Kneading develops the gluten which makes the bread not be crumbly...for want of a better term.
Kneading CAN make bread tough if you incorporate too much flour into the bread as you knead.
There could ba many many reasons why this bread didn't rise as well as the last batch.
Linda C

Every aspect of making bread is important. If you don't do a good job of mixing the dough while it's in the bowl, then you'll have to knead longer. So start with mixing.

Add a little flour at a time to the liquid ingredients and beat it until it's all incorporated before you add more. You may end up taking anywhere from 500-800 strokes (or more). A Danish Dough Whisk is the best tool I know of for mixing any type of dough by hand. Do as much mixing in the bowl as you have the strength for. This will help with the gluten-development as much as kneading.

If you have a shaggy mess of dough you toss out on the counter, then you didn't do a good job of mixing.

You can check your gluten development by doing a windowpane test. (See link below.) It IS possible to knead too long, especially if you have low-gluten flour in your recipe. If you are making a dough that has both wheat and a low-gluten flour in the recipe, add the high-gluten wheat flour first so you have longer mixing time for gluten-development. Add the low-gluten flour last since it doesn't require the mixing time for gluten-development.

After that, it is about NOT over- or under-proofing your dough, and for that I suggest a Dough Rising Bucket so you can see when your dough is "double". A slant-sided bowl is a poor choice for checking "double" because the bottom is narrower than the top. A Dough Rising Bucket has straight sides and graduated markings on the side. When I place dough in and it pats down to the 1-quart mark, pop the lid on for that perfect little environment for rising dough, I'll know it has "doubled" when it reaches the 2-quart line.

Hope there's something there that is helpful.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Cookistry: Windowpane Test

Yep. Knead it more. I've never gotten hand kneaded dough to pass the windowpane test, but it should at least be stretchy and not break immediately when you pull it. Or you could go the "no knead bread" route where you make a very wet dough and let it sit overnight to develop the gluten.

Happy baking :-)

Get thee one of those silicon mats! Just slap it on the countertop, dump the dough on top and start kneading. The mat keeps the mess localized and gives good space to do the work. Easy clean up too. Aldi has silicon mats for cheap--I've used them repeatedly and they work just like the expensive ones! Good luck!

I agree, you CAN knead too much, but I've always worn out way before that happens, so it's not a danger. I can get hand kneaded dough to pass the windowpane test, but I usually have to get Elery to help knead.

I also think you need to knead it more. As you make more bread, you'll find that it "feels right" and then you won't need a windowpane test, or any other test, you'll just know. That takes practice, and although one loaf will always differ from another, they'll all be pretty darned good!

Seriously, though, the same recipe can differ from batch to batch. It depends on the brand and type of flour, the dryness of that flour, the humidity, the temperature in your kitchen, the freshness of your yeast, how much you knead it. Sometimes the bread gods smile, sometimes not.

A dough bucket is nice, but that's also one of those things that can come with experience. I have a glass bowl that I always used for bread and I knew how far over the top the dough needed to rise to be double. That's also something that comes with baking a lot of bread.

So, keep on baking. I made a very nice whole wheat/dill/onion loaf last night with some chicken wild rice soup but i think I let it rise a tad too long, because I got a phone call and just forgot about it, LOL. It was still good, just not "perfect". It happens.

Annie

Does how much you knead depend on how many rises you do? I don't understand the reason for doing one, two or three rises. Or what you are supposed to do between each rise.

Well, I never let my bread rise too much. And I certainly didn't forget about sourdough oven spring tonight and make a loaf that was so comically round and fat that I burst out laughing when I took it out of the oven.

John, it does get easier to knead after sitting for a while. Other than that, I'm not sure. You can certainly bake bread after one rise, but the texture may be different.

johnliu-

Personally, I'm not a fan of multiple rises. Yeast will only last so long and for each additional rise you are taking a chance you won't have enough "umph" left in your yeast for the ovenspring. I prefer a sponge, one rise (preferable at a very cool room temperature to develop flavor) and the final proof.

Our flour is no longer bromated so it just doesn't have the extensibility it once had to accommodate multiple rises. Allowing your dough to rise to "double", and anytime you allow it to go past double, is over-proofing it. So you have multiple times you can be over-proofing your dough. Be sure to keep each of the rises to just UNDER double.

Bread texture begins with mixing. Even while you are mixing by hand, as was already mentioned by jessica, let the dough sit for several minutes so the gluten has a chance to absorb the liquid, then continue adding more flour.

"Experts" suggest the gluten proteins absorb water better and consequently make more gluten if the dough temperature at the end of kneading is about 80-degrees F. This is the temperature you'll find suggested in books in the U.S., but Europeans prefer 75-degrees F. So you can experiment by taking the temperature before and after kneading.

Shirley Corriher adds 1/4 to 1/3 c. crushed ice to the sponge just before kneading, which lowers the dough temperature. She believes you get better water absorption and better gluten development with the addition of the crushed ice. Then knead it until it's 80-degrees F.

There are two goals you need to keep in mind during kneading - incorporating air and stretching proteins. If your dough is "tight" or "firm" you can't achieve either of those goals. If your dough is firm, dip your hands into a bowl of water and add more hydration to your dough while kneading to keep the dough soft. This is VERY important if you are making dough for English Muffins and you want that open texture characteristic of English Muffins.

Avoid adding a lot of flour during kneading. If you find you are adding copious amounts of flour because your dough is sticky, that means you did a poor job mixing. I'm another fan of kneading dough on a Silpat. You'll use very little bench flour.

If you wait to add your salt towards the end of the kneading, that will also shorten your kneading time. It's much easier to knead dough before you add the