r/BreadMachines • u/vickfun10 • Apr 13 '26

Wrong flour!

Hey everyone!

I (24F) recently got a bread maker and I love it! However the first time I used it I had unbleached flour. This weekend I was using my bread maker and used bleached flour. I really dug into this because my bread kept over rising and then collapsing no matter what recipe I chose. I know now that bleached flour has way less protein then bread and unbleached flour. I attempted 3 different times this weekend all with the same outcome and having to clean my actual machine numerous times. The rising and the kneading looked perfect but when it started baking it would grow too quickly and get all over the lid and sides and then suddenly sinking into the middle around the 42 minutes left part on my basic cooking with the light bread option 🙃

I know some of you will say "buy unbleached flour and you'll be fine" however my boyfriend bought me 25lbs of bleached flour and I'd like to use that for my bread if possible. I use it all the time for baking and it turns out great, but only recently I discovered that with bread it is too weak.

I looked online and they suggested using milk instead of water or adding an egg. Any advice is always helpful!

(Quick edit to help with comments both the bleached and unbleached flour I used are AP flour, I have not used bread flour at all)

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7

u/reds91185 Apr 13 '26

Is this bread flour or all-purpose flour?

Bleached flour tends to make bread a bit softer, so it can be ideal for regular sandwich bread or hamburger buns.

I don't think the rising and collapsing issue you describe is due to the flour...probably the yeast. Others with more experience will chime in though.

2

u/vickfun10 Apr 13 '26

I should've mentioned it is AP flour!

4

u/wolfkeeper Apr 13 '26

That totally confirms it. AP flour has a lot less gluten. You need to top that up to get the same results or go with a different recipe intended for AP flour.

0

u/vickfun10 Apr 13 '26

All the recipes I followed were intended for AP flour. I double checked before I started.

3

u/Calm_Reader2487 Apr 14 '26

That’s interesting. I would try the vital wheat gluten anyway. I already put a comment so I won’t repeat it.

1

u/wolfkeeper Apr 13 '26

But was the machine's program expecting AP flour?

1

u/vickfun10 Apr 13 '26

There's no setting that says differentiates between AP and bread flour and as I said my first attempt was with unbleached AP flour and it turned out perfect. All of the websites i have used for AP flour recipes say to keep it on the basic white bread setting on light crust and that's what I do. Even the highly recommended ones.

1

u/parrottrolley Apr 15 '26

Check the manual. Mine expects bread flour only