How long to knead for?

[DaFonz]

Arg! Ok, first time making bread and the recipe says to knead 14 minutes by hand until you can do the window pane test where the dough gets super stretchy. I kneaded for 40 mins.. and it's still ripping too easily.

I followed recipe exactly as they said right up to the point of kneading so I don't think its my ingredients.. is it? What am I doing wrong?

[alanamoana]

there are a lot of factors which could be affecting your dough:

first of all, in bread baking, the recipe is merely a guide. the humidity or lack thereof can affect how much moisture the flour can absorb. your dough could be too wet for the.

the type of flour you're using could also be a cause. if you're using all purpose as opposed to high gluten flour...not enough protein in the flour to develop good gluten strands.

the temperature of the liquid you added.

how you're kneading the dough

i'm sure this list could go on and on. you might need to add a little more information in order that someone with more experience in bread can respond to your problem.

[jackal10]

There isn't a simple answer.

Flour and water is a complex system, and a lot of the traditional books are just wrong.

a) Its not primarily the mechanical work that develops the gluten, but time and hydration. You actually don't need to knead at all, other than to mix the dough. See, for example http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...dpost&p=1091247

b) The exception is commercial bread where high intensity mixing is used to develop the gluten instead of time. You can't do this by hand.

c) Its impossible to over-knead by hand

d) The "window pane" test only works for white bread, Any bran present will puncture the film.

Edited January 22, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[DaFonz]

Hum.. ok. More info..

Started with a sponge with 1/8 teaspoon yest, 1 cup flour and 1 cup warm water. Water wa about.. 85 degrees f.

Let that rise for about 7 hrs (until it raised and fell a little)

Then mixed in 2 cups flour, 1/2 tablespoon yeast and 1/2cup water.. water was done.. 6 tablespoons.. mixed.. then 1 tablespoon, kneaded and then another tablespoon and then kneaded.

Flour used was robin hood all purpose flour.

A friend of mine mentioned that my dough might be too dry thus not allowing the gluten to form... so how do I know how much water to add?

[jackal10]

Hum.. ok. More info..

.

A friend of mine mentioned that my dough might be too dry thus not allowing the gluten to form... so how do I know how much water to add?

←

Most bread is 60%-70% hydration (weight of total water to weight of total flour)

Salt and yeast each around 2% of total flour weight.

A cup of flour is around 125gm, so your 3 cups is 375gm

A cup of water is around 237gm yours is about 475g!

If your measurements were accurate you would have more like a batter. I'm surprised you could knead it at all.

1 cup water in total is more like what you want for 3 cups flour.

Edited January 22, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[DaFonz]

Oh man.. ok ok..

instead of trying to copy the recipe from memory.. here's what it *really* was...

16 ounces total in flour = 453g

1.25 cups of water = 296 grams

Huzzah? The recipe I'm following is from the new best recipe by the cooks illustrated people.. and I always thought they were pretty reliable?

[alanamoana]

so it looks like not enough water. also, you're just using all purpose which might not have enough gluten...?

[rosejoy]

16 ounces total in flour = 453g

1.25 cups of water = 296 grams

That's about 65% hydration which is slightly wet for hand-kneading but not too far off. That is, IF (and it's a big IF) your 3 cups of flour actually weight 16 oz (453 grams). For 3 cups of flour to equal 16 ounces, each cup would have had to weigh 5.3 ounces and unless your flour was extremely dry, that's a bit on the heavy side. You can usually estimate a cup of flour weighing between 4 and 5 ounces, with 4.5 oz a somewhat fair estimate (but without weighing it, it's just that - an extimate). The weight of a cup of flour is dependent upon a variety of factors - the most important being how dry your environment is and how you fill your cup with the flour. There can be a big difference in the weight of a cup of flour depending on whether you "dip and sweep" the flour into to cup or whether you lightly spoon the flour into the cup. May I sugget that if you have a strong interest in working with bread dough, buy yourself a scale and use it - particularly useful is one that displays weights in pounds and ounces/ounces only/ and grams. It will be the best investment you can make in terms of successful breadmaking.

