www.sausagemaking.org

poppikin wrote:
It then occurred to me that it must be set in my Profile (although I did not do it) so I changed it in there and now it is fine.

Thanks

Poppikin

Excellent Well done.

Dave

jenny_haddow wrote:Poppikin

I followed exactly the same procedure as you did, so I think we are probably back to pointing an acusing finger at the machine. It's the yeast and salt that need to be kept separate in the initial stages by the way.

Jen

Thanks Jen

I have now spoken to John Lewis and will keep you posted on what happens.

You said you used Tesco strong bread flour. I saw one in Tesco yesterday (about 65p) but it said it was for baking by hand and I could find nothing about bread machines.

Is this the one you use?

poppikin

If it's in a bright pink bag, labelled strong bread flour then that's it. 65p sounds about right.

Jen

poppikin,

I recently got a Panasonic SD254 and found that by mixing the yeast and sugar in warm (not hot) water and let it stand for 10-15 min in a warm place (it should form a frothy head if the yeast is good) then just throw everything in the pan, flour first, water mix last. I got results on basic rapid bake which were every bit as good as using the full basic white cycle.
I used the medium loaf quantities (400g of flour) but a full spoon of yeast and this made a large loaf.

bidrick wrote:poppikin,

I recently got a Panasonic SD254 and found that by mixing the yeast and sugar in warm (not hot) water and let it stand for 10-15 min in a warm place (it should form a frothy head if the yeast is good) then just throw everything in the pan, flour first, water mix last. I got results on basic rapid bake which were every bit as good as using the full basic white cycle.
I used the medium loaf quantities (400g of flour) but a full spoon of yeast and this made a large loaf.

Thanks bidrick

The problem with mine is that no matter what I do, I've even bought new scales, is that the loaf is only half the height of Jen's pictured above.

Thanks to all who have struggled with me since April and I'm now hoping to have the machine replaced.

poppikin

The replacement breadmaker arrived from John Lewis and I tried it yesterday using exactly the same standard recipe from the Panasonic manual for the small M size loaf, dark crust, white strong bread flour (Hovis)

It is not puddingy as before but the top is pale while the sides are very dark and its height is only 3 inches when Jen's above looked much taller.

I think now I've got to fiddle with the recipe to try to improve it. My gut instinct tells me it needs more water and that is what I am going to try next unless someone has a better suggestion?

Thanks for help

poppikin

Oh dear!

Poppikin may I suggest that you ignore all written instructions that came with the machine or with any packeted ingredients and give this a try.

1.5 tsps instant dried yeast, eg Doves.
500 grams strong white bread flour
1tsp salt
20 grams bread improver
320mls tepid water.

Put in the machine in the order of the recipe after making sure the pan and paddle are secure.

Use the rapid setting 1hr 55mins. Large loaf, dark crust.

Give it a go and see what you get, I use these proportions and settings most of the time both wholemeal and white and mixed and my loaves are usually about 9-10inches high.

Hope this helps

chin up


Jen

Do you have any means of checking the voltage at the point the electricity is connected to the breadmaker? (If you don't know how to do this, don't try.) Cheap timers usually work off the AC cycles per second. It could be that you got a 60cps (North America) instead of 50cps. But if the replacement machine gives the same defective results, the latter guess is probably wrong.

My third thought is that the machine was a Friday afternoon job. Perhaps some of the insulation was left out. If the heating elements are controlled by a timer, things could then go wrong. May I suggest the obvious? Let the bread machine do everything up to when it starts proving. Stop it. Split the dough in half. Leave one half in the machine. Put the other half in a oven which has been warming up for five minutes - to simulate oroving temp in the machine. Compare/contrast. See what happens.

Could there be something in the water that is affecting the yeast activity??

Poppikins, have you tried bread improver in the mix?

jenny_haddow wrote:Oh dear!

Poppikin may I suggest that you ignore all written instructions that came with the machine or with any packeted ingredients and give this a try.

1.5 tsps instant dried yeast, eg Doves.
500 grams strong white bread flour
1tsp salt
20 grams bread improver
320mls tepid water.

Put in the machine in the order of the recipe after making sure the pan and paddle are secure.

Use the rapid setting 1hr 55mins. Large loaf, dark crust.

Give it a go and see what you get, I use these proportions and settings most of the time both wholemeal and white and mixed and my loaves are usually about 9-10inches high.

Hope this helps

chin up


Jen

Thanks Jen

I will try that now.

Sorry, you did tell me to do that before but the only reason I didn't was that it's a bit large for me.

poppikin

PS Replied to your email, hope you got that.

beardedwonder5 wrote:Do you have any means of checking the voltage at the point the electricity is connected to the breadmaker? (If you don't know how to do this, don't try.) Cheap timers usually work off the AC cycles per second. It could be that you got a 60cps (North America) instead of 50cps. But if the replacement machine gives the same defective results, the latter guess is probably wrong.

My third thought is that the machine was a Friday afternoon job. Perhaps some of the insulation was left out. If the heating elements are controlled by a timer, things could then go wrong. May I suggest the obvious? Let the bread machine do everything up to when it starts proving. Stop it. Split the dough in half. Leave one half in the machine. Put the other half in a oven which has been warming up for five minutes - to simulate oroving temp in the machine. Compare/contrast. See what happens.

Thanks for your reply beardedwonder5.

I think the original machine was a Friday afternoon job but this is a good one and I've just got to persevere with the recipe now.

poppikin

Mike D wrote:Could there be something in the water that is affecting the yeast activity??

Poppikins, have you tried bread improver in the mix?

I feel the problem I am having now is to do with the water, can't be anything else really.

The water here is very hard and chalky. Would that affect the yeast?

Jen suggested before that I get some bread improver and I am going to try her recipe now.

poppikin

Thanks everybody for help.

poppikin

Why not get a bottle of still mineral water and try that when doing your next loaf - a process of elimination.

Just to reinforce and earlier post by Jenny, I too, use the bread flour from Tesco in the bright pink bag - always worked great for me.

Mike D wrote:Why not get a bottle of still mineral water and try that when doing your next loaf - a process of elimination.

Just to reinforce and earlier post by Jenny, I too, use the bread flour from Tesco in the bright pink bag - always worked great for me.

Thanks Mike and I will do that but I'd be interested if anyone knows whether hard chalky water could affect the yeast?

Jen's recipe loaf has about 1/2 an hour to go so am keeping everything crossed.

poppikin