Why is my loaf weak in the center?
Hi there all! I've been having some problems with my loaves. Previously I had been making bread using Richard Bertinet's recipes and producing great bread. Then I changed my oven as my old one was basically a big grill (only had a heating element at the top). I also got hold of some of Peter Reinhardt's books and began baking some of his whole grain breads. Using the 100% Whole Wheat Hearth recipe from Artisan Breads Everyday, I have baked the bread both in tins and direct on the stone. I have had some other issues with the risse and oven spring, but the biggest problem is that the loaves are weak in the centre.
The crumb looks fine, no huge holes, but the bread feels weak at best, and crumbles and tears on cutting at worst. Spreading butter on the bread is all but impossible, unless toasted. With my last batch I followed the recipe one-to-one (although scaled up) and made three loaves which I formed in three different ways. All three had the same problem.
So what now? I've considered that the loaves may need to be baked longer or hotter or both, although the bread tastes baked but has no strength. Could it be caused by hotspots (or lack thereof) in my oven meaning I need to rotate more often (or at all)? Could the flour be a cause?
As a side note to anyone living in Germany, I'd like to ask what brand(s) of flour people use and have success with.
And perhaps suggest a mobile-friendly/ tapatalk version of the site? I hardly use the computer now what with these smartphone thingies :)
Cheers all!
Hello Andee,
for whatever reason, your problem is related to a lack of strength in the final dough at the point of baking. It is most likely caused by lack of fermentation, and/or, by lack of acid in the dough. If you then push final proof to trty to achieve more volume, you tend to end up with a weak crumb.
I would look at your formula, and study how much pre-fermented flour you are using, how much bulk fermentation, and what your temperature regime consists of. Have you thought about using an overnight retard in the chiller? This may help to kickstart some of the all-important enzymatic reactions which will ripen your dough without allowing the yeast reactions to race away.
Best wishes
Andy
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the reply. The formula is an 80% hydration, mixed, strech & fold knead once every ten mins for 40 mins, passes the windowpane test (as well as a whole wheat dough can be expected to) and then the whole thing is chilled for between 12 hours and 4 days. Removed, formed cold and alowed to rise at room temperature. Reinhardt recommends 2-3 hours rising time, but I rarely go over 2 hours, mostly 1-1,5.
The proof is good, looks good, feels good. Oven pre-heated to 260°C then turned down to 220°C for 40mins to an hour (slightly hotter than the recomended). Oven spring is good, loaf looks execelent. Internal temperature ~95°C, which is suggested in the recipe. Bread still has weak spots. I'm using heat from the bottom element and the weak spots tend to be near (but not at) the top. Could this be a factor?
I'm going to experiment with other flour brands as well, just in case, but I'm still stumped at the moment. It's putting me off the effort of baking tbh which is really quite sad.
One other thing. Using the cheapy organic flour I'm currently using, the recipe as given produces a dough so wet it has to be all but poured into the tins to bake. This is (as I read it) quite different from how the dough should be according the descriptions. In order to produce a 'slightly sticky' to 'tacky' dough I have to add a fair amount of flour. Could this be unbalancing the recipe?
I have also tried working the dough using Bertinet's 'slap and fold' techinique but it didn't seem to make much difference to the final bread.
I have experimentented with over&under heat, but the elements in my oven seem to be a bit unbalenced, and the top of the loaf burns berfore the bottom is cooked...
sounds like the heat is too high, start out with about 240°C and then reduce after the first 10-15 minutes to 220°C Using upper/lower heat. If the fan was on, that also might explain the burnt top, then use lower temperatures like 220°C and reducing to 190°C for finishng the bake. Possition your loaves so that the top quarter of the finished risen loaf is about the middle of the oven, if using a bread tin, start by placing the top edge of the tin parallel to the middle of the oven. See if that helps getting used to the new oven. :)
Cheers for the info! I only pre-heat at 260°C. I turn it down to 220°C as soon as the bread goes in. My oven doesn't have a fan, so that's not the problem, and it only has three available shelves. Top, middle and bottom. Top is so high that the oven spring would leave me with an element full of dough! On the bottom shelf I had problems with burnt bottoms and I also have nowhere to put my steam tray :) but I may give it a try again.
I also tend to bake 2-3 tin loaves at once, sometimes rotating, and sometimes not. I have considered that I may be overloading the oven, but I dont have the patience to bake them one after another. Part of my reason for baking is to supply my familly with cheap, good quality bread.
you might want to look into baking inside clay bakers or dutch ovens to even out the temperature, but then you just might have to bake one big loaf eventually with 200°C. I like to bake inside two woks, one inverted over the other to trap steam.
