The Fresh Loaf

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Wet crumb

rojasrod's picture
rojasrod

Wet crumb

Hello Friends

 

I am having a wet crumb problem. The crum is dough-ey, when you cut it, it makes the knife dirty.  

 

I do a no knead bread:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups "light" rye flour

2,5 cups water

2 tsp salt

1/3 tsp yeast

 

I don't preheat, which has actually helped the problem a bit. I bake at 450 degrees F, for 70 min, and I slash after 8 minutes (dough is too wet to slash).

 

I have checked with a thermometer and the loaves are cooked. 

 Now, you might say I should use less water. I have tried that but then the crumb is considerably heavier, with smaller holes. 

 

The weird thing is that once in a while, seemingly without changing the recipe at all, the loaf will be perfect without too much moisture. And I don't recall having this problem last year either.

 

I tried longer baking times, up to an extreme of 6 hours at 275 degrees, and the crumb was still dough-ey. 

 

All suggestions are welcome !    Thanks a bunch !

 

staff of life's picture
staff of life

The best measurement I've found for doneness is to knock with your knuckle on the bottom of the loaf.  If it sounds hollow, it's done.  If the sound is muffled, pop it back in for a few extra minutes.  It might take a little trial and error to be able to hear when it's knocking hollow, but what about bread-making is not trial and error?

SOL

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I think you should decrease your water (or removing a tablespoon of it and adding something sour, like a tablespoon of vinegar for all that rye) and up your yeast to at least a 1 teaspoon.

Another thought is try just mixing the rye, vinegar and water together (depending on the weather, 1/2 salt) and let it sit overnight before mixing up the rest of the dough. 

Tell us what kind of proofing times (and temps) you are having? That might help us.

Mini O

rojasrod's picture
rojasrod

Interesting....

 

what does the acid do to the rye ? 

 

 

 

Rod

 Thunder Bay/ Canada

Elagins's picture
Elagins

Elagins@sbcglobal.net

the acid retards the action of amylase, which breaks complex carbohydrates into simple sugars. since rye doughs are dependent on gels made of complex sugars called pentosans, the amylase would cause the dough to collapse by degrading the gel.

nbicomputers's picture
nbicomputers

way to much water.  1 pound flour and i pound and 4 ounces water will make a bery wet paste.

add to that the no gluten rye flour and the low proteen AP flour i would say the resulting mixture is more past than dough.

try hi gluten or clear flour and reduce the water to 8 oz (one cup) and see what happens it that is to stiff add water 1 ounce at a time to get the result you want.

 

rojasrod's picture
rojasrod

Thanks, would high gluten flour be what they call "bread making flour" in our chain supermarkets ?

Could I use semolina ? 

 

Rod

 Thunder Bay/ Canada

Russ's picture
Russ

Yes, bread making flour would probably be high gluten. Here in the US, high gluten flour is usually marketed as "bread flour". I don't think semolina is what you want to use. As I understand it, semolina is high in protein, but not in gluten.

Russ

PaddyL's picture
PaddyL

Robin Hood has a 'Best for Bread' flour and Five Roses puts out a bread flour as well, but I think your problem is not enough yeast.  Canadian all-purpose, which is what I use for all my bread, including sourdough, is just as good as bread flour and the bread flour is way more expensive.  I believe it was developed about the time bread machines became popular.  Since you're using partly rye flour, it wouldn't hurt to up your yeast some.

nbicomputers's picture
nbicomputers

most flour labeled best for bread is what bakers would call patent flour with a 12 percent proten percent.  hi gluten and clear flour has a 14 percent proten count. but the bread flour in the local store would be good enough.

paddy remember this formula is not just part rye it is halv rye with a proten count of 0.0

8 oz of 0.0 proten and 8 oz of 12 percent proten gives a total proten of 6 percent

boxed cake flour is 7 percent proten what hapens when you try to make bread with cake flour?

a jewish style rye has about 40 to 50 percent rye based on the weight of the white floue in the forumla  so lets take 8 oz of rye at 0 percent and 16 oz of bread flour ad 12 percent

that gives os a 1 part rye to 2 parts bread flour that would add up like this 0+12+12=24 /3= 8 percent proteen still a little low but better.

now let assume that the rye is in a sour dough that is at 75 percent hydration 4 oz rye flour for every 3 oz water.

the final dough calls for 8 oz of sour to 16 oz of flous meaning that there is only 6 oz of ryr flour in the sour.  and to make things easer for example lets say the dough calls for 18 ounces of bread flour 1 part rye flour to 3 parts bread flour 0+12+12+12=36 /4=9 percent proteen now we are talking bread

also thats why it is very important not to over mix rye dough. over mixing and the added acidity will cause the gluten to tear.  but light kneading  and 8.5 to 9 percent proten we have great bread.

if hi gluten flour or clear flour is used at 14 percent you get 0+14+14 in the first example and 0+14+14+14 in the second which would come out to 9.3 to 10.5 percent proteen

hope this was not way too over the top.

