December 31, 2017 - 3:38pm
Programmable machine that only heats while cooking
I am making bread that needs to be kneaded cold and left to rise in the cold. It only needs to be heated when it is baked.
But it appears that while most bread machines can be programmed, they still heat the dough when it is kneading and letting it sit and rise. It seems there is no way to program the heat cycle.
Is there such a machine which could be programmed to only heat while the bread is being baked?
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I believe the heat is from the motor. But during the rise cycle, the element turns on to keep the optimum proofing temperature. It does not allow you to proof longer than the factory-programmed cycle.
Hi Kevin,
I don't know of any bread machines with programmable heat cycle including 'cold' fermentation. They don't cool the dough, they can only heat it or ferment it at whatever room temperature you have. For cold fermentation we put the bread machine bucket with dough in it into refrigerator or simply disconnect the bread machine, so that the dough ferments at cold room temp, if our kitchen is cold.
For raw dough, they all offer two heating choices only: 1) heating to fermenting temp or 2) heating to proofing before baking temp. These two temperatures are different in different models/brands of bread machines, ranging between 27-33C for fermentation and 35-43C for proof of loaf before baking.
Also, the dough temperature will rise during kneading either simply due to the friction factor or because the bread machine additionally heats up the chamber in order to reach the target fermentation temp by the end of kneading.
The only way around it is to make dough in a programmable bread machine by programming it to knead only and use knead only for punching down and shaping loaf at appropriate times manually, by you coming to the machine and pressing the preprogrammed button 'knead'. Use cold water in order to keep the temp of the dough down so that it is cold even at the end of the kneading.
Then to program it to start baking at such and such hour, once you know from experience the dough inside the bucket will be ready to be baked. For example, you shaped the loaf and you know it will take 2 hours of proofing at specific room temperature before baking. So you program the start of baking for 2 hrs from now. And come back to the machine at the end of the preprogrammed baking cycle to extract the loaf.