It's official. Plain white bread implodes in my oven too.

[eridani]

Although it isn't anywhere near as dense as the whole wheat.

2 and 1/2 teaspoons yeast in 1 cup of 110F water. Bubbles nicely.
6 cups unbleached Gold Medal all purpose flour sifted with 2 tsp salt
1 extra cup of 110F water
Mix for a couple of minutes with dough hook

Dough is wet but can be handled.
Rise for 1 1/2 hours works just fine.
Divide the bread and roll cylinders for olive oil greased bread pans.
Rise for another hour, and the dough is slightly higher than the top of the pans.
Put three slices on top with razor blade.

Preheat oven to 450F with water pan in the lower rack.
Add more water and put bread in the oven.
Check after 20 minutes to add more water, and the loaves have fallen. Nothing at all expanded through the razor slices.

Results after another 15 minutes--

WTF?!?!?
Second loaf is turned upside down.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I'm not a bread expert, but I found some info on bread failure that might help.

http://extension.usu.edu/saltlake/files/uploads/pdf/WhatHappenedBread.pdf

http://www.baking911.com/bread/problems.htm

Also, have you checked your oven temperature with a thermometer? The loaf on the right looks really dark for the time spent in the oven.

[hippywife]

2. Hmmm.

Definitely looks like some uneven heating going on there. Also, the amount of yeast for the amount of flour seems too little. The Ain5 recipe calls for 1 1/2 T for that amount of flour. I usually don't put water in during the preheat (not that it might be a problem) but right after I slide the bread in. Are you using hot water when you add more?

I'm no expert, either, but asking these questions based on what I do that does work. We'll all get this problem dissected and fixed for you yet. :hug:

[hippywife]

6. When I refer to adding more water,

in the above post, I'm talking about to the broiler pan, not the bread.

[Blues Heron]

3. How much did they rise the second time?

Also - did they literally fall in the oven or just not rise?

I'm with hippywife on this - possibly not enough yeast, or the yeast didn't have enough oomph.

i'd like to hear what housewolf has to say about these bricks!!

[eridani]

8. They literally fell, to about 2/3 the height of the pans

They started out with the second rise just a little higher than the pans.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. If they rose that much in the second rise...

there's nothing wrong with the yeast.

I don't do no-knead bread so I'm not positive, but it sure looks like there's a gluten problem. Or an oven heat problem. Or, some combination of both. I've had bread fall for some unknown reason, too, but it usually could be traced back to flour or heat.

When you put the dough in the oven, the heat gives it "oven spring" and expands the gas bubbles before the bread has time to bake. If you don't have enough gluten, the dough can't hold the bubbles and it falls. If you don't have enough heat, the dough slowly bakes but the gasses might not get hot enough to expand. If the oven is too hot, the dough might bake before the bubbles expand enough.

All-purpose flour has a large range of protein, and you might have a bag on the lower side.

[eridani]

14. What's the lowest feasible temperature for bread baking, then?

I have gluten and could add 1/4 cup or so. That didn't help out much with the wheat bread though.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. I don't really know. I've always been in the range of...

350-400 degrees.

The few times I knew it was a cool oven caused the problem was when it pretty much failed or I did something stupid like keep it on "warm."

[hippywife]

16. I'm thinking that the lower

end of that range would probably only be suitable for quickbreads and that yeast breads should be at the higher end to get that oven spring.

[Lucinda]

4. They still look mighty tasty! I'm in agreement on the yeast amount and also

depending on what type of yeast you used, I think the water temp might have inhibited the growth.

[hippywife]

5. There's a thought.

Instant yeast wouldn't have lasted long enough to make it to baking, I don't think. Would it? Seems like it would have eaten up all available food before it was baked.

[Warpy]

7. No, it takes yeast a lot longer than that to multiply and digest

all the carbohydrate in the flour. Instant yeast isn't a different animal, just a different preparation of the same animal.