Russ's picture
Russ
paddy remember this formula is not just part rye it is halv rye with a proten count of 0.0

I don't believe this is correct. As far as I know, Rye is lower in protein and has a weaker gluten than wheat, but it does have both protein and gluten. People do make 100% rye breads. 

Links I referred to to verify my information:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=65

http://www.purcellmountainfarms.com/Organic%20Rye%20Flour.htm

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4683/rye-flour

Russ

nbicomputers's picture
nbicomputers

the proten in rye is in the bran. which is mostle sifted out in white and med rye flour and it has no gluten forming properites. which is why it gets a zero when calculating proten percent in bread formation

the fact that bread can be made from 100 percent rye is due to the sugars in rye working with the enzimes forming complex chans of starchs which as delevoped with long slow fermention and long slow baking times works almost the same as gluten.

please see this

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/8931/secrets-rye-introduction

 

Elagins's picture
Elagins

Elagins@sbcglobal.net

hi Norm, actually, most deli ryes (including your recipes) have less than 30% rye, with 20-25% being the average, so with 75-80% wheat, the dough is even more forgiving. in my opinion, the 'rye' flavor in deli rye actually comes from the sour and the caraway seeds. also, using your math, 8oz of sour would contain about 57%=4/7=4.7oz of rye flour, not 6oz.

ehanner's picture
ehanner

I think what Norm was referring to was the weight of the sour should be around 40% of the total flour weight. At least that's how I interpreted it.

Eric 

nbicomputers's picture
nbicomputers

yes Eric bakers percent percentage of sour dough  below is bakers percent of actual rye flour in the final dough

my math is right based on a sour dough using 3 oz of water to 4 oz of flour  so 14 oz of total sour is 6 oz water plus 8 oz flour.  how would 8 oz of the final sour dough contain 7 oz of the flour?  thqat would leave 1 oz flour and 5 oz of water . it does not add up what you put in you get oput with no changes.

7 oz of sour dough in this example is 3 oz water and 4 oz flour 8 oz of the sour dough could not possable 7 oz flour and 1 oz water.

in this  example in bakers percent (not a formula but only for example) a final dough made with 24  oz white (Hi gluten or clear)flour  1 lb 8 oz has 8 oz sour dough or about 33.3 percent sour dough. 

bread flour 24 oz
rye sour dough 8 oz
water xxxx
yeast xxxx
salt xxxx

out of that 8 oz of sour some has to be water and the rest flour on a 75 percent hydration based on the wieght of the flour for every 1 oz of flour to .75 ounce water for a total of 1.75 ounce. do you see my math now?

3 and one half ounces of finished sour dough is only 2 ounces of rye flour and 1.5 oz of water.   7 ounces of finished starter is actualy 4 oz of rye flour and 3 oz of water.

to be exact 8 oz of sour starter is 4.6 oz rye flour and 3.7water rounded to the nearest 10th of an ounce

the dough remember uses 24 oz of white flour  (100%) and the 8 oz sour of which is 4.6 ounces of rye flour which is 19.2 percent rye in the final dough.
so you are right in stating the amout of flour in the sour dough is 4.6 oz but the total percent of rye flour in the finished bread dough is much less than 30 percent while the percent of sour dough is still 33.3. you can go as high as i stated 40 to 50 percent sour dough and the total percent of rye flour in the finished dough would still be lower than 30 percent.

the first post deals with bakers percent of sour dough in the final dough not the actual bakers percent of rye flour in the final dough as this post does.

i have been formualing bread and other baked goods for years.  I am allways open to be proved wrong. but in this case i think i'm 100 %.  i would like to see your math to see if it compairs to mine (great minds think alight you know)( god i used to hate hearing that from the math teacher "show me the work how you got the answer" Made me cringe :(

rereading the whole thread the formula posted was not using sour dough but rye flour and and white flour at a ration of 1 to 1 meaning 50 percent rye and 50% wheat thats high and the total water was over 100 % of the flour

ehanner's picture
ehanner

I totally understand what you are saying Norm. The math works fine for me. I think it was another poster that was confused.

 By the way, I live in Milwaukee and I might be interested in splitting a bag of rye if you have a way to ship it. Why don't you contact me direct at ehanner-at-gmail-dot-com and we can discuss it. Thanks for the thought.

Eric 

nbicomputers's picture
nbicomputers

wasen't realy directed at you just in general. i just hit the reply button instead of post new. i sent you an email  about the flour

rojasrod's picture
rojasrod

Well, I am wondering if perhaps I should look for a different recipe.

 

I will start another thread for the new recipe, but your comments on this one are still welcome.

 

Thanks everyone 

 

Rod

 Thunder Bay/ Canada

nbicomputers's picture
nbicomputers

i guess we did get rather techncal.  i have posted some rye formulas as have many other people here do a site search and i am sure you will find enough to keep you baking for years