zojirushi virtuoso new directions of exploration
HI folks, New here and ready to show off my new zoji. This is my first basic white loaf according to the manual recipe. This was a Quick version with two tsp of instant yeast.
This is not my first bread machine but my fourth. I apprenticed at a whole grain organic bakery in California in the eighties and the breadmachine was introduced just as I finished my training. I was pretty skeptical and indignant about the round loafed contraption with a 400 dollar price tag. But bread machines stuck around adopted a square shape and the price fell until I recognized its value and bought one.
Since then I have made many loaves and dough and wore out two more ever cheaper machines. I have also continued to make bread by hand at times and appreciate the crust baked by an oven and the dough development that can be monitored as you work with it.
So I bought the zoji recently to replace a black and decker and was drawn to the unique features like the lid element for crust development, the narrow horizontal loaf shape and the programmable cycle settings.
The white bread I baked today is very light and spongy with a great crust texture and flavour but its not my thing. Its like dessert sweet and soft and chewy but its satisfaction is fleeting and it drops you into hunger again after only a short time. Thats why I like whole grain bread mostly with its nutty full bodied flavour and satisfying fullness that lasts for hours.
So I plan to feature my efforts at whole grain here. I will follow the recipes in the manual first and then branch out from there. The zoji whole grain recipes rely on using 4 T of gluten flour per loaf to ensure reliable results or the WW flour is blended with white bread flour so it will rise properly. With my other machine's 80%WW was the highest I could go and obtain a reasonable rise.
I am using Canadian flour in my bread, and living on a homestead in one of the most northern grain producing areas of the world. I use a regionally grown and milled organic hard spring wheat flour with a finely ground texture and a high gluten content. I buy this flour annually in bulk and resell it at my local farmers market along with my freshly grown vegetables from my garden.
I have used this flour successfully for many years to create light textured bread by hand. I know what this flour is capable of. I would rate it as one of the best in the world for its ability to make a great 100% WW sandwhich loaf or soft light WW burger buns. The texture can be soft like wonder bread but with a full bodied flavour or crisp and chewy depending on how you bake it.
The white flour I use varies. Sometimes I use Robin Hood all purpose unbleached or best for bread. RH bread flour works as well as my local organic flour but has a boring bland flavour.
Sometimes I use Rodgers unbleached flour. Their white flour is very good but their WW is relatively low in gluten and does not perform well unless blended with white.
By all accounts, the Zojirushi is a great bread machine. My first bread machine, many years ago, was a DAK which had a round pan. I never did like the round shape. Now I have a Breadman that I have had for quite a number of years. I like it a lot better because the shape was more like a regular loaf. Nowadays I just use it to knead dough. Works great for that.
Have fun and let us know how the whole grain loaves turn out!
The hydration ratio is one of the most important aspects of making bread. I saw a fantastic hydration table in one of Peter Reinharts books showing how all bread is related and differentiated by the hydration ratio and whether or not it contains added sugar and fat or milk and eggs. Anyone know where I can find a similar chart?
I am happy to find the Zoji recipes have not just volume measurements but weight in grams. Weighing the ingredients is as Antelope so often has said here is the easiest way to consistently arrive at the correct hydration ratio. Digital scales are now ubiquitous and inexpensive, use one already:-)
When the hydration ratio is right the dough will develop its gluten strands properly, be able to rise to its desired height and not collapse unless under or overproofed.
https://www.fornobravo.com/pizzaquest/
Just wow. I went broke buying copies of his books on Ebay.
Thanks Kathy, Yes I remember seeing full page ads for the DAK and thinking Who wants round bread? Obviously some people did!
The next critical factor for whole grain bread is development of the gluten strands in the dough. When kneading dough with a mixer or by hand I always check the dough as I go along by stretching a peice of it between my fingers. When it is able to be stretched into a thin membrane that you can almost see through it is fully developed. Without this gluten strand development whole grain bread will never be able to rise to its potential.
I checked the dough of the white bread in the Zoji after the knead cycle and it was NOT fully developed. Being 100 white flour the dough still rose beautifully and is one of the major reasons white flour took over the world!
SO my plan is to test the gluten development of future whole grain recipes until I determine the appropriate knead cycle time and then use the programmable settings to get it in the zone.
Proofing in my house is often a challenge. Its too dry and the temperature can be cool or unstable. Much easier in the machine. Sometimes however it seems that bread machines overproof the dough and it falls after it bakes. When proofing is just the right time according to temperature the bread will exhibit oven spring in the first 10 minutes or so of baking. The dough suddenly jumps up in height by an extra inch or so when proofing is properly timed. It does not fall unless overproofed. Underproofed bread will not spring or fall it just sits there and disappoints you!
