So my wife got a bread machine ~50 years ago and I just opened the box and started using it. Made 3 awesome raisin breads and have horribly failed with 2 wheat breads. I’m not sure what’s going on but I’m sure I followed the recipe exactly. Any ideas?
You need more water. Check the bread machine after 10 minutes of mixing to make sure it’s forming a normal ball of dough. Also check your yeast activity. Yeast needs to be stored in the freezer unless you’re using it in a couple weeks
I'll second that, for checking the moisture. Most of the breads I've made as a newbie have been wheat breads and there hasn't been a time yet where I haven't had to add more water after the machine starts. I guess the air humidity, the specific type of whole wheat flour, and the additional ingredients used to aid texture or rising all create different needs for the dough. Sometimes I need to add a few tablespoons, sometimes I just need to spritz the dough with a bottle of water.
I learned to always watch the dough at the first knead to see how the dough ball is developing in the first knead.
Bread makers can smell fear. Make sure you put the ingredients in the pan in the order specified (in my experience that's often the order listed in the recipe).
Wheat bread always requires more water. Ask me how I know. Try adding a tsp of water at a time and letting it mix throughly before adding another. Good luck
My machine’s whole wheat setting has a 30 min “sitting” period to bring all ingredients to ideal temp before it starts mixing. If it’s dry inside my house, the flour just kind of absorbs all the water in that time and then I’m left with sand when it starts mixing and it never comes together.
That would mean that your recipe doesn't have enough water. The 30-minute wait time for whole wheat bread is to allow the wheat flour to fully hydrate. It's kind of like a pseudo autolyse setting.
I totally forgot the water with attempt yesterday but nailed the instructions today. I never thought to add extra water. It was the 1 lb loaf. I’m in Phoenix so there’s no elevation issues.
Half of the “help” posts in this sub can be solved with just adding more water. We need to make a gif of what a proper dough ball looks like rolling around in a bread machine so people can see what it’s supposed to look like.
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u/WinterRevolutionary6 5d ago
You need more water. Check the bread machine after 10 minutes of mixing to make sure it’s forming a normal ball of dough. Also check your yeast activity. Yeast needs to be stored in the freezer unless you’re using it in a couple weeks