All that aside, an important question is this: what was the consistency of your dough? Was it very sticky? Did you end up adding a lot of flour to it as you kneaded? Or was it dry and stiff?

Are you new to bread baking? If so, may I say that learning the correct consistency of dough is the most important thing that will lead to successful breadbaking, and one of the hardest things to learn on your own. You are looking for a dough that is soft and moist, not sticky but slightly tacky. What's the difference between sticky and tacky? Lightly touch the dough ball with a finger and pull your finger away. Sticky means that the a lot dough sticks to your fingers and readily pulls away from the dough ball. Tacky means that a little dough tries to stick to your fingers and a tiny bit might succeed, but most of it will stay joined to the dough ball.

If you are new to breadmaking, please allow me to suggest that you buy a loaf of frozen dough from your supermarket, let it thaw and then put your hands into it. Get a feel for what it feels like - how soft and moist it is, how stiff it is, what it's structure is like. Cut off a small ball, round it up in your hands and try the window-pane test. You'll learn a lot about what properly developed (kneaded) dough should feel like for a standard loaf of white bread. This isn't what ALL bread doughs will feel like but it will give you a sense of what a pan loaf should feel like and then you can go on from there as you learn and experiment with other types of bread.

Kneading by hand takes practice and experience. You want to withhold about 1/8th of the flour and stretch the dough as you knead it, fold down the top part of the dough as you pull it towards you and, alternately, stretch it out with the heel of your hand, pushing it away from you, then fold the top part down onto the doughball as you bring it back towards yourself.

I wouldn't worry so much about window-paning until you gain experience with your bread-baking. Go for the consistency of dough and knead until your dough is a nice round ball that holds its round shape on its own and doesn't fall back down into a shapeless mass.

Hope this helps some,

[DaFonz]

Yah, I've been reading and it seems like a scale is the way to go. I guess I'll pick one up next month.. aiee... my kitchen gets more and more stuff

I scooped the flour and then leveled it off with a flat plane without settling it into the container.

The dough when it was done was kinda sticky. I didn't add flour to it when I kneaded and only used what the recipe told me to. It was.. pretty elasticky I suppose. I just couldn't seem to get the gluten going the way I've seen in done in shows.

Yeap, this was the very first time I have ever made bread in my life. From your description, I think my dough was tacky. It has a little stick, but I didn't get bits of it on my finger.

I did the round ball thing! It held its shape just fine

Thank you so much for your help. I have another sponge going in my kitchen now so I'm going to try again with another loaf.

Bread ended up turning out like this which was kind of disappointing for me because I was trying to make a baguette.

The taste was alright, but I made the mistake of not waiting for it to raise for 12 hrs in the fridge like the recipe called for (I was impatient.. which is bad)... and instead gave it 15 minutes... so it was a little too dense. I also had a problem with the top crust being too thick. At the risk of asking the obvious, it was because I didn't turn it right?

edit: All purpose flour = bad? Should I be using something else?

Edited January 22, 2006 by DaFonz (log)

[Ling]

^I'll lend you my scale tomorrow and you can try making baguettes again, then invest in a scale if you're really sure you're going to be using it a lot in the kitchen.

ETA: I haven't done a lot of bread-making, but I'm pretty sure bread flour is a much better bet than AP.

Edited January 22, 2006 by Ling (log)

[DaFonz]

^I'll lend you my scale tomorrow and you can try making baguettes again, then invest in a scale if you're really sure you're going to be using it a lot in the kitchen. 

ETA: I haven't done a lot of bread-making, but I'm pretty sure bread flour is a much better bet than AP.

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Shouldn't you .. like be at work now?

My second batch better turn out or I'm gonna be mad.. then I'll give up and make the foccacia.

[Ling]

Shouldn't you .. like be at work now?

My second batch better turn out or I'm gonna be mad.. then I'll give up and make the foccacia.

←

I am working...always on and off the computer printing stuff off for students.