I hope it is also possible to attempt a better proofing time with the custom settings on the zoji.
Bread machines are a comprimise . You must accept certain limits in order to benefit from the labor saving automation and all in one compactness of the machine. I suspect this is what repels some artisan pro style bakers from embracing them. At the same time the novice baker imagines that a bread machine will magically produce bread for them while they sleep without effort. Not so!
The effort required is what you have control of. The ingredients type, quality, and especially accurate and consistent measurement. Selecting the proper cycle for the recipe.
Troubleshooting is required. The amount of salt, yeast, sugar, flour and liquid have to be adjusted to obtain consistent results. ESPECIALLY when using the timer you need to use a proven recipe in order to wake up to fresh bread rather than a brick. This experience is needed. You must learn to turn a bad loaf into a good one the next time around. The promise of bread without effort is a fraud!
SO what kind of comprimises are required with the Zoji? When it comes to whole grain recipes the Zoji produces bread consistently if you use gluten flour and/or white flour in the appropriate ratio.
What happens with 100% WW recipes without the above ingredients is more often than not inconsistent and ultimately disappointing. Will the flexibility of the homemade programmable course be sufficient to give better results with whole grain? Why did the manufacturer not figure out the proper cycle to begin with. Possibly they don't understand what the best kneading and proofing times are. Maybe it is not possible to program a machine to account for all the variables and design comprimises involved.
I aim to find out. Obviously I am not the only one to make an attempt. These pages are littered with poor souls who started out with great intentions but were felled by discouragement after several encounters with THE BRICK!
I also found that using bread machines were not necessarily challenge free. It helps to use recipes designed for bread machines. I also found that my dough tended to be too dry. Turns out that I was measuring my cups too heavy by doing the "scoop and sweep" method.
Yes this is the issue. You must start with the same amount of flour each time you make the same recipe. Whatever that amount, it is 100% of your flour and the amount of water should then be adjusted to the bread type until the dough performs as desired. At this stage there is often a see saw back and forth as a baker adds water, oops now the dough is too slack, adds flour, oops its too stiff now etc. In order to reduce this uncertainty I recommend the scale. Learn the metric system, measure in grams and you can quickly adapt a bakers formula for 100 loaves of bread to a bread machine for 1 loaf or fine tune a home recipe by converting volume measures to weight and percentages.
Working in grams rather than cups is the lesson I learned this year as I started researching baking with my sourdough starter. It really does make it much easier to work with recipes. Learning baker's math was a revelation for me too!
Can someone recommend a gram-centric digital baking scale please? Not absolute, but I always look for NOT made in China first.
Thoughts?
I use the KD-8000 Bakers Math scale by My Weigh. Have had it for about 5 years now and love it.
https://myweigh.com/product/kd8000/
8kg capacity, easy to read display, metric and English units.
Paul
So just ate the last of the bimbo bread I made in Zoji. French toast with pears and homemade syrup and jam. Living the dream ...yes indeed!
I was planning a white/WW blend loaf next but I am missing a few ingredients to follow the recipe exactly and this is not the time to take off on flights of fancy to unknown breads.
I am following the quick wheat 100% WW bread 1.5 pound loaf zoji recipe. The add beeper just went off so I took the opportunity to check the hydration and dough development. The dough has plenty of water, hopefully its not too much. Both flour and water were weighed on the scale. Yeast and salt were by tsp. Scale seems to loose its acurracy below 5 grams?
DOugh development tested out nicely. I could easily stretch it into a thin sheet between my fingers. Good sign:-) Could be the gluten flour (25grams)
bUt can't say for sure until I omit it.
Well instead of pictures you will have settle for 1000 words for now! Pictures are over rated ! Learn to read:-)
So of course the bread rose beautifully before swan diving as the crown sunk in the middle halfway through baking. The bread still has a nice relatively light texture and is pleasing to eat. Lots of body and stick with you satisfaction. Not perfect yet but lots of potential. The 1.5 pound loaf is much better suited to whole grain than 2 # The crust to crumb ratio is higher and so palatability is much improved.
The slices are a much better size and proportion for toaster and sandwich use; Square rather than rectangular in shape. I can see why a family that makes white bread might want a 2# loaf but its a bad idea for whole grain.
