The gluten is overstretched. The balloon has popped. But it might have a little energy left. It might have a bit denser crumb and not rise quite as high but should still taste okay. Butter helps everything. You have a little more luck if your dough is under-proofed. Learning about dough, the look, the feel and the smell is about experience. Keep baking and soon you will have a much more intuitive sense just by looking at the dough that it is ready to go into the oven.
I love making bread. Why does my bread feel like a brick? The density of a bread is a direct result of how long and thoroughly dough has been kneaded. To increase the rate of gluten development we knead the dough longer and harder. A mature dough structure can still be achieved without kneading.
The dough will just need considerably longer during its bulk fermentation stage. Kneading should last for at least 10 minutes by hand, but 20 is usually prefered! Check the how to knead dough guide to find out more. The quality and thickness of the breads crust affect the properties of its crumb.
During baking and cooling, moisture escapes from the core of the loaf. As moisture exits, it attaches itself to starch present on the outer crust area. If the crust area is damp it makes the crust heavier and less porous so less moisture can escape. The result is the crumb is also dense and stodgy. To achieve this, the dough should be developed thoroughly so that it passes the windowpane test , and shaped well to create tension in its outer perimeter.
In order for the proteins to transform into gluten, we need to hydrate them. Too much water makes the gluten swim so that it is unable to support the loaf structure. You need to use high protein flour to support a wet gluten network. Instant, active dried and fresh yeast can all go out of date! Yes, especially if it is open and unsealed!!
If you are not sure if your yeast is still active, hydrate a small amount in warm water. Sourdough starters need to contain enough active yeast and Lactic Acid Bacteria to mature and raise the bread. Your starter should double, if not triple in size within 6 hours.
It will also smell fragrant! If this is not the case, feed for a few more days before trying again, or view my sourdough starter is not rising post for more information. Just as under kneading bread dough has its issues, as does over kneading. Over kneading the dough will cause the gluten to tear and lose its strength.
This is bad news if trying to avoid dense bread as it will not retain gas well and the crust quality will diminish too. By hand, it is pretty much impossible to over-knead bread dough, but when using a mixer it can happen easily.
To avoid over mixing, use a countdown timer to remind you to check your dough. To test if bread dough has been kneaded enough, tear a piece off and stretch it out. It should be strong, soft, elastic and smooth. It should not rip at the first instance of stretching. If it is not ready, knead again for another 3 minutes and try again. There is also The Windowpane Test. You may be under or over developing the dough during the first rise.
Increasing the length or the temperature of the first rise can resolve a dense homemade loaf of bread. That said we can go too far the other way!
When combining intense kneading with an extended bulk ferment period, we can create issues. This can lead to the flour becoming over oxygenated or over fermented. Due to lactic acid and the protease enzyme increasing to weaken the gluten, the dough loses extensibility and collapses.
This is common when sourdough bread is too dense due to a weak starter. You could also use a proofing box to create the ideal bread proofing temperature for your loaf of bread. This will help you to control your doughs development and remove any inconsistencies between bakes. If you make quick breads, adding some ascorbic acid or activated malt flour can help you out.
Ascorbic acid will incorporate more oxygen to strengthen the gluten network. Less kneading time is required and it removes the need for a first rise. Adding active malt flour to the mix generates more flora activity in the dough. This speeds up the rate that sugars get provided to the yeast.
But adding malt flour to long-fermented doughs like sourdough can lead to a gummy crumb. Before final proofing, the dough gets moulded into its desired shape. This involves knocking the gas out of the dough and creating tension in its outer perimeter crust area.
The tension created from shaping supports the shape of the dough as it rises. Tension also forms a strong, thin crust in the oven. If the final shaping is not firm enough, the dough will spread outwards and not rise properly, creating a badly risen loaf. If you are looking for large erratic bubbles through the crumb you should increase the length of bulk fermentation so that the dough is already gassy before shaping.
The shaping should then be done with a lighter touch to retain more of the gas, whilst still creating tension. This should leave another third of the bread remaining to fold over. Grab the half that you have rolled and the roll it over once more and close the loaf with the palm of your hand. This should create that nice tension you will need. Meaning your dough is not too hard, to begin with. Use only the amount of flour to make a workable dough.
It will probably come out sticky as hell- good! Also, take into consideration that heavier flours like whole wheat or rye are not a good fit if you want light and airy loaves. You could use these flours in your mix to get the more complex flavor but use smaller percentages. This will give your bread that airy texture while adding some more complex flavors.
If you slice the loaf and see that that the dough appears to be compressed, especially around the edges it means you should have let it rise longer.
Most bread needs a couple of proofs before ready to mold and then another final proof again before bake. A great tool for the home baker is a proofing box. It is essentially an enclosure that has a heating element and creates humidity with a water chamber. To read more about how a proofing box works and how it can improve your bread and cut down on time read here.
Now… Baking at home differs from baking in an industrial bakery. The tools are different in a way that affects the dough. A home mixer will not give the same result as an industrial mixer, so it is difficult to achieve stable airiness in all the dough.
In most cases, the dough will be airy in some parts and lumpy in others, so after the first rise, it is recommended to knead the dough again for a few minutes and then let the dough rise again until it doubles itself and becomes easy to work with.
Yes, that means more work but the airy results will be worth it. Lastly, note that you could potentially let the dough rise too long as well. If your dough is old you will find that you do have some airiness in your bread but it is much smaller than it should be and not as fluffy. How can it be achieved? You want the flavors to develop in the bread by letting it rest. And you can do this for two hours or even a whole day, both of them are fine, but the latter is going to taste better.
For the resting process, all you have to do is oil a bowl and put the dough inside, then seal it will a cling wrap. You can leave it outside or inside the fridge; both should be fine. The first thing you need to keep in mind is to preheat the oven. Doing so for about 10 minutes should be fine. Not preheating the oven is one of the main reasons your bread might become very dense when it bakes.
This will help the yeast stay activated and raise the bread, making it light. For a regular-sized loaf of bread, you should set your oven to degrees Fahrenheit for the first 15 minutes of the bake, the rest of the time you can slowly reduce the temperature. You want the yeast to be alive to do its job. There might be a few reasons why your bread might come out of the oven feeling like a rock. The main reason why bread rises is that the dough forms gas which allows the bread to rise, so if there is no gas created, you will be left with a dense bread.
The flour you used might have too low protein content. Using all-purpose flour might not be in your flavor. In this case, switch to bread flour for this. This will kill the yeast, and therefore your bread will not rise, leaving it flat, hard, and dense.
0コメント