I've made foccacia a few times, and I've only made a baguette once a few years ago. I remember the foccacia was really easy to do and turned out well. The baguette turned out well too, but I didn't have a good reference point a few years ago (having eaten very few "good" baguettes at that point in my life) so I'll have to try again. Thanks for posting this thread...I'm sure it'll help me a lot.

[DaFonz]

Shouldn't you .. like be at work now?

My second batch better turn out or I'm gonna be mad.. then I'll give up and make the foccacia.

←

I am working...always on and off the computer printing stuff off for students.

I've made foccacia a few times, and I've only made a baguette once a few years ago. I remember the foccacia was really easy to do and turned out well. The baguette turned out well too, but I didn't have a good reference point a few years ago (having eaten very few "good" baguettes at that point in my life) so I'll have to try again. Thanks for posting this thread...I'm sure it'll help me a lot.

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Ok, we make baguettes together. I'm so determined now. 40 minutes until my second sponge is done. If it doesn't work I'm going to scream.

My focaccia better turn out... the recipe calls for potatos! It's kinda strange...

[rosejoy]

Yah, I've been reading and it seems like a scale is the way to go. I guess I'll pick one up next month.. aiee... my kitchen gets more and more stuff

I scooped the flour and then leveled it off with a flat plane without settling it into the container.

The dough when it was done was kinda sticky. I didn't add flour to it when I kneaded and only used what the recipe told me to. It was.. pretty elasticky I suppose. I just couldn't seem to get the gluten going the way I've seen in done in shows.

Yeap, this was the very first time I have ever made bread in my life. From your description, I think my dough was tacky. It has a little stick, but I didn't get bits of it on my finger.

I did the round ball thing! It held its shape just fine

Thank you so much for your help. I have another sponge going in my kitchen now so I'm going to try again with another loaf.

Bread ended up turning out like this which was kind of disappointing for me because I was trying to make a baguette.

The taste was alright, but I made the mistake of not waiting for it to raise for 12 hrs in the fridge like the recipe called for (I was impatient.. which is bad)... and instead gave it 15 minutes... so it was a little too dense.  I also had a problem with the top crust being too thick. At the risk of asking the obvious, it was because I didn't turn it right?

edit: All purpose flour = bad? Should I be using something else?

You know what? That is really pretty good for a first loaf! Remember, those folks in/on shows (not sure if you mean tv or live presentations) have years of experience and loads of help! Stars of the tv shows, Food Network, PBS, etc have a lot of people of their staff who do most of the work, very little of what you see on these shows is actually done by the chef - and it can't be, based on how little air time they have.

I think you should be congratulating yourself, rather than berating yourself. You got two loaves that rose fairly well and that tasted pretty well - just think, very often first loaves turn out to be bricks! Yours' didn't! Your loaf looks nicely formed and you didn't have any "blow-outs" at your seam or slashes. Your slashes look very nice and even. It's a little dense but that may have more to do with the bread not getting enough rising time than. The thicker crust at the top could have to do with either the dough drying out some while rising or by your steaming techinique (if you tried to introduce steam into the oven). The large oblong-shaped hole in the middle of the loaf could indicate that the loaf didn't quite bake long enough.

I'd recommend sticking with all-purpose flour for a while because bread flour is even harder to knead. Many French Bread recipes are written for all-purpose flour and the traditional flour used in France for Baguettes is a softer flour even than our all-purpose flour. Bread flour is really made for bread machines and mixers, not hand kneading but once you get your kneading technique down, you could give it a try and see what you think.

So congratulations of your first loaf! It's really quite good for a first loaf.

[DaFonz]

Ok.. try two. I played around with the water and flour towards the end to get the .. soft, moist and tacky doughball. It was far softer than what I had the first time around, but I still couldn't get the window pane? Perhaps it was my flour.

I discovered that adding a little water to the recipe helped somewhat in helping to make the dough software. As a result, I only kneaded it for 20 minutes.

I'm not sure how useful pictures are to helping determine the "rightness" of the dough, but here are some...

Is this the level of smoothness Ishould be aiming for? Or more?

