Sometimes my bread comes out pretty good, and sometimes it has small issues. For instance, my oatmeal bread from yesterday. The first slice looked and tasted fine…but then this morning, when I sliced a few more servings, I noticed the crumb was a little too crumbly and the crust was coming unattached.
I have had this problem before and I am pretty sure in this instance, it’s due to incorrect shaping. I must not have formed it properly; I was having a bit of an issue with the dough kind of getting too large, and I had to kind of quickly reshape it. Another reason could be over-proofing, and yeah, my dough rose pretty quickly yesterday. I think I am going to experiment with adding less yeast next time, so it will require a longer slower rise. I might try taking the dough out of the bread machine right after the knead, and allow it to rise in a bowl.
And I was thinking last night, and I might have figured out how to use a more traditional autolyse even with the bread machine. Adding all the liquid and only SOME (maybe half) of the flour. I’ll try allowing the bread machine to mix for 3 minutes, then shut off the machine. After 30 minutes, I will add the rest of the flour, salt and yeast, and allow it to mix normally. Or…I might add the yeast initially. We’ll see.
Anyway, I always go to this web site to troubleshoot my bread issues:
http://sourdoughhome.com/trouble.html – yes, it’s a sourdough web site, but there is a list for general baking troubleshooting and I find it very helpful!
