Question about yeast in breadmaking
 

I made a loaf today from a website called Ciao Florentina (great website)
and she said to add yeast to the flour and salt. Then add the water and mix.
I did that and it didn't rise right.
The bread tasted good even though it didn't rise as it should have.
I thought of a couple of things but maybe someone else can help:
I usually put the yeast in warm water and also the yeast wasn't expired but maybe it was a dud.

When you put it in the oven she said to put a pan of water below the bread and that's what makes the crust nice
and crusty. It was.

Why am I so intent on making bread???? That's the last thing I need https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images...es/biggrin.png
The truth is- the bakery where we bought wonderful Italian bread closed and the kind they make at Whole Foods doesn't come close.

Any other ideas?
Tia

Did it just not rise? Or not rise enough? There is regular yeast and instant yeast, here is some info.

https://www.marthastewart.com/779699...pid-rise-yeast

I loved baking, bread is my kryptonite! I generally had no issues with the rapid rise yeast and always made sure to proof the regular one in the packets.
Many factors in bread making, humidity, the type of flour, yeast, liquid temperature, etc. When baking bread it is always better to weigh the ingredients. Perhaps you did get a dud, I have had that happen a few times.

Yes, I think you should have used instant rising yeast if it is supposed to go in with the dry ingredients. But you can modify any yeast recipe for regular yeast. Just take some of the liquid, add a bit of sugar and the yeast, let it foam and add with the other liquid.

It did rise, but not enough.
You know, I always buy rapid rise but this one wasn't. Maybe I picked up the wrong one or my husband bought it. I only checked the date and then put it in the flour and salt mixture.
Great tips from all of you, thanks.
I could live on bread!

I always rehydrate the yeast separately, no matter what kind of yeast. That way the yeast is awake and ready to go. If you mix it into the flour then add water, it is competing with the flour for hydration.

I agree that yeast should go in the warm, wet ingredients. I don't buy RapidRise. I like the regular better. I made English Muffin bread yesterday. So easy and makes such good toast.

I guess I'm a little different about my bread baking. I rarely proof my yeast & I do not put it in contact with salt until I am adding it to the flour in the mixer bowl. I don't know if it is true, but I read that salt will retard the yeast rise, so I add salt at the last moment possible. I bake a lot of bread so I keep a lot of yeast in the freezer & as long as it is well sealed, it doesn't lose potency for use.
As for the water in the pan- make sure you tuck your loaf into the oven & immediately put about 1.5cups of boiling water in your pan & shut the oven door quickly. Wait about 3-5 minutes & then lightly spray your loaf (do not spray your oven light!) again & close the door. That will help 'crisp' up your crust. King Arthur Flour has great info if you go to their website. Don't forget to look at their recipes too!
Have fun baking
sewverybusy1

I agree! I usually use my bread machine now, but I don't let my yeast directly touch the salt. A little sugar helps the rise, too.

I make all our bread and have been for years. Salt and yeast do not like each other. I always add my salt last . I add yeast to warm water and always check the temp of the water, 110 degrees for active dry yeast, proofed in water or 120 degrees if added to flour. Too warm of water will kill the yeast. Too cool and it won't wake up and will hinder the gluten formation.
I buy yeast by the lb package and freeze it. I keep a small container of it in the cabinet. The more you bake with yeast the more good spores will be in your kitchen that help a lot when bead making.

My bread recipe is simple. Flour water yeast and salt. This is perfect French bread dough I use steam pans to bake. The crust is crackly. For sandwich bread I add 1/4 cup of oil and reduce the water. Even after years of baking I will have a flop now and then. I make bread crumbs and forget it.

Thanks for all the replies.

Last night I was surfing the web and so many recipes call for adding the yeast to the flour and salt! I believe that was my problem more than anything.

My husband ran out and got King Arthur flour and more yeast last night. We're going to try some more today.
My Mom was a terrific cook and baker but didn't make bread.

I do the same as Tartan.

This post got me laughing when I got to the part about hubby going to the store to pick up more and possibly better supplies for the next attempt. My husband and I both love bread too. We would have done the same thing. Good, warm, homemade bread with butter and fresh honey is to die for. I am looking forward to hearing how this new loaf turned out. And the saga continues.......

A buyer for Walmart told me that Walmart Unbleached flour is made by King Arthur for now. Unbleached flour by Walmart is a newer product. They change companies when the contract is expired if another better deal is offered by another company like Gold Medal. They changed their sugar brand from pure cane to beet sugar. It use to be made by G&H and said Pure Cane on their sugar packages. Now it doesn't. Beet sugar reacts differently in baking and other processes like brewing.

