the sugar, stir in the yeast, drop in the butter, and allow it to proof for 10 minutes. If I'm using powdered milk I add the milk powder to the dry ingredients, heat the water to 115, stir in the sugar, the yeast and drop in the butter and proof for 10 minutes.
I carefully mix the dry ingredients and put them in my stand mixer with the dough hook. After the yeast has proofed I turn on the mixer to 2 and slowly pour in the liquid.
One of my questions is how long to mix this for, I've read what Kitchenaid has on their site and it leaves things a little squishy. They say to start timing when the dough pulls away from the side of the bow, but it seems that the dough sometimes can be sticky and take longer to pull away and not fully do so until the dough is climbing the dough hook, and other times where it can pull away from the bowl and still take awhile to climb the dough hook. Trying to figure this timing out has lead to what I believe have been over kneaded loaves that don't rise well and are dense and heavy when baked.
I've used both whole milk in this recipe and milk powder. I find milk powder to be very convenient as I don't need to worry about spoilage, since my cat died I don't use milk often enough to finish it before it spoils. I started with skim milk powder since it's readily available in my local grocery store but I discovered Nestle' whole milk powder which produces milk with a better flavor, so I now use that.
My sister's recipe uses 1 egg for a full 5 pound bag of flour. When I use fresh eggs I use a whole egg, but I've switched to powdered egg or egg crystals for convenience and to no have my bread over egged.
For yeast I use Fleischmann's Active Dry yeast. I know that you don't have to proof it, but that's how gram did it so I still do it that way and I find doing so gives my rise a head start.
One of the challenges I've had has been a stable place to proof my bread, I tried a number of different things for this but eventually purchased a Brod & Taylor https://brodandtaylor.com/products/folding-proofer-slow-cooker which seems to work pretty well, it creates a warm most environment for my dough, I find I don't need to cover my dough with a towel or cling wrap.
When everything is mixed I have about 47 ounces of dough which I split into two loaves. I've read that a 9x5 bread pan can be used for 1lb of dough, but I haven't had good results even though my loaf is made of 23.5 ounces. So, instead I use an 8x4 pan. Even still I get uneven results.
I've learned to form my loaf by flattening it out, stretching 2 corners and folding them back then roll the loaf into a log pinching the dough together at the seems.
I allow 1 rise before forming loaves and bake after the second rise.
Sometimes I get a nicely raised loaf, but with a smaller crumb than I desire, it seems that allowing the second rise to go past 45 minutes over proofs the loaf and it can collapse.
I've tried to be careful and reduce the number of variables I change with each batch, sometimes I get a nice loaf that rises above the pan sides and gives me that mushroom shaped cross section, sometimes the rise is underwhelming and it barely crests the pan.
Based on the number hydration appears to be 61% which should be sufficient for the bread I'm trying to make. I am considering increasing the hydration to see if that changes anything. My pan pizza dough has a much higher hydration level and rises well even in cold (below 70) temps but produces a chew texture which is fine for pizza but not what I want in my bread.
For those of you who've had the fortitude to get this far, I'm hoping to hear your thoughts on how I can get my loaves to get a nice consistent rise.
Cheers
-Bob
I think you have partially answered your own question - inconsistent and sometimes over-kneading. Kneading times are always guides, not orders. You sound like you have more than enough experience to read the dough, so do that: go by the dough and not the time.
Too much kneading might also give rise to a finer crumb.
If it were me, I would stay with whole milk and eggs, and only try out powdered milk and eggs once I had achieved good, consistent results. So you get a little waste - it's a minor price of learning :)
You don't mention what kind of flour you use or whether it's always the same.
Typically I use Pillsbury's Best all purpose flour. I don't go through flour fast enough for it to make sense to keep bread flour and all purpose flour. I only switch when I can't get Pillsbury, if I can't I'll try to go with another all purpose flour but during Covid I bought what was available, whatever that was.
If my problem is kneading, how do I know when enough is enough? Kitchenaid tells you to start timing it from when it pulls from the bowl, but that doesn't seem reliable. I know that when the dough starts climbing the hook it means you have at least some gluten formation. Do I stop when I see that starting or let it run for a time after it starts?
Cheers
-Bob
Pillsbury All-purpose Unbleached and Gold Medal All-Purpose Unbleached are both reliable and seem to perform the same for me. King Arthur's All-Purpose also performs reliably and about the same as the other two. Most serious home bakers want to use unbleached, unbromated flour.