Looked at the troubleshooting table in the zoji manual and a few of the threads in this forum. I will make the same recipe again with a few changes.
Less water 15 to 30ml. The bread is definitely very moist toasting took a while...
Less yeast. Used 1.5tsp instant yeast. I have used 1tsp in other 1.5#loaves with no problem so 1 tsp is the goal.
1 tsp salt. This is adequate because I have used this amount in previous efforts and is compatible with my reduced sodium diet.
Plan to replace molasses with honey. I dislike molasses flavour in bread and caraway seeds blech! I like honey:-)
I have uploaded pictures into my file directory in my account control panel but have found no way to move them here.
Anyone like pictures. I cannot seem to post a new jpg to save my life! Any tips:?
We love pictures! Posting them can be a bit tricky. Here is a link for the FAQ on posting images. Don't forget the crumb shot!
Thanks this is a very helpful link.
THanks for that Kathy! I think I've got it now.
I called these wonderful folks and they're really not shipping. It looks like pickup-only or your guardian angel sends it to you.
Hi from Austin--I've had some great bakes with freshly milled WW flour from Barton Springs Mill. I guess they are no longer doing free shipping between 5-10 lbs, but a few bucks for local shipping is worth it while waiting for the mill to reopen.
Bingo! I just hit the gristmill lottery! So many thanks.
Very happy to help!
That is a tasty looking loaf of whole wheat bread. Bet it makes a great sandwich!
I bought this scale a few months ago and it seems to work well with small amounts down to a gram:
For really small amounts I have seen people use a spoon scale like this. I haven't tried one yet myself.
Awesome scale Kathy. Built in bakers math must be cool. I think my next scale is gonna be a nutritional scale. I am loosing weight and want to quickly add up what is on my plate or in a recipe.
THe previous loaf lasted just 2 to3 days. It was quite edible but not what I know it could be. Too wet, poor toasting qualities, horrid molasses flavour and finally overproofing caused slump during baking.
Eating bread like this takes me back to the 70's hippie homestead I grew up on where whole wheat bread was next to religion but knowledge about how to produce a truly great loaf was scarce. Those were the dark days.
So today's loaf will attempt to remedy the previous errors by
reducing the water by 20 ml to 300ml
reducing the yeast to 1 tsp
salt the same at 1 tsp
10 grams honey instead of molasses
Water was warm the last time around this time cold tap water refrigerator temp. The rest cycle did not seem to do much to raise the water temp but after the knead cycle it seemed to finally be adequately lukewarm.
Performed the window pane test at add beep and gluten development seemed good. Raised the room temp to 78-80 F. As cold water was used. Room temp water would be better in this situation I think.
In 30 minutes we will have results.
Hi, Just got my first bread machine, a Z, and I'm mainly interested in making non white breads. Have you had lots of success after a few years now at making interesting breads?
Delicious smell. It did not overproof. It underproofed . I THINK The tap water was way too cold. I am going back to lukewarm water. Will stay with the same amount for now.
TASTE was much better. Nutty sweet well balanced flavour.
TExture was somewhat better, not as wet, crusty, soft crumb. Hot out of the machine. I had 4 slices for lunch.
That does look better. I agree that the dough was probably too cold. Does your machine have a pause feature? If so, I wonder if you can use it during the rising cycle in case it doesn't seem to be rising enough and give it a little more time that way.
No pause feature although if you have the lid open it does not run again until you close it. The homemade courses could be programmed for a longer rise. I may try this at some point if it promises better results.
I just got our Zoji Virtuoso yesterday, and immediately made the very basic white bread recipe from the manual. Everything performed exactly as promised, so I'm pleased about that part. But the bread itself is bland and squishy. I'd like to find a way to adapt my favourite sandwich bread recipe to the machine. My default recipe is the basic white sandwich bread from Rose Levy Bernabaum's Bread Bible, I think the secret to its lovely, complex flavour lies in the initial preferment of about an hour, and a subsequent ferment of about another hour before kneading, resting, shaping, and baking. And the secret to this bread's wonderful texture is baking it in a Pullman loaf pan. Now, I know I can take the dough out of the Zoji and shape and bake it manually -- not a problem. What I'd like to figure out is how to do the two ferments. And since the first ferment includes flour, water, and yeast all mixed together, is there a way that would work in the Zoji? Anyone else attempt anything like this? Ideas all welcome!
I've just started using the zojirushi and would like to set up the homemade programs. Would you share how you have set them up? I'm hoping that you've fine tuned a whole wheat setting.