The Bread Aso Rises -- But not so much
 

Apologies to Earnest Hemingway ...

Has anyone else from a more Northern place tried to bake their bread recipes here? I make pretty good bread home in Canada. My results with the same recipes look like hockey pucks here -- OK, an exaggeration but little rise. Great for making croutons.

I have used spring water to avoid the chlorine here killing the yeast

I have done rises in my oven here at 80 degrees to try to avoid the humidity

First rise looks great but second just doesn't arrive

I'm using using Fleishshman instant yeast. I use a different brand back home.

Just trying to make some nice bread here to give to my new neighbours. So far best bet is to visit Publix and donate their bread :) Any ideas?

I make challah a few times every year and have no problem at all. The dough rises great out on the lanai, in a bowl with a moist towel covering it.

Use bread flour, make sure your liquids are not cold and rise at higher temp than 80. More like 160. This tap water is not an issue. Also check your yeast to flour ratio ; maybe too low

Lattitude shouldn't affect it, however, altitude may. I'd start by following the villages2013's suggestions.
I haven't had any problems with my pizza dough, but I think pizza dough is less finicky than bread dough.
I'm sure you'll get this worked out, and when you do, perhaps you could report back with how you rectified the situation.
Good luck.

We do let dough rise longer hear than back in Va

Why San Francisco does sourdough best - BBC Travel

I do not think I have had a good piece of sourdough bread since leaving the SF Bay area in 1996.

I often bake bread or rolls here and have found I need to use a bit more yeast and sugar/honey at sea level to get good second rise. Also, keep watch on it so the first rise doesn't over rasie. Depending on the humidity I often use less water or a bit more flour. It becomes a bit more like art than science getting the right mixture of ingredients. I've also found making a sponge the night before seriously increases the chances of a good rise.

How about sharing some of those bread and pizza dough recipes?

The thing I would be looking at is the flour. I often bake bread and have had good results. Since you make bread at home there probably something different in the ingredients. In Canada I found the flour tends to have a higher protein % therefore, the AP flour of Canada is more equivalent to the bread flour of the US. With that in mind you may either choose a bread flour or add gluten to your dough. Hope this helps. Happy Baking.

I too miss sourdough bread.

I have to confess I cheat on the bread making process now! I bought a bread machine and I love it ,just put all the ingredients in and three hours later take out your fully cooked loaf. I use it on the dough setting to make pizza dough and dough for buns. Slam the ingredients in there and dough is ready in 90 minutes without all the mess. One container the size of a loaf of bread to wash

Bread rising
 

I also have trouble with bread rising and gave yet to figure out why. I use bottled water, changed to rapid rise as professionals use, increased yeast then reduced, knead, and use high gluten bread flour.. I'm not quiting yet but very frustrated.

I use the same yeast (store in the refrigerator). Regular AP flour and rise on the lanai. I'm from NJ and honestly, my bread comes out better here. We have a whole house water filter so that may be the difference. I made rye, brown, focaccia as well as gluten free breads. No problems.

Bread
 

I’ve made the no-knead kind while here without problem. My thought is that your yeast is out-dated.

Star yeast always worked better

Bread
 

I make a crusty Italian bread every couple of weeks, use tap water, AP flour, some whole wheat and have no problems with several rises. Perhaps it helps that I make a biga that I let sit in the fridge overnight, and I work the dough between rises (usually four). No magic here, just a bit of work.

So, with that, what brand and model of bread machine do you use? :)

I believe one of the other posters nailed it. (Stale yeast)

I buy bricks of ADY Active Dry Yeast.

Buy on Amazon - only $9.00 for enough for lots of bread.

I break the brick Down into snack size bags and freeze for future use. The frozen yeast will last about 2 years. Enough to share with all your neighbors

High protein flour 13% or more is also a good idea. I buy 50# sacks at Costco business center in Orlando- about $25.00

Make sure you have a bug proof storage container for bulk flour. Nothing worse than an infestation of meal moths

nice!

Have you always done four rises? Find a second one works but as mentioned before a longer rising period works better for us but than again do use whole wheat flour for most breads.

Don’t measure your ingredients. Weigh them (with a cheap scale from Amazon). It makes a big difference.


Here are some sample recipes for a bread machine, it has measures AND. Weights. Use that to modify your own bread recipe.

Breadmakers Recipes | Zojirushi.com

Have you tried King Arthur Flour?

