[Sca-cooks] Bread machine revisited

[Terry Decker]

Gluten and yeast, assuming we are talking wheat flour.

The more protein in the flour the more gluten and the longer and stronger 
the strands of gluten in the dough to better trap the CO2 from the yeast. 
While you can make decent bread with soft flour, hard flour is easier to 
work and makes better bread.  Whole wheat flour introduces wheat bran and 
wheat germ into the equation reducing the percentage of gluten by weight and 
influencing the chemistry of the dough, producing a denser bread.

Underkneading the dough, produces fewer, shorter gluten strands which may 
not effectively trap the CO2 giving dense bread or tears in the crumb. 
Overkneading can break down the gluten strands leading to similar problems.

A weak or dead yeast may not provide enough CO2 to properly aerate a loaf. 
An overly active yeast or too much yeast may generate more CO2 than the 
gluten can trap in small bubbles causing gas pockets in the crumb.  The 
activity of the yeast can be modified by adding salt to buffer and slow 
activity or yeast digestable sugars to feed the activity.

Weak yeast is the most common problem I run into, so I try to buy fresh dry 
active yeast twice a year and keep it in an airtight container in the 
refrigerator.  Underkneading, from being in too much of a hurry or being a 
little lazy, is the second most common problem in my experience.  I mostly 
do mechnical kneading these days, but unless you watch it closely, that can 
lead to overkneading.  Working by hand, I've experience overkneading only 
three or four times in about 40 years.

These factors can also affect bread machine baking, although the 
manufacturers try to compensate for them in their recipes.  You just can't 
see the errors being made.

Bear



> OK, Bear, lets pretend there isn't a bread machine ;-) What factors 
> increase
> or reduce the density of a loaf, amount of flour being the same?
>
> Phlip