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Making whole wheat bread rise well in a bread machine

cetfers@cco.caltech.edu (Caltech Environmental Task Force)
Thu, 2 Jun 1994 10:44:45 -0700
v005.n022.1
cvxhab@Arco.COM (Bick Harry A posted the following:
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From: cvxhab@Arco.COM (Bick Harry A (713)860-7056)
Subject: Rye or Whole Wheat Bread
Message-ID: <9405261954.AA24604@Arco.COM>

I seem to have a consistent problem with making rye or whole wheat bread
with my bread machine.  It comes out too dense.  I have tried adding 
more yeast and adding gluten flour with no success.  Any suggestions?
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The main reasons I found for lack of rise in my bread are, in order of 
importance: 

1) Ingredients are too cold: warm up the water in the microwave (or by 
whatever    other means) first. Once I did that, the bread started rising 
quite well. 

2) Pre-knead the dough for 15 minutes. This makes a huge difference. 
Just set the machine on the cycle you want and press start. After 15 
minutes, press stop and then restart the cycle from the beginning. 
If you want to make the bread on the timer, then just put all the 
ingredients into the breadpan EXCEPT for 1 cup of flour and the 
yeast. Let the machine knead the stuff in the breadpan for 15 minutes 
and then press stop, and add the last cup of flour, add the yeast on 
top, and set the timer.  

3) Not enough liquids: there, one has to be careful. Not enough 
liquid will prevent the bread from rising well, but too much 
liquid will make it rise well, but then it will collapse. This 
is especially true with Rye bread.  Too much liquid will make it 
so that the insides of the bread will spill out when you removed 
the bread at the end of the cycle. 

4) You use gluten, so this might not matter. But just in case, 
make sure your wheat flour is made from hard wheat. You should 
not have to use gluten. For the rye bread, gluten should also 
not be necessary, but if you really like fluffy bread, then 
add it anyways.

Hope this helps.

California Institute of Technology
CETF - Caltech Environmental Task Force
Send E-mail to cetfers@cco.caltech.edu

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