Paul just ordered a proofing basket. We're on a roll !!! https://cdn.quiltingboard.com/images...es/biggrin.png

Barb, we made more yesterday and it was a lot better. As I said- why am I so determined??? My waistline doesn't need more bread haha

Yeast baking is fun! For crusty bread I use flour, yeast, water and salt. For soft sandwich bread or buns I use milk or buttermilk (scalded), shartening or some sort of fat and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda in the flour. I mix it in my big mixer like so:
warm liquid on the bottom, then half the flour (maybe a little less), and yeast and mix till smooth. Let sit covered and warm for about 10 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, reserving about 1/2 cup of flour and stir using the kneading blade for about 8 minutes. Dough should be smooth and not sticking to the bowl. If it's sticky, add some of the reserved flour. Turn onto floured board/counter/cloth and shape in a smooth ball. Spray bowl with cooking spray and put ball of dough back in it. Spray top of ball and cover with saran and a towel. Let rise in a warm place till doubled in size.
Shape into loaves and place in greased pans. Let rise about half the initial rising time. Bake....
Top prizes in the yeast baking at my local fair about five years running ... to the point no one else was entering.... so I stopped.

So many great tips on bread baking here! I love it, especially now that we are going into the cooler, "bread baking season." I'm not sure what I can add to what everyone else has said, but here goes...

SusieQOH...How long did you let the dough rise? Was it a heavy, sturdy dough, or a light, fluffy dough? Heavier dough can sometimes take a little longer to rise. You don't want to over-proof it...it might collapse, but you might try letting it rise just a little longer next time.

What type of pan did you use? I personally prefer dark, heavy pans that hold the heat well.

Also, where did you put the dough to rise? Cooler air, or drafts can knock a dough right down flat. I have an old stove with a pilot light and I like to proof and rise my dough in there, with the oven turned off. It's a warm and cozy spot and totally draft free. If I were rich, I'd have a proofing drawer, like on the Great British Baking Show. :)

I agree with the others...yeast does not like salt. But, if the salt is mixed in with the flour first, it should not be a problem. I've made many recipes where the yeast was added to the flour first and it usually came out fine, so I don't think that is the problem.

Sometimes adding just a teaspoon, or two of sugar will help the bread rise better. Those little yeasts get hungry. You won't taste it in the final product.

Use whatever type of yeast is called for in the recipe.

One more thing...make sure that you have kneaded it long enough to develop the gluten, which gives it all of the strength and sturdiness to rise high. I know...we've all heard this before, but sometimes we just get so antsy to bake and eat the bread that we forget about the obvious.

That's my 2 cents.

I have have two sets of these pans for decades. I bought them when I took a class for French bread baking. I don't know if they are still available but they are wonderful.
https://external-content.duckduckgo....jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Oooh thanks, Onebyone. I'll check them out.

My brother makes a lot of bread in a dutch oven.

I don't think there's anything more fragrant than bread baking. Ahhhhh

Onebyone, I found this:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/14421813178...IAAOSwnl9hTyMa

Does it look similar?

I would go with salt being the problem especially if you know your yeast was good.

Susie...I had to go look up a proofing basket. That was new to me. I am learning too much about making fresh bread. Darn it!!! Now I'm thinking about hot, homemade bread and really wanting to try my hand at it again. My first try was liked by hubby but it was too grainy and gummy to me. Taste and texture have to be right for me to like the bread. I am keeping my eye on this thread. Might be another attempt at bread making in my future. Looks like I might need the proofing trays. Suzie, the ones on Ebay look like the real thing. A new set of them is $149 on one website. I like the fact that it is all ready to bake after it is proofed and doesn't have to be moved. Until them, I guess locally made French bread will have to be my favorite to eat.

Barb, my husband has been making bread all weekend lololol!!!
Oh no, what have I started?

As I said my brother makes bread in a dutch oven. He makes great Italian bread.
Columbus is such a big city but I swear nobody makes good bread. So we are on our adventure :)
I love kneading bread. It's so relaxing for me.

That link I posted on ebay looks interesting.

I really appreciate all the people who chimed in.

Growing up on a farm, we always made our own bread. I didn't know there was "store bread" until I went to school. We lived with my grandparents until I was 4-1/2; Grandma won a lot of ribbons for her breads, donuts and cookies. The only thing I didn't like was her Saucijzen - sausage baked in a yeasty roll.