I had one oven that I had to hang aluminum foil on the under side of the bottom shelf to prevent burning, worked well after that. Don't let the foil touch the element. Foil can also throw off the thermostat so only place where needed to prevent scorching if using the bottom shelf. Might also try flipping the lower rack upside down to raise it or flip the middle rack to lower. Or pre-heat the oven with upper/lower heat and bake with just lower heat on the middle rack. You can always flip the loaf upside down halfway thru the baking if the bottom is too brown. Don't be afraid to play around but better to experiment with a dough/loaf that's very familiar to you until you figure it out.
I would say the oven is about medium. If I remember correctly 38x46cm and about 40 cm high.
Hello Andeee,
I suspect that you have an excess of protease activity, or some other compound braking down the proteins. This is caused by the lengthy retard. You need to cut way down on 4 days; your dough hydrated at 80% will not cope with that.
I'd be tempted to find another formula to work with; this one looks potentially loaded with problems.
Best wishes
Andy
Thanks again for the input, although it seems that quite a few other people on this site have made the bread without problems.
Here's a link to the formula. I think I'm going to try switching things around again and see what happens.
http://www.robinson.to/2012/03/16/100-percent-wheat-hearth-bread/
P.S. although Reinardt talks about being able to chill for up to 4 days I usually just leave it in overnight.
It is easy enough to use a separate container to measure the water and leave a little bit for last minute adjustments. Adding more flour than the recipe can throw the formula way off in salt, yeast amounts and other ingredients. If you are using any Spelt or Dinkel flour for wheat, you may have to shorten your rising times. I find that spelt can easily rise faster and more than it should resulting in great spring but a weak inner crumb.
... is my guess. I've just checked out that link you give, showing your technique for working the dough. My concern is that you are dealing with wholewheat here which requires more working to develop gluten than white flour. Now, if I've read you right, your one set of SFs comprises of about 4-5 movements as you rotate the bowl - Yes? And you are incorporating about 4 sets of SFs at 10 minute intervals - yes? So that's only about 20 SFs in total. But then the dough is given a real long stint in the chiller without further manipulative gluten development - again, if I read you right? My hunch is that this process leaves the dough with pockets of yeast that would benefit from access to untapped starch stores. I also think your crumb structure would improve with more SFs to develop the gluten. Which may well be why you encounter weak areas within the finished loaf - where the yeast has run out of food.
They may have developed the dough a little better, and they also might have cooler fridges than yours (and they may also have cooler ambient temperatures so the yeast is consuming starch at a slower rate). Even an overnight retard may be too long if the yeast has already depleted much of the available food before it hits the chiller. It all depends on what state of proofing the dough is already in when it hits the fridge, and how cold your fridge is. So some folk might be able to do a couple of days retard (I'm struggling with the idea of a 4-day, to be honest) - but others with fridges that aren't so efficient or that are set at a warmer temp, will find they have to use shorter retards to avoid the overproofing risk. Have you checked for an accurate reading of your fridge's temperature?
All in all, I somehow doubt it's your oven causing the weak spots. Much more likely, to my mind, is that the dough isn't well mixed enough so you have greater yeast activity in some areas of the dough than others. And possibly too lengthy a retard in the fridge.
Agog to know if you get this sorted - and wishing you lots of luck to solve the problem quickly. Then am sure you'll enjoy your breadbaking with gusto once more.
All at Sea
A huge thank you for all the input on this problem. I've been avoiding doing anything about it, but the frozen loaves are running out so I decided I had to face it. I started off by baking a direct lean white boule, 70-2-2 risen in my new banneton (woohoo!) That came out beautifully, which confirmed for me that it wasn't the oven which was at fault (especially as I tried the pre-heat with over-under and meant to turn it to just bottom heat for the baking, but forgot :).
So I went out and bought some better quality flour. I'm really going to have to source some good flour on a long term basis, because the stuff in the supermarkets over here really aint so hot. Then I dug out my brewing thermometer and stuck it in the fridge. Turns out my fridge was between about 8°C and 10°C. So I turned it way up and it finally settled at 3°C (after some unpleasantness with frozen courgettes).
Anyway, I started off holding back some of the water, but the dough was too stiff for my liking, so I chucked the lot in. By the end of the mixing cycle (which I do by hand, I don't have a mixer either A.A.S. :) the dough was already looking a whole lot better. T.b.h. the flour looked better on its own when I poured it out of the packet! I'll really need to keep away from the cheapy flour..
I then increased the stretch'n'folds to every five mins (instead of every 10) for 40 mins. At the end of that it was soft and delicate, still quite sticky in the middle, but a world of difference to my previous doughs. I could handle it! And without half a kilo of extra flour! So it's gone into my now-much-colder fridge for the night and I'll give it a bake and the earliest opportunity tommorow (which is likely to be the evening unless my three year old decides he wants to help :)
Fingers crossed!
Andeee