Baked an Oatmeal Brick
Greetings,
I recently bought a Zojirushi Virtuoso bread machine to help me get back into baking, and I've run into a bit of trouble. I tried to make some oatmeal sandwich bread using the recipe from King Arthur Flour, and what I got was a brick. Worse still, it tastes somewhat like cardboard -- not even a tasty brick!
Now, I made a couple of changes to the recipe, and I'm sure that's where I went wrong. I used white whole wheat flour instead of bread flour, but added two tablespoons of vital wheat gluten to help it rise, and increased the yeast to two teaspoons. I also took the dough out of the machine after the second punch-down and reshaped it so that it would rise evenly. But then it didn't rise. At all.
Do I need to add more water next time? I added a teaspoon per cup of flour, which I saw somewhere as the right amount for switching to white whole wheat. If I need to add more, how much more? Do I need more wheat gluten? Even more yeast? Not to shape the loaf myself?
Also, about the cardboard-y taste, am I stuck with that if I use white whole wheat? Or should I just add a bit more sugar?
Thanks!
Rather than invent a whole wheat/oats recipe from scratch, just start with a Zoji recipe that calls for whole wheat and oats.
Why reinvent the wheel? You're just making it hard on yourself.
--
Also, if it didn't rise _at all_, then the yeast could be dead. Try "prooving" a pinch in some lukewarm sugar water, and if it foams, its still alive.
Theres a possibility of having added too much sugar and the yeast was worn out by that point? I think thats something Ive read. Theres only so much gas it can produce.
First, thanks for the responses. :) Working backward:
- I'm pretty sure there isn't too much sugar for the yeast, as this recipe has worked just fine many times with white flour.
- The yeast is fine, brand new in fact, and has worked in other breads.
- I'm altering a recipe because I can't find one for oatmeal bread using 100% whole wheat flour. The recipes that claim to be whole wheat all use about one-third whole wheat flour and two-thirds all-purpose white flour. The Zojirushi recipe has millet, teff, and white flour in addition to whole wheat. And those are only the ones that don't include eggs and milk and so forth. I'm diabetic, so I'm trying to stick to whole grains, and I have allergies that prevent me from adding milk or eggs.
I do appreciate the advice, but I'm only trying to reinvent the wheel because the wheels I was provided are square and have bits missing. :)
How about baby steps towards your goal? First find a whole wheat recipe, and work with that. Ignore the oats until you get whole wheat down pat.
Whole wheat recipes based on volume measurements are tricky in themselves, because different types and brands all weigh different amounts per cup. So you have to learn to adjust.
They also come with different moisture levels, so you have to always adjust the water amount.
Then, bread machines are temperamental about the size of the dough ball that they can handle. Hopefully, the 2-paddle Zoji has a wider range of dough-mass that it can handle than the typical 1-paddle machine.
I know that WW loaves are tricky in my bread machine. The size and hydration (percent water) are critical, and I'm always adding more water or flour, and then pinching off excess dough to get the dough ball just right.
Until you get experience with something that works, you're just guessing blindly by trying to invent something with which you have no experience.
Your online helpers can only point you in the right direction, not give you an exact recipe that will work with your brand of flour. Your flour might need vital wheat gluten, and it might not. It might need more yeast, it might need less yeast. How much water a cup of whole wheat flour needs varies a lot, brand to brand, type to type, and bag to bag.
It's hard enough to adapt/adjust a known good recipe to your particular brand of flour and bread machine. But, you're trying to explore about four or five variables at once, all of which are new to you.
Zoji is a popular brand. So there must be some 100% whole wheat recipes out there, maybe on the web, if not in the official Zoji instruction manual.
Here's what I found: https://www.zojirushi.com/app/recipe/whole-wheat-bread#slcttop Then click your machine model to get a customized recipe. --- That does have added sugar and molasses, so if you leave those two things out (to reduce glycemic index) you'll need to add a little water. Try a volume equal to the volume of the molasses. ---
Also, if a competitor makes a similar size/capacity machine, their recipe for 100% whole wheat would be a better place to start than trying to sub whole wheat into a recipe designed for plain white flour.
Also remember that the order in which you place the ingredients in the machine usually matters, especially if you use the timer.
Actually, when learning a new machine, don't use the timer, because you have to adjust the water/flour and pinch out dough, like I explained above, to find the right size dough ball and the right amount of hydration. That just takes observation and trial and error. Once you get it down pat, and know the exact ingredients, you can put them all in up front and use the timer.
Good luck.
https://www.thespruceeats.com/whole-grain-oatmeal-bread-from-scratch-1446693
Paul
idaveindy -- Thanks for the advice! I should've said that I know better than to work by volume, but I appreciate you taking the time to explain the pitfalls. I also have a basic whole wheat recipe that works fairly well, but it's kinda bland. The recipe from the Zojirushi handbook is pretty similar to the one I've used, but the hydration is a touch higher and it uses more wheat gluten. I'll have to keep that in mind. Oatmeal bread was my favorite basic sandwich bread back when I could bake with white flour and not a care in the world, which is why I'm trying to adapt it. But yes, with so many variables I expect failures along the way.
pmccool -- Thanks for that link! It suggests my main problem was hydration. That recipe is up over 90% hydration -- more than I can recall using for anything but ciabatta. I'll have to give a version of that a try today.
Here's my reasoning. Since whole wheat is closer to oats in terms of bran and absorption, than is white flour... then ... starting with a known good WW recipe, and substituting out some WW for quick oats will get you closer to the target than subsitituting out white flour for oats/WW.
How much of the flour weight do you like the oats to be, in order to get the oat flavor? If it's 12% or less, the hydration should not be too far off, and you can adjust during the mix cycle.
And using quick oats (the one made of small pieces) rather than the large/thick "old fashioned" variety, they'll hydrate quicker, and your final water adjustment can be made during the 2nd mix/knead cycle (the one after the resting period.)
--
Does the Zoji let you lift the lid so you can observe the paddles "walking" the dough ball around the pan? That experience of observing "good" dough balls versus "bad" dough balls was necessary for me to understand what the "goal" was for crafting my own recipes for my machine. The dough ball needed to be the right consistency/softness and size, otherwise the paddle just spun around underneath it like it was a tent, and banged it around the sides instead of kneading it.
--
Another tricky part of doing WW in a machine is that it takes a while for WW to hydrate, so you have to use what looks like too much water at first, trusting that it will be absorbed, and the consistency/softness of the dough ball works out right by the 2nd knead. So careful note-taking is needed so you can replicate the hydration next time, putting it all in at once up front, without having to babysit the machine and dribble in water as needed.
But those first few times, "dialing in" the recipe, adding water, adding flour, pinching-off/removing excess dough, did take me some babysitting.
Hope this helps. Please post your recipe when you're happy with it, and future Zoji owners who find it will praise your efforts.