For years, I didn't bake much bread; my husband prefers Italian with a crunchy crust. The thing I baked most was cinnamon raisin bread, as my brother loves it.

FF a few years... I mentioned learning to make artisan bread to our daughter after I retired. She enrolled me in an artisan sourdough class at a local bakery. Holy cow... Sourdough is so much harder than yeast, lol. I've gotten the hang of it, have starter in the refrigerator and dried as a backup. Mostly I do a ciabatta, but really, still don't bake much. There are only 2 of us here to eat it!

I am following this thread with great interest. Lots of great ideas and experience here.

For the last 15 years I have been baking my own bread most of the time except when it gets to hot to bake, in the summer. I started kneading the dough by hand years before that.. Then with my aging hands,I boughtt a bread making machine for the kneading part and I baked it in a conventional oven.

My bread making machine died a few months ago so now I am learning to do it using a stand mixer.
I also make a mixed sourdough starter meaning that I add may be 1/2 tsp of dry yeast to it, I leave it alone for 24 hours before I make my bread with it.
I mix the salt very well with the flour then I add another 1/2 tsp of yeast on top, before I add the whole mixture to the liquid. and start mixing in the stand mixer. I 've had no problem so far proceeding that way. I figure that if, with a bread making machine I proceeded that way, adding the yeast on top of the flour, it would do well. I let it raise a little longer, may be 1/2 hr more.

Now, I would like to find a way to bake it in the morning after having the dough rise overnight in the fridge . I heard it can be done so if any of you have used this method I would be interested to hear about it.

That is the right pan set. The extra trays are for bagels, muffins and such. I've never used them. LOL

OnebyOne...I love those steam baking pans! I'll bet the crust comes out nice and crispy.

I have a baguette pan, that I got about 30 years ago. It helps to keep that nice shape while the bread is baking in the oven. I have to put a pan of hot water on the floor of the oven if I want steam.

Now days, I use a small Dutch oven to bake my bread. It's so easy and the loaf impresses my DH.

They have the "make offer" button. Maybe I'll try to get them. Thanks for checking them out.
More toys for my husband LOL

helou...I usually take 2 days to make bread. The first day is for allowing the sourdough starter to inoculate the dough and the second day is for letting it rise and bake. Letting it rise in the fridge overnight is a good idea. I've done that many times. The cold will slow down the rising, so that it doesn't rise too much and then collapse before morning comes. It is just finding room in the fridge for that big pan of bread that is the hard part.

peaceandjoy- we're from the same neck of the woods. When we were kids we only ate Italian bread from the bakeries in Utica.
We would go after church and driving home the whole car smelled of fresh bread. What the other kids had at school (Wonder bread etc) we called American bread!! Sounds funny today, doesn't it?

Also words like pizza weren't in our vocabulary. It was tomato pie :)

Being married to an italian, I make a lot of pizza crust! I’ve done the yeast both ways - start it in warm water first or put it in directly with the flour, salt, etc. My preferred method is the 2nd way. I always add a bit of sugar with it too even if the recipe doesn’t call for sugar. It doesn’t make the dough sweet, but seems to add the extra oomph it needs. My dough always rises up. Maybe your yeast was a dud. And I feel for you about the italian crusty bread. It sounds like you need to keep experimenting! I could live on bread too!

Doggramma, Paul made a loaf yesterday and included a bit of sugar. You're right, it doesn't make the bread sweet. Oh yes, I could live on bread. :)
Onebyone- I got a set on Ebay but not the link I posted. Another seller had a new one in the box with instructions. The offer was accepted.

Yeast likes a little “food” (namely sugar) when proofing in warm water. Add salt with flour. Never forgot those instructions from my high school home ec teacher almost 60 years ago.

Oh! Thank you for your answer. Right, I was forgetting this point: "room in the fridge" I have to think about this loll

Yes, a little sugar helps. It feeds the yeast.

I start all yeast in warm water with a little sugar. Make sure the bowl isn’t cold. I usually first rinse the bowl with real hot water & I feel yeast foams up better.

I love to make bread. Have been making bread since I was 7 years old. Just made Focaccia bread with my Grandson. He is 19 and has been coming to cook once a week. I sit down and tell him what to do. We have made bread a few times. He loves to measure, add, stir and taste the final product. Hasn’t quite got the kneading part. He was here yesterday and wanted to know if we could make bread again.