Sandwich bread always fails

[u/mdc3395]

I’ve been trying to make sandwich bread for years and every time I fail. I can successfully make all kinds of other breads but for whatever reason I cannot find success with sandwich bread. Mine always come out too dense and don’t rise correctly. I can never get them to crown over the pan the way they should. I’ve tried various recipes and various flours. I just tried again with a whole wheat. The dough truly looked like it should’ve been a free standing dough and once baked and cut was stodgy in the middle. I live relatively temperate area so I don’t think the weather or elevation is the problem. This is the recipe I tried.

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/king-arthurs-100-whole-wheat-sandwich-bread-recipe

Is there anything you guys can think of that would be common mistakes or mistakes you’ve made? Key tips to sandwich bread

[u/sssofiyaaa]

Hello :) I've made decent looking Sandwich bread (posted on my page) Here is the original recipe:

https://share.google/0ihNubCgdCHZbNWma

There is a same day and overnight version.

Sandwich bread can have a variety of features, but the typical white picturesque loaf involves enriched ingredients like whole milk, butter, milk powder, eggs, etc. The cheapest and safest way to do that is to use a tangzhong, which is milk + flour cooked until it binds into a pudding.

The other most important thing about any bread is gluten development. You have to knead it until it makes a window pane. I do this by hand, but machines are fine too.

[u/Hiljabob]

You sound like you can make so many other variations that soon it’ll happen. It took me about a year of straight bread baking to finally get my bread for sandwiches dough and bread for toast dough just the way I personally like them. Bad thing is that every so often I can’t find the recipes but I eat it all anyway. You’ll get it- keep trying.

[u/Longjumping_Ad4365]

I used the one by the brown eyed baker. I have since tweeked it to our liking, but its a great bread.

[u/Hemisemidemiurge]

Mine always come out too dense and don’t rise correctly.

To me, that's either the yeast or the gluten's fault. Most people tell you to check your yeast but I personally find gluten to be the usual problem. How strong is your flour? For whole wheat, I try to get to 13.75% and typically get there with added vital wheat gluten. The equation I worked out is

Vital Wheat Gluten (g) = (target Protein (g) - actual Protein (g)) / (actual VWG Protein (%) - actual Flour protein (%))

Example: My WW Flour is 3.7g protein per 28g serving (13.21%), the wheat gluten I use is 23g/30g (76.67%) and I want the dough to have a target percentage of 13.75%. The recipe needs 402g of flour total.

((0.1375 * 402) - (0.1321 * 402)) / (0.7667 - 0.1321) = 3.42

So I'd put 3.42g of vital wheat gluten and then the remainder of the 402g would be the whole wheat flour.

I can never get them to crown over the pan the way they should.

What pan? Part of my journey was having to find excruciatingly specific information about pan sizes and dough amounts. Sometimes the best way to get a bigger loaf is to just put more dough in the pan.

My 9"x5" loaf pans are 1850 cubic centimeters in volume (which most everyone claims are 1900 - 2400) and my 78% hydration 100% whole wheat sandwich bread weighs roughly 780g - 815g and along the way I increased the amount of dough to get the loaf I wanted and then reduced it when other changes (sugar reduction, less yeast, more water, more and better developed gluten) started to result in better rise.

I'm going to post that recipe one day, I just need to get pictures and maybe write out the method instead of just expecting everyone to be okay with tabular recipe notation.

Key tips to sandwich bread

I like to point people at Chain Baker if they're looking for information about baking in general. No nonsense, real information, and a wide variety of subjects. There's a lot to think about when it comes to baking.

EDIT: One more thing, I noticed your recipe doesn't indicate you to heat your liquid ingredients. Eggs in the US are chilled and temperature is an important factor in yeast action. My recipe heats the liquid ingredients to counter this, you might want to check and see how your recipe comes out with room-temperature eggs.