One standard way to tell about kneading is the window pane test. You pinch a bunch of dough between thumb and fingers of one hand, and another using the other hand. Slowly work your hands apart. You should be able to pull the dough out thin enough to be able to see light coming through (hence the name). Once you achieve that, you don't need to knead more and more kneading might even be harmful. The test is a bit trickier with highly enriched dough but stll can be done.
I don't think a dough that passes a windowpane test counts a "no knead". In fact, if the goal is an open crumb, rather than the classic sandwich bread crumb, I think development to the point of windowpane will be a problem. For reference, check out txfarmer's posts about getting a "shreddable" crumb through intense mixing to a strong windowpane.
For a more open crumb, I would err on the side of less mixing, and then make sure to bake when it's perfectly proofed, before it collapses. At that hydration, it should be pretty hard for it to collapse. I would expect you to have fewer problems getting the desired volume if the yeast is raising the bread enough to have it collapse.
Another aspect that will affect the crumb is the shaping technique. If by "flatten" you mean that you're rolling it out with a pin (and adding flour to keep it from sticking), that will also contribute to a tighter crumb. For a more open crumb, I would use as little flour as possible (maybe spritz some water on the table) and stretch the dough out gently before folding and rolling as you have been. Pop any large bubbles, but try to leave the smaller ones alone.
Ken Forkish writes in Evolutions in Bread about using the same techniques for no-knead artisan bread (sourdough or not) to make pan loaves. The image below, for reference, comes from that book.
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I wouldn't disagree, but the OP has been using a mixer to work the dough, following a prescription he's been given. I didn't want to try to change that too much. If it were me, I'd be mixing by hand, using less yeast for a slower fermentation, those kinds of things. But a mixer can make for fine bread, too.
Shaping has been a work in progress. My results improved when I started shaping the dough and stretching the surface, I was very little when I "helped" gram make bread so I have no memory how she did it.
I don't use extra flower when I shape, my mom gave me a baking mat which has a smooth coating on it that dough doesn't stick to which saves me from adding flour to the surface. I do remember gram punching down the dough though, as a little kid I thought that was cool.
Before I started forming the loaves by stretching and rolling I never got a good rise in the pan. When I say rolling I don't mean using a rolling pin, I don't I just press the dough out flat on the mat, pull out 2 corners then fold them back in and roll the dough like a cinnamon roll but not so tight. If there are better ways to do this I'd be interested in learning.
Cheers
-Bob
Instead of going by timing, I judge gluten development as follows: I wet my fingers on both hands with some water. I then grab a small piece of dough and stretch it. The dough should stretch without breaking. If it tears, I continue mixing for several more minutes, until it no longer tears.
Converting your measurements to grams, I get 737g flour and ~7g yeast. That works out to .9% yeast in baker's percentage. Baker's percentages vary for dry yeast, from 1% to 3%, but 1.3% or 1.4% seem standard for this type of loaf. Perhaps you could increase the yeast, as one of your variables.
My mom made a very similar recipe, but she did knead it. However, it had two rises before its last pan rise. I'm not a knowledgeable enough breadmaker to know what effect a second bulk fermentation has on the resulting loaf & crumb. Another member will surely know. I'm wondering if it could contribute to gluten development without much kneading. Your Gram did call it a no-knead bread. Do any of you recall her punching down the dough in the bowl, maybe flipping it, and covering it up again?
And btw, thanks for giving me the idea of trying the Instant Pot for proofing. May as well use it for something.
Thanks for tip on yeast, my sister's recipe calls for 3 pkgs of yeast, I buy yeast in the brown bottles so I estimated how much to use, clearly I'm under doing it. I'll try increasing it.
I can't recall if gram did a 2nd bulk fermentation. I know that my sister does but her bread is more dense than grams and mine was the same when I used her techniques. I've gotten better result with a single bulk fermentation than my sister, but still not quite right, there are so many variables with bread it's hard to know what change has what result. My fear with a 2nd bulk fermentation is that the yeast get's exhausted before getting into the loaf pan.
I came here to benefit from the wealth of information I know a forum like this has. I know 61% hydration is on the lower edge of the scale and wonder should I increase that, and your advice on yeast is good to know.
Oh, one other thing, before forming the loaves I had no oven spring, I am getting oven spring now so that's an improvement. I've tried adding steam to the oven and not and the main thing I notice is a difference in the top crust and the scar on the side of the steamed bread is smoother than the non steamed. I'm not sure that I really care as long as I get spring. Gram was a devout Catholic so she always carved a cross in the top of her bread to open it. I've tried slitting the top, but with such uneven results I'm not sure I can say if that has much of an impact, when I can get more consistent results perhaps slitting will make a difference.
Cheers
-Bob