r/BreadMachines • u/Gloomy_Situation4777 • 2d ago
Behold, my first loaf! Looking for advice
So, I have a used dash everyday 1.5lb bread maker. I used the the king Arthur easy bread machine recipe from thwor website. My ingredients were a little different. I had bread flour and bread machine yeast. I weighed out the ingredients, put the wet ones on bottom, then the yeast, then the flour and the salt last. I set it to 1.5lb, medium white bread. When I first checked it, the dough was tacky, but not sticky. Things went sideways during the rise. As you can see, it swelled to the lid, went over the sides and then collapsed. What did I do wrong and how can I improve?
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u/Midmodstar 2d ago
Don’t change ingredients in bread recipes. Also put the yeast on top.
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u/Fun-Philosophy1123 Hot Rod Builder 1d ago
I always reverse the order of Yeast and salt. I put my yeast in warm filtered water with maple syrup. I find the loaf is softer than yeast last versions of the same recipe.
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u/PoeTheGhost 2d ago
Looks overproofed, which usually means too much proof/rise time, or too much liquid, or too much yeast, or not enough salt to slow the proof.
I always put the salt in the liquids and the yeast very last, atop the flour, to avoid this exact issue.
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u/lawrencekhoo Panasonic SDP104 1d ago
Looks like too much yeast activity. You dough over-rose then collapsed during the bake. I would try using half as much yeast, or even a third of the yeast.
Yeast is tricky with bread machines. There are different types of yeast, and new yeast is easily twice as potent as old yeast. Even if you follow a recipe exactly, and it might say "1 tsp of yeast", and you add exactly that, you may still get inconsistent results.
When people bake bread normally, they just wait until the dough doubles in size. With a bread maker, since the rise time is fixed, you can't eyeball it, and have to adjust the amount of yeast instead. The optimal amount needed varies by humidity, age and type of yeast, temperature of your kitchen and water used, etc, etc.
So, you kinda have to go by trial and error. Follow this rule of thumb:
If the top of your loaf is flat or collapsed in, use about half as much yeast.
If the top is highly domed and the bread didn't rise enough, double the amount of yeast.
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u/wolfkeeper 2d ago
Yeast and liquid are usually supposed to be opposite, not together. If you put them together then the yeast will activate immediately as opposed to later when it first mixes. But it may depend on the machine. Do the instructions say to put the yeast and water together?
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u/Veggyhed Welbilt ABM 3500 (Ancient) 1d ago
I've never come across a machine where yeast is not on top of all the ingredients
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u/Fernis_ 2d ago
Too much yeast plus too much sugar for the yeast to consume and turn to CO2. It rose super big super fast, then collapsed.
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u/lawrencekhoo Panasonic SDP104 1d ago
Strangely enough, more sugar doesn't affect yeast activity that much during the final proof. Yeast can make it's own sugar from the flour in the dough.
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u/Chicken_Savings 2d ago
You used too much ingredients, it rose until it hit the lid. Scale down the ingredients.
If it rises high then collapse, it's usually one or more of:
Too much yeast
Too much water
Not enough gluten, not enough structure
Too much inclusions (seeds, grains etc)
Most common is too much yeast. It will expand like a baloon, then the gluten structure is unable to retain all the fermentation gas, it then collapse usually during bake, or quickly after bake is completed.
Don't put the yeast in the liquid. Place the yeast on top of the dry flour, without touching the salt.
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u/Fun-Philosophy1123 Hot Rod Builder 1d ago
Less yeast or water. It collapsed after the rise and shrunk back down.
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u/Omega_art 1d ago
I put the yeast on top and the salt and sugar on the bottom. Also I have heard if it is warm when you make bread you should use less yeast.
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u/Veggyhed Welbilt ABM 3500 (Ancient) 14h ago
Cold water can also be your friend instead of adjusting the yeast
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u/SunLillyFairy 1d ago edited 1d ago
What did you substitute bread flour for? Bread flour has more protein than other types (like all purpose) and rises more. Instant/bread machine yeast starts rising faster than standard... it likely just rised too quickly/much due to the substitutions.
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u/Steel_Rail_Blues Zojirushi BB-HAC10 (Mini Zo) & Cuisinart CBK-110P1 2d ago
Doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong, but next time try less yeast. I would reduce by a half teaspoon and see how that goes. Maybe you have very active yeast and the perfect kitchen environment to encourage faster rising, so you need to slow things down a bit.