My own guess is that the bread wasn't kneaded long enough to develop the gluten fully. The best way to judge a dough's readiness is the windowpane test, pick up the dough and see if you can stretch it into a translucent, thin layer at least a half an inch wide. If you can, then it's been kneaded enough.

Still, if those loaves are too dense to use for sandwiches or toast, consider slicing them thin and putting them into a slow oven to turn into Melba toast.

Very little bread is a true failure, only if it's burnt to a cinder.

[eridani]

18. I'm trying again tonight.

I think that the dough hook doesn't do the job completely for kneading. I kneaded it by hand for ~10 minutes after mixing the dough, and got nothing resembling a thin translucent layer. The dough just tore. I went at it all told for ~45 minutes. The dough got more stretchable, but never approached 1/2 inch. I decided to hell with it--I'll just let it rise and see what happens. After an hour or so, I'll put it in the refrigerator overnight.

Oh, and I added 1/2 cup of gluten, and used 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast.

[Blues Heron]

19. Good luck with this one!

Sending good bread vibes!!!

:hi:

[eridani]

9. I measured the hot water out of the tap at 110F

Most instructions I read say to use 105-115F. Would going to 100F or lower be better, do you think?

[elleng]

10. Punch?

.

[eridani]

11. Very gently.

And I made flattish rectangles after dividing the dough and rolled them up.

[Warpy]

12. Remember Julia Child?

She used to punch the hell out of that bowl of dough. I often wondered just whose face was in there to merit such treatment from such a gentle soul.

Commercial bakeries don't handle proofed dough gently, either. It's how they managed a fine crumb in their balloon bread.

The second rise should compensate for over deflation of the first.

[Tesha]

17. Every Single Loaf I Make is Different

It's like they have personalities or something... same flour, same yeast, same water and salt.... and the outcome is just different... every time!

Try again... I'll bet you get a winner next time.

until then...

don't add water to the oven until the bread goes in
use more yeast -sometimes a pinch of sugar helps the yeast sustain
don't roll for cylinders, just do the "cloaking" move

[eridani]

20. Once more, into the breach

Getting better--this time it didn't collapse, but it looked like it wanted to "spring" much more than it actually did here.



As you can see from the cut end, the crust is really, really thick. It was pretty hard and crunchy too, though the interior had a sourdough-like texture and a nice flavor. Some possibilities--

!. When I preheated the oven to 450F, this caused all the burners on my ancient stove to short out, so no boiling water added. Just made do with adding ambient temp water to the pan and the small stones. Also, I don't have a sprayer. Perhaps spraying a littke water right on top of the bread would help here?
2. Could my bread pans be too large? They are 9" by 5". Is it possible that I should be using another cup of flour or so, and a little extra water?
3. There is no gas available in my neighborhood, so I'm stuck with an electric oven with a top and bottom coil. "Preheat" uses both coils, and "Bake" just the bottom coil. I might be needing to wait longer after the switch from preheat to bake--the top coil may still be conributing enough heat to cause the hard crust to form too early.

Ideas?

[Warpy]

21. When I bake in bread pans

(unusual now since the Dutch oven works so much better), I spritz the side of the oven with a spray bottle just as I slam the oven door, takes a bit of coordination. 5 minutes later, I give it another blast. I tried the pie plate of hot water, found out the spritz bottle worked better.

Your bread pans are too large. For 6 cups of flour, I use 2 4 inch wide bread pans. I use those big pans for nut/bean/grain loaves that aren't expected to rise.

In any case, your bread might not be tall, but jam's not going to go through it, either. I just want to brush it with olive oil and garlic, put a little freshly grated Parmasean cheese on it, and run it under the broiler.

Mmmm, lunch.

As an aside, electric ovens are generally better for baking the way gas is better for cooktops. The heat tends to be more even throughout the oven and the temperature variation smaller.

[eridani]

22. I suppose the way to go is to get new bread pans instead of dinking with the recipe, correct?

Also, is that top coil contributing to the hard crust, do you think?

[Warpy]

23. You might end up doing both

but my guess is that the new pans will help a lot.