If you look just under my finger, you can see the dough rising up a little.. when I pulled away... none really stuck to my finger.

[DaFonz]

Ok.. try two. I think the dough I started off was better.. but still could use improvement. Perhaps more kneading? I've also realized that the recipe called for a pizza stone to help with heat distribution... hum... this is what I get for not following the recipe. Arggg...

[jackal10]

That bread looks OK. What do you think is wrong?

You can make good bread with AP flour. You also don't need to knead anything like 20 mins; 2 or 3 mins is more than enough. Best description I know is that pinching the dough should feel a bit like pinching an earlobe.

I think your difficulty is elsewhere. Looks to me like your loaf is overproved. since the slashes on the top have not opened much, indicating little oven spring.

Yeast activity is very temperature sensitive. You need the dough to be at 30C/90F (warm), so find a warm place to let it rise. For commercial yeast, maybe half an hour for the first rise, and and hour for proof, having shaped the loaf at that temperature. The loaf should "spring" in the oven, nearly doubling again.

[DaFonz]

That bread looks OK. What do you think is wrong?

You can make good bread with AP flour. You also don't need to knead anything like 20 mins; 2 or 3 mins is more than enough. Best description I know is that pinching the dough should feel a bit like pinching an earlobe.

I think your difficulty is elsewhere. Looks to me like your loaf is overproved. since the slashes on the top have not opened much, indicating little oven spring.

Yeast activity is very temperature sensitive. You need the dough to be at 30C/90F (warm), so find a warm place to let it rise. For commercial yeast, maybe  half an hour for the first rise, and and hour for proof, having shaped the loaf at that temperature.  The loaf should "spring" in the oven, nearly doubling again.

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The crust wasn't the way I wanted and the bread was too dense for my tastes.

I'm not sure what overproved means? 30 degrees eh? Hum, i think that might be a problem.. i was doing it at room tempurature... the recipe I was using called for a sponge to be made, then you mix in the other ingredients.. let it rise... deflate, let it rise again and then shape into loaves which you then put in fridge for 12 hrs.

Time to experiment more. aieeeeeee

[jackal10]

The crust can be improved by

a) Baking hotter, around 450F

b) Steam in the first minute. ASssuming its a domestic oven, put a cast iron pan in the oven to pre-heat. When you put the loaf in, pour a cup of water into the hot pan (care:super hot steam), and close the door. You might want to remove or protect any class, like the oven light first.

[DaFonz]

The crust can be improved by

a) Baking hotter, around 450F

b) Steam in the first minute. ASssuming its a domestic oven, put a cast iron pan in the oven to pre-heat. When you put the loaf in, pour a cup of water into the hot pan (care:super hot steam), and close the door. You might want to remove or protect any class, like the oven light first.

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I was baking it at 500f..

yah I think that might have something to do with it.. I did have a tray with water in it.. but it was cold so it took a while to steam it. I think next time i'll boil some water and put hot water in. I also misted the bread loaves so I think that helps?

[jackal10]

If its a 500F, then the crust look light...have you checked your oven temperature with a thermometer? Maybe you should bake a little longer.

Its he burst of superhot steam at the beginning that gelatinises the outside of the dough. You need something like a cast iron pan with plenty of heat capacity that you pre-heat dry and then into which you put the water so it almost instantly turns to hot steam. Steam after the first minute or so is not the same at all.

Edited January 23, 2006 by jackal10 (log)

[DaFonz]

If its a 500F, then the crust look light...have you checked your oven temperature with a thermometer? Maybe you should bake a little longer.

Its he burst of superhot steam at the beginning that gelatinises the outside of the dough. You need something like a cast iron pan with plenty of heat capacity that you pre-heat dry and then into which you put the water so it almost instantly turns to hot steam. Steam after the first minute or so is not the same at all.

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oh no! yet another thing to buy! The recipe called for a pizza stone preheated for 45 mintes and then the bread to be baked for 20 minutes. i did it without a pizza stone for 28 so perhaps longer? I'm not quite sure how long to bake things for (I was using a thermometer to check the internal temp).. and it read 208 i believe? Whatever my recipe called for.

