The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

What is the problem with my bread?

kamp's picture
kamp

What is the problem with my bread?

A long time ago I had trouble baking my glutenfree bread but I solved it and the recipe started to work very good again.

But the last around 80 bread hasn't been as good as they were before.. I have tried and do everything I can think of that have worked in the past like adding more yeast, switch between fresh/dried yeast, more water, less water, more oil, less oil, more/less salt/sugar, rise in the ovne/not in the oven ++ The latest thing is that I rise them shorter then before but it doesn't work very well that either. 

The bread taste good but I want them to be like they where before... 

The problem is the rising. They rise very well in the oven (95F) but they don't get the oven spring anymore. Well, some times they do a little but fall again inside the oven. 

I make 3 and 3 bread from the same dough. 

This is how they turned out today:

Bread 1:



Dough 1 inside:

 

Dough 2 inside:

Dough 3:


Dough 3 was one of the better I have made but the texture inside doesn't look "right"..

 

Before the recipe stopped working they looked like this:


Those picture isn't the exact same recipe because I added 1oz seeds in each of the breads over but they did turned out like this did.. 

 

 

Can anyone help me? 

Are they over rised? To little proofed?

Why can I suddenly loose the oven spring?

 

I have made some bread that turned out better then this over but then I used the exactly same recipe the next time and it failed.. So I'm a bit confused.. 

Yerffej's picture
Yerffej

While I cannot speak directly of your recipe, I can comment on what often happens in a situation like this.  That is, we simply get careless and without realizing it, make little changes that affect the final product.  I would go back and start at the beginning with your recipe and follow each and every step very carefully.  Should you find that you have not inadvertently made changes and that you are doing everything exactly the same way as before, I would then have to suspect the ingredients that you are using.  Something obviously changed or you would still be getting the same results that you got in the past.  Examine every little step very carefully and see if you can find that change.

Jeff

Chuck's picture
Chuck

...bread hasn't been as good as they were before...

Seems to me like a fairly obvious case of something having changed. So the question becomes: what changed? (My guess is figuring out what changed will be a much much quicker route to a solution than looking at the loaves  ...especially as ways to make gluten-free bread vary all over the map, and only a few people have experience with your particular method.)

Some common possibilities for what changed are:

  • as noted above: subtle shifts in your procedure
  • the temperature in your kitchen or refrigerator (if you "retard")
  • the flour or flour-like mix (different brand? different sack? different type?)
  • the water (if you use tap water) - to pinpoint the problem, try buying a jug of spring water at your supermarket and using that for a few batches (although it looks exactly the same and you haven't heard anything and there was nothing in your newspaper, sometimes tap water is very very different than it was last month)

(Also, could you tell us your recipe in detail?)

flournwater's picture
flournwater

It's difficult enough to consistently produce a perfect loaf of gluten based bread, the degree of difficulty of consistently producing the perfect loaf of gluten free bread is exponentially greater.

If you could post your complete formula and an outline of your process so we can take a look at what you're actually experiencing from start to finish and, perhaps, find something in the data that looks suspicious.

The amount of xanthan gum you use will be critical  -  to the extreme  -  and could very well be contributing the problem you describe.  It is also possible that you are over-proofing the dough.

 

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I went back to this thread last year.  Funny, about the same time of year...  Which makes me wonder about temperature changes.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/19693/i-have-made-200-bread-and-now-recipe-fails-help

I think you should keep track of air pressure, have you a barometer?  Also be careful about slamming doors, oven doors and room doors while the bread is rising and being baked.  Go back to your original recipe and check over last year's notes.   :)   

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I've trying blowing up the pictures but I still can't get close enough.  Look closely at the crumb in the "failed" bread and in the successful loaves.  Don't look at the bubbles (yet) but in the spaces between the bubbles, the solid part of the bread.  What do you see?  What are the differences?  

Chuck's picture
Chuck

Dumb question: are you measuring ingredients by weight (i.e. with a scale)? I ask because what's intended to be the same amount measuring by volume (those pesky "cups", etc.) often differs by several percent  ...enough to throw off your recipe. Sometimes it will work just right, and other times it will fail, and it won't be at all obvious what's the difference.  Volume measurement is especially a problem a) with fairly small batches and b) with gluten-free recipes.

kamp's picture
kamp

Sorry late answer.. Haven't used internett so much the last weeks and I forgot about this topic.. 

The strange thing is that after I posted this the recipe started to work again..! I bought more flour from another batch and the breads gets very good now, so I guess there was something with the flour. 

But I did try flour from another batch this summer and it didn't work, so I was very suprised that is was the flour again!

Anyway.. The bread gets very good now and I have ordered 100lbs more flour from the same batch.