June 21, 2017 - 12:00pm
Help, Why is my bread so chewy?
I have been baking the overnight with levan. I use Bakers flour from Costco. I believe it is 13.5% Everything is great about my bread except that It is farm more chewy than any breads I am used to. I did a search in the forums and found that it seams people like this, and actually are trying to achieve this. I actually do not like it so chewy. Does anyone have any ideas on why this is?
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A flour that is 13.5% protein will usually make a chewier bread. Try half and half bread flour and all-purpose flour and see if you like the results better.
If you're used to fluffy loaves made with various dough conditioners that are used to make the bread soft, an obvious step toward getting similar softness is to use ingredients that have a similar effect. This doesn't have to mean chemicals. For example, using some milk, butter or oil will produce a less chewy texture; you can experiment with recipes and amounts to vary how much chewiness you get.
And to expand on what Lazy Loafer said, you can also try all-AP.
As already noted-use a lower protein flour. Try all unbleached AP and knead to windowpane. Use the search box "windowpane" and read up.
The higher the gluten content of flour (protein), the taller the loaf but the chewier the bread.
Oil or fat disrupts gluten formation. It also helps keep your bread fresh for longer. Start at 4% and see how you get on.
You could also try using the Tang Zhong method to help soften your crumb. Some of the flour and water from the recipe are held back from the mixing bowl and made into a roux first. Then this roux is added into the bowl when you add your liquids. It helps to retain moisture during baking which leads to a more tender crumb
One rule of thumb is to use 5% of the flour and five times that amount of water to make the roux. "For example: For 500 grams of flour in a recipe; 5% of the flour weight is 25 grams. 5X the 25 grams of flour weight is 125 grams. So for 500 grams of flour, 25 grams of that flour and 125 grams of the recipe water is made into a roux. Mix the 25g of flour in the 125g of water in a Pyrex cup and microwave for about 45 seconds to heat the mixture to 65C (149F). This forms a translucent pudding. This roux/pudding is added to the other recipe liquids and the recipe proceeds as normal from that point."
I stole these directions from I haven't tried tangzhong on no-knead bread which was posted by Antilope, a regular contributor to this site. You can also type "tang zhong" into the search box for TONS of other posts about using this technique.
--Mike