Bread: Whole wheat flour, Rising in General, the Retarded Rise and More…

Bread: Whole wheat flour, Rising in General, the Retarded Rise and More…

The knowledge expounded in the following text comes from personal experience, D’s parents, friends, dad, The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion All Purpose Baking Cookbook, Laurel’s Kitchen, Martha Stewart, and others.

Rising Bread in a Cold House

When using oven because house is too cold, gently warm oven. Turn off after a minute or so. Add a 9 x 9 pan of warm water to the oven to make sure the air has the proper humidity and the bread does not dry out. Put a slightly damp cotton towel over the bowl. For optimal rising, temperature of the oven should not be about 90 degrees farenheit.

Flat Top

The first time I made the bread my bread came out of the oven with a flat top. I attributed this to the fact that I had let it rise for too long before putting it in the oven. If your bread looks unstable (hard to describe but you will know) or has stretch marks on the top, reknead the bread and let it rise again before putting it in the oven. Also, I did not have enough salt (only one teaspoon in the whole wheat bread recipe). See salt and sugar section.

Sugar and Salt: Dough Enhancer and Stabilizer*

Sugar and salt keep your bread from collapsing. Salt and organic acids, developed over a long, slow rise, help strengthen the gluten in your loaf, allowing it to hold its shape until the hot oven does its job. Without them, your loaf is likely to rise and then collapse. Salt and sugar help to slow the growth of the yeast and without it the yeast grows too fast and won’t develop the same flavor. When yeast is growing, it has three main byproducts: carbon dioxide, alcohol, and organic acids. The acids are really what gives the bread its flavor. Too much salt can rob the yeast of needed moisture and too much sugar can cause the yeast to overeat and slow the rising process in the long run. The King Arthur Cookbook recommends that a maximum of 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt and up to 1/4 cup sugar per three cups of sugar.

Retarded Rises*

Except in sweet breads, you can reduce the amount of yeast to produce a longer rising time. If the recipe calls for a packet of yeast which is a little over 2 teaspoons, you can usually just use 1/2 to 1 teaspoons of yeast. Using 1/2 a teaspoon, will lead to a rise of about 16 to 20 hours similar to the infamous New York Times no knead bread recipe. 1 teaspoon is a good amount for an overnight rise. The easiest doughs to do this with are ones containing a small amount of sugar and no dairy products.

Whole grain dough is slow rising because of the bran which interferes with gluten development. One way to slow these is to use the regular amount of yeast and slow it down in the refridgerator.

With slow rises, it will take longer for the loaf to rise in the pan as well. A rise that usually takes one to one and a half hours will take two hours or more. In general, you should just experiment and figure out what works for you.

Storing Bread*

If you can eat the bread in several days, just store it on your counter top in plastic wrap. It should keep for several days to a week. Storing bread in the fridge will cause bread to get stale more quickly. When storing bread with a crunchy crust, the best way is to store it on the counter, no plastic wrap, with the cut side down. This keeps the crust crunchy and the inside soft. Making toast, or warming the bread, reverses the stalling process because it sends all the molecules spinning back into their just out of the oven physical alignment.

Storing yeast

Can store at room temperature in vacuum sealed bag. Other than that, the best place is the freezer for maximum life. If store incorrectly, the yeast cells become inactive.

Dried Fruit*

When adding fruits that need to be chopped (dried apricots, large pieces of dried pineapple, etc.), leave the fruit in pieces as large as possible; the finer you chop the fruit, the more sugar it will release into the dough.

Random Facts*

On rainy or stormy days….when the baramoteric pressure is low, your bread will rise more quickly than it does ordinarily. This is because the dough doesn’t have as much air to push against it.

The pH of water plays an important role. Soft (alkaline) water is relatively free of minerals. Because yeast has its own characteristic mineral content, it wants a growing medium that is similar. So it doesn’t like soft water. Hard (acidic) water, on the other hand, contains lots of minerals and yeast will grow very quickly when it has access to such abundance. A small amount of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can help correct water that it is too soft. Slightly more yeast can help overcome water that is too hard.

*=Pretty much plagarized from the King Arthur Cookbook with minor editing and additions. For full biography, please email.