Dough Not Stick to Dough Hook
This morning I am trying to bake a Black Rye Bread from a recipe posted by Stanley Ginsberg (http://theryebaker.com/black-rye-breadjuoda-rugine-duona-lithuania/). All seemed to be going well until I combined the final dough ingredients and began the mixing step.
Stan writes "Use the dough hook at low (KA2) speed to mix into a stiff dough that leaves the sides of the bowl, 6-8 minutes." Sounds simple enough. Except -- and this is a new one for me -- the dough would not coalesce around the dough hook and instead went to the sides of the bowl. I periodically stopped the mixer, scraped the dough from the sides into a pile in the center, put the dough hook in the middle of the pile, and started it up only to watch the dough fail to adhere to the dough hook.
Has anyone else ever experienced something like this? What could cause dough not to stick to the dough hook? I usually mix dough by hand, but every other time that I have used the stand mixer I have had the dough stick to the dough hook.
Thanks for any suggestions, ideas, or information.
…many of Stanley’s formulas have the same problems. I have made dozens of recipes from his site and his book of the same name and success is elusive. Maybe it is simply a matter of the flours he uses compared to mine, I don’t know, but I have found that I often need to add substantial amount of flour (or remove similar amounts of water) when making breads using his recipes. There are also a number of undocumented errors in formulas in the book, none of which have been acknowledged by either the publisher or author despite contacting them. I don’t know if a similar situation exists with the website.
First I would double check the formula you are using, make sure the bakers percentage matches the ingredient list. If it doesn’t, decide which to follow, then cut back on the water, adding small amounts if the dough seems too dry. Working with rye is very different from working with wheat and it takes a bit of experience to understand what it should feel like. Good luck.
-Brad
I have not baked this particular bread—it's on my to-do list—but I have also had some issues with errors in the book. You could try asking a question in the Comments section after the recipe; you may get an answer to your question.
An errata to The Rye Baker book would be great.
Thanks. After watching some videos dealing with similar dough, I know that my dough was fine, but it was not going to work in a KA stand mixer. Good to know that I need to be wary of Stan's recipes. As for trying to contact him, he has shut down his business, and I doubt that he would respond. At this point it is not relevant, because I now have seen how to handle dough of this type.
The bread turned out to have a nice taste, so I will probably try it again with some modifications on technique.
Happy baking.
Ted
Can you post the links of the videos you watched with heavy doughs? I recently purchased a Bosch Compact mixer and I am still getting the hang of it as it is the first stand mixer I have owned.
Thanks!
The videos did not illustrate heavy doughs. These videos pertained to rye doughs, which do not have the gluten structure of a wheat dough. Hence, if you are looking for videos of stand mixers and heavy doughs, these will not provide what you want.
Good luck with your new mixer. I do most of my mixing by hand and use the stand mixer primarily for ciabatta dough.
Happy baking.
Ted
Ted, thanks for the response. I should have specified that I was interested in heavy rye dough videos. I'm still looking for any videos that show 100% whole-grain wheat doughs and high-percentage rye doughs mixed with a stand mixer. I had been mixing Stan's rye recipes by hand (what a workout!), but a shoulder injury prompted me to purchase a stand mixer. I'm going to try the Lithuanian Black Bread this weekend—should be interesting.
Thanks!
The recipe results in a nice bread. I will definitely make it again, but with some adjustment in my technique. Let me know how your bake this weekend goes.
As for mixing the rye dough, I am inclined to use a hand mixer for some of the early stages. (For the mixing of the final dough I will just do it by hand.) The advantage of the hand mixer is that I can move it around through the mixture and reach all of the areas easily.
Your problem appears to be the same as described in this thread: When the Dough Hook Won't Bite which contains several suggestions for solving the problem.
Thanks. Yes, this describes a similar situation, and I was working with rye dough (one of the things David Snyder mentioned). I can just as easily mix the dough by hand in the phase where I encountered problems in trying to use the stand mixer.