Bread Making
 

Humidity, barometric pressure, and temperature all affect the process of bread making and baking in general. I suggest going online to learn about the proper conditions for making bread and try to adjust your home environment to these conditions. Or make appropriate adjustments in how you prepare the bread. There is a lot of information available on various sites.

Good luck

In addition to the previous suggestions, weigh your ingredients instead of measuring. This will make your results more consistent. Please let us know what you learn from your trial and error is.

I have had no problem with my bread dough rising here. I use Fleischman's Rapid Rise yeast and King Arthur Bread Flour. As another responder said, it's very important that the water be only warm, not hot, as hot water kills the yeast. I mix my bread dough with my electric Kitchen Aid mixer, using the whip attachment for combining the water, yeast, sugar, shortening (I use softened butter), salt, and half the flour. Then I use the kneading hook attachment to mix in the remaining flour and knead the dough for 3-4 minutes. I cover with a towel and place it in my oven, under the oven light to keep it warm. Works for me!

All great suggestions
 

Thank you all very much. We have at least collectively put a dent in the notion that Villagers don't cook!

Thats like trying to find a good bagel or pizza other than Brooklyn NY!!!

It's all about the water!

I thought I posted this already but I'll post it here in this thread. This is from my own cookbook:

Challah


2 pkg active dry yeast
1/2 c warm water (105-110°)
1/2 c sugar
8 c all purpose flour (7.5 for start, + pinch for yeast)
5 eggs
3 tbsp veggie oil
1.5 c lukewarm water + 1 tsp water


350° 25 minutes, 3 loaves

1. yeast, warm water, 1/2 tsp sugar, pinch flour in small bowl. Mix, set aside.
2. Big bowl: 7.5 c flour, rest of sugar, salt.
3. 4 eggs, veggie oil, water, mix in a bowl
4. Mix #3 with #2, #1 with #2. Knead til smooth/elastic, add more flour as needed.
5. Rise 1 hr/doubled Punch, Rise 30min/doubled
6. Cut into 9. Roll pieces to ropes, braid 3 loaves total. Use no-stick/lightly greased cookie sheet.
7. Mix 1 egg 1 tsp water, brush on loaves, rise 1/2 hour more, bake

I found that sifting the flour before I measure it makes a difference.

Bella pro series. Sounds expensive but it was around $80 from Best Buy online. It is my new best friend

We find buying our bread at the bakers saves enough mess and time, to play another round of golf.

We find, that buying our bread at the bakers saves enough mess and time, to play another round of golf.

I like to stretch the dough a couple of times, as in making a baguette, and let it rise in between.

I have taken up baking the last couple of years, sort of as a hobby, (examples below). I seem to do O.K. on basic white bread. Where I have problems is with heavier type breads like rye or pumpernickel, they seem really heavy and dense. Being a guy I do not have a lot of experience with this, so, any suggestions are appreciated.

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Let the second rise take 3 or so hours. We make whole wheat bread and find we get better results when doing this.

bread
 

The key for bread rising is the amount of gluten in the flour. Flour verities vary dramatically in the amount of gluten. Some flour will have <10% gluten and some more than 15% gluten. If you have flour with low gluten, it will not rise as well as one with higher gluten. Modern wheat has been engineered to have higher gluten content. Heritage wheat, i.e., wheat that has not been selectively breed or genetically modified to higher gluten content, has a lower gluten percentage and the gluten is different than the gluten in modern wheat. Another factor in bread rising is the amount of time since the wheat berries were ground into flour. If you grind wheat berries yourself, you'll find that the bread will rise significantly more.

Apologies to Earnest Hemingway
 

To all responders to this thread. Is there a Sourdough Bread Club in the Villages? If so, I'd like to know and would certainly be interested in joining. I've been dabbling/making sourdough bread this past year. Yes, second dough rise has presented problems.

^^^This right here!!^^^
I bake bread and even wrote a few magazine articles about it a few years back. The quality of your dough and bread will vary with the surrounding conditions, so you may have to tweak the recipe. Another factor to consider when baking bread is whether or not you are using a bread machine. ( I also like to increase the amount of fat in the recipe!)

Far from a baker. I did make rye bread. Mixing the dough was beyond the power of available tools. I resorted to, DON'T TELL ANYONE, using my drill press at low speed.

Being a guy? Most bakers are guys. Surely none of the ladies would use a drill press to mix dough-it does work and is like that show tool time.