Thanks for hte tip on the water! I knew that a crisp crust had to do with water evaporating off the crust, but never knew you had to presteam it. Would I get the same effect if I waited say.. 10 minutes for the water to steam and then putting it in.. or do I HAVE to do it the way you described?

[jackal10]

The steam has to hit the relatively cold dough in the first minute or so of baking. After that the outside of the dough has warmed above 80C/130F and the starch become fixed.

Painting or spraying the dough with water before it goes in the oven gives some of the same efect, but its not really the same as superheated steam condensing on the dough surface.

Steaming 10 mins into the bake is relatively pointless, and will also cool the oven at a critical phase

[Gul_Dekar]

Well just a thought about the 12 hour retard thing at the end of your process in the fridge. Maybe you could just skip that and do a 1 1/2 to 2 hr final proof at room temp instead just to see if it turns out better, since as Jack said it might be overproofed. I mean you already have do a sponge/pre-ferment so flavour-wise it shouldn't be too bad right? And you could always try improving that after you get the texture you want.

I do my baking on an inverted sheet pan (preheated in the oven) mostly because my baking stone's kinda small even for 2 loaves & broken into pieces. I also tend to just dump 1/2 to 3/4 cups of hot water from the tap onto the oven floor (electric) or some metal pan with the loaves baking on the middle to lower third rack of the oven to create the steam. Just have to be careful sometimes when I open it again right away (like when I forget to slash the dough right after I put it in the oven) because of the hot steam. Think heating it up when preheating the oven isn't as effective because you get a lot more steam when the water hits a hot surface and evaporates. Sorta like how when you deglaze a pan as opposed to putting liquid in a cold pan and heating it up.

[The Little Blue House]

DaFonz,

The dough does look pretty firm in the photographs and from your photos of the finished loaves (both efforts) I'd say the bread is still underdeveloped, which is leading to both the tight crumb and the pale color of the crust. You can bake an underdeveloped dough seemingly forever and it still won't look done.

But let's get back to what Mr. Lang was saying about how little you truly need to knead in order to get the results you're looking for because I believe doing that will yield the most significant results.

Try this method:

1) Combine only the flour (16 oz) and water (10 oz) in the "dough" portion of the recipe. Mix together just until combined (until all the flour looks wet) maybe 2-4 minutes, depending on how vigorously you work it. You won't have anything resembling a dough, maybe a sticky, gloppy mass. If it's still very dry and shaggy, it crumbles and falls apart, add a little bit more water until it holds together.

2) Cover and wait for 10 minutes.

3) The dough should now feel more hydrated. Maybe if you stick your finger in it and pull up a piece it'll stretch a little before it breaks, maybe not. Add the remaining yeast to the sponge stir it in a little (by the way your sponge should look like a batter), then add all of this to your dough. Mix it in again until you get a relatively homogenous mass, another 2-4 minutes. At this point you really should have something that's wet rather than dry to the touch. Don't worry if it's not super smooth though.

4) Cover and wait another 10 minutes.

5) Mix the salt with... Wait where's the salt in this recipe? Very important. Mix the salt with a little bit of water to dissolve it (maybe a tablespoon or two), then add this to the dough and knead for another 2-4 minutes, until the salt crystals are completely dissolved. You should feel the dough tighten up almost immediately with the addition of the salt, it will feel dryer and you should notice the dough being more elastic and smoother and just plain dough like after the rest. It may even pass the windowpane test at this point.

6) Proceed with the recipe from here but remember to subtract 10 minutes from the rising time to account for that little rest before the salt got added. It is also advisable to "turn" the dough using the stretch-and-fold method (I know there's a description and even pictures of it somewhere so somebody please post a link!) 2-3 times during the rise at maybe 10-15 minute intervals. These turns would be in place of any "punching down" or degassing the recipe may have you do. Just count the whole thing before you shape the loaves as one long fermentation time.

Hope this helps.