July 28, 2023 - 8:53am
First time loaf.
Hi All
First timer using a bread machine. I have the Breville Custom Loaf. Just did the basic recipe for a .75Kg loaf. I haven't cut it open yet but not quite what I thought it would look like. Presumably I've got something wrong. I did use dry yeast instead of active dry yeast. Not sure if there is any difference, and also a high protein flour as they did not have bread flour at the shop. During the kneading and rising it "seemed" ok. Just wondering if you have any ideas what might cause the odd looking top :-).
Cheers Peter
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Sometimes the tops look like that when the ratio of flour and liquid isn't quite right, and that ratio depends on the other ingredients too. Even though the top is a little funky, it still might taste really nice... let it cool before cutting into it, then let us know!
A few questions to help people help you:
Making a separate note about the type of yeast, because I think you did ok here but yeast was confusing for me when I first started, and maybe for you too? Here's how I understand it - home bakers mostly use dry yeast, and there are two main kinds of dry yeast: Active, and instant.
1.0 ACTIVE DRY YEAST
Especially found in older recipes, this is often proofed (activated by dissolving in warm water) but you don't have to proof with bread machine breads. It has a larger grain size than the instant kind.
2.0 INSTANT DRY YEAST
Also called rapid-rise yeast, it does not need to be proofed. It has a smaller grain size than the active kind.
2.1 Fast-acting dry yeast
A sub-category of instant dry yeast; formulated to work faster. Each company that makes fast-acting dry yeast has a slightly different formulation.
2.2 Bread machine yeast
A sub-category of instant dry yeast; formulated specifically for bread machines (but you're not limited to this with your machine, of course)
3.0 SUBSTITUTIONS
Because the two main categories have different grain size, you can swap them out but need to use different amounts.
Hi Peter!
If ingredients are proportioned perfectly (too big a topic to expand on here), you are more likely to develop a nice smooth doughball which equals a nice smooth crust.
This looks like it was a little dry. Besides advising you to monitor the doughball for proper moisture (should be sticky like tape, as RyeSmile mentioned), I would suggest you get a silicone spatula to help get everything incorporated evenly, including scraping down the sides of the pan in the first 5 minutes.
I'm not familiar with your particular machine, but many continue to operate with the lid open. I use my spatula to help push the doughball into the paddle. Here's an example about 20 minutes into the initial mixing. Also notice how after I remove the spatula, the dough just barely sticks to the sides of the pan. That's about how sticky (moist) I expect it to be. It should not just spin with the paddle without sticking to the sides, and it shouldn't stick to the sides too much (an exception to this is if you're making a sweet loaf, like banana or pumpkin bread, they're much more moist).
What the heck, I'm pretty proud of this loaf so here's the process from start to finish showing how it started as a gloopy mess, and after adjusting the moisture content (by slowly adding more flour by the tablespoon), producing the perfect loaf.
Welcome to the wonderful world of easy homemade bread!
Hi Peter!
Congratulations with your first loaf!
Mine looked very similar and the reason was not enough water. My flour is strong and dry and absorbs 20-30% more water than in the recipe. Maybe your flour was stronger (had more protein than in the recipe) or drier than that used in the recipe, so your bread dough needed a little more water.
Your recipe is given in cups of flour, not grams or ounces, so unless you spoon and sweep (or sift and sweep) your flour from above into the measuring cup, you would accidentally add too much flour to your bread dough and that resulted in a very dry dough as well.
Hi Mariana. I'm thinking that is the consensus based on other comments as well. I did some update pics but will have to travel a bit further afield and see if I can get some proper bakers flour.
Cheers Peter
Your flour is not the culprit, Peter. It's a good bag of flour. I wish we had such flour here in Canada ! (I am mostly envious of its 3% native sugar content and its perfect W = flour strength. It's great for yeasted and sourdough baking. Our Canadian flour has zero sugar and its W is too high and it requires a mile long list of flour improvers to make it work.)
The recipe, though, only lists 280g of water per 500g of flour (plus other dry ingredients that compete for water, such as dry yeast and dry milk). My flour which is similar to yours, with 11.5% protein, needs 350g of water per 500g of flour and that means 25% more water than in the instruction booklet. The resulting bread then is to die for, truly delicious and beautiful.
You would have to find out from experience how much water your flour needs compared to the recipe and in the future to adjust the amounts accordingly each time you bake.
When I started baking in bread machines, I baked all breads from the booklet that came with them, one at a time, sometimes up to 4 bakes per day, to figure just the right amount of water for each bread. With bread machines it is so easy to run the tests, just add the ingredients, use fast bread cycle and come a couple of hours later to see if you guessed it right this time!
Check out your yeast expiration date and the date when you opened the sealed package and how you stored your instant yeast since, to make sure it is not expired or just not as fresh. The expiration date on the bag of flour matters even more (in bread machines baking) or else the loaf won't rise properly.
Hi Mariana. Ahh OK. Yes it does seem like the water quantity might be the culprit. I was wondering can you use plain flour (all purpose). I was trawling Dr Google last night and did see some recipes and people mention it was fine to use. Others mentioned you need to add vital wheat gluten to it. On the label it has pretty less of everything. It's cheaper being plain than the other one I bought, but plenty of stock of both in the shops. Here is the label for plain flour.
I'll get another lot of the previous Lighthouse brand and tinker with the water quantity. All the items, flour, yeast etc are new and fresh. The yeast comes in 7g sealed sachets and I used one sachet in the mix.
Cheers Peter
Peter, I would use it, but only if its W is ≥200, 200-250 range is good. I am not sure if plain flour brands in Australia are labeled as comprehensively as bread flours, their W indicated.
10% protein flour is perfectly good, I bake with it in bread machines regularly, no vital gluten added. You can use egg white(s) instead of vital gluten, actually, 1-2 per loaf to fortify its proteins but that makes bread more expensive and you might as well simply buy more expensive 11-12% protein flour.
10% protein all purpose flour is my favorite, actually, especially for crusty French breads with tender crumb, German and Spanish breads and rolls, etc. although loaves will be about 10% less tall than loaves baked with 11% or 12% protein flour.
Hi and thank you for responding. I am located in Australia. This is the recipe I used from the Breville BBM800 book.
I measured the flour on scales to make sure it was right. The others were with measuring spoons and the water I got pretty close to 280 although when it was kneading I added about another 10-15ml and it looked a bit dry. The water temperature was around 30-31C and probably dropped a bit by the time all the ingredients went in. Before the 3rd rise I checked the dough and did move it more in the middle with a plastic spatula. The dough looked ok although wasn't super sticky. I did mix the dry ingredients in a bowl first so thinking I probably should have layered them like it mentions in the book, although the dough did look OK. This is the flour and yeast I used. Unfortunately the shop didn't have "bakers" flour so thought this might work.
The oil was Canola oil and again there wasn't any "bread improver" but was told a bit of Citric acid would do the same although I notice the yeast also has ascorbic acid in it. Sugar was castor sugar.
The result looks not too bad but isn't light and fluffy and seems a bit heavy. The taste is also odd. I tried a piece raw and it has a sort of after taste. It would probably toast up OK though.
I'll go a bit further afield and see if I can get the proper flour and maybe one of the pre-made bread mixes to see how that goes.
Cheers Peter
Hi Peter welcome to the group, if you fill in your info panel it will enable us all to see a little bit about you and where you are located which can help no end for people wanting to help as there are often huge differences in flours and other ingredients in different countries. If you click on the avatars of the people that have been trying to help you can see they come from far and wide, The good thing is there are quite a few Australian bakers on this site that may well be more familiar with the products that you are using and have first hand experience. They may also be able to suggest alternatives that may suit you better. Where abouts in our big brown land do you reside, I'm down Fremantle way in Western Australia. Funnily enough where your Lighthouse flour comes from.
Lighthouse don't actually say where the flour comes from or where its milled their address is a packing facility probably 2 or 3 klms from my home!
Mariana i dont think our flours have the W values on their packaging but i have seen them on Italian and UK packages
i have attached the blurb from Lighthouse flours https://www.lighthousebaking.com.au/windex
If you are a Sandgroper i may be able to offer some alternative flours or ones that i use. IGA stores seem to have a good variety of flours.
i do think that Learning Bakers math is the best way to progress your bread making adventure, i also think weighing everything is the best way to go too along with copious notes as you go along.
Kind regards Derek
Derek, I mentioned flour strength, its W value, only because it is indicated on the package that Peter bought. It is given as the range that they guarantee for their flours: W = 250-350. Anything above 200 is suitable for bread baking. In Canada, our all purpose and bread flour strength is a bit too high, in 400-600 range.
No worries Mariana i haven't seen the W code on any of the other flour packages we have here.
i presume Lighthouse get their flour from one of the local flour mills i think they used to get their flour from the Dingo flour mill in North Fremantle .
Hi Derek. Thank you for the welcome. I didn't know the info panel was there so have updated. Sadly I'm over the other side in Canberra although originally (many years ago now) was from Albany, so part Sandgroper I guess :-)
I'm looking into the bakers math but still getting my head around it. Meanwhile I did a loaf using one of those packet crusty bread mixes from Laucke. Worked out great although it highlighted I need a decent bread knife as I destroyed some of it trying to cut thin slices. The breads have all tasted great so don't last too long in the bread tin and I can then experiment with another recipe. I see the Lighthouse box has a recipe, although not for bread machine but might be worth a shot.
Cheers Peter
H Peter . you will need to take lots of notes as you go along so if you follow a recipe make a note of how much dough it produces and you will find that useful for gauging how much capacity the bread machine can handle this will be especially useful when you want to make your own recipes rather than buying bread mixes Laukes is a fairly good brand. As far as bakers percentages go I will message you.
Kind regards Derek
Hi Again and thank you everyone for responding. So nice to see forums these days where people help each other out.
Ok so the second loaf came out way better than the first. I increased the water to 350ml rather than 280ml in the recipe. The dough ball seemed to be a lot smoother and a little bit tackier during kneading. Anyway the lightness and texture are streets ahead of the first. Given the top is still pretty gnarly I'm wondering if maybe a bit more water might help, although the loaf is already fairly high and I took a picture through the window at the start of Rise 2 and it does seem a bit tacky still?
I might look at tweaking that with the next one. I'm wondering if it has risen a bit too high then dropped down. I'm keeping the other quantities and product brands the same so as not to confuse things but if the water amount is out by so much, maybe some other things aren't right either. Meanwhile I'll hunt around for some other basic recipes that I can try.
Cheers Peter
Peter that was so bold! To increase water by 25%, my God! But it worked, obviously. The dough looks just right and the crumb is decent as well.
What about the taste, aroma, is this bread ok?
From the looks of it, it might be a shaping issue and if you know when your machine shapes the bread dough before its final rise prior to baking, you can take the dough out at that moment and shape it on the table into a smooth log by hand. Then place it in the pan and let the machine finish its job.
Other changes that I do is to increase both salt and yeast by 10% as I increase water by 25%, or else the bread tastes watery, not salty enough, and does not rise as high, because the total weight of the bread dough increased and it needs a bit more yeast to lift that weight properly.
Yes was a radical change but apart from the gnarly top the taste is great. Has good texture both inside and crust. Probably a tiny bit crumblier than say a store bought bread but pretty good.
I can take it out and shape it at the start of rise 3 as one of the things it mentions is you can take the dough out then and remove the paddle to leave a smaller hole.
I may increase the salt a bit and possibly decrease the water by about 10ml as it did seem to rise a lot, almost to the top of the pan. This was the .75KG loaf and if I used the same formula for the 1.25Kg I suspect it would be way over the top, but I think I'm on the right track.
Hi again,
Before I ramble on, are you familiar with Baker's percentage, sometimes called Baker's math? I ask because I use it all the time to determine exactly how much water vs. flour (vs. everything else in the formula) is being used so I know what to expect from simply looking at a recipe even before anything hits the pan.
I find it very useful but haven't seen it in this thread yet. I'd be happy to elaborate if interested.
Hi Tombredian. No can't say that I have but would be interested as I'm just starting out and at the moment just doing a bit of guess work. Obviously with the things above, the recipes in the book don't quite match up in real life but understand there are a lot of different factors affecting the final loaf, like type of flour, yeast, water temp etc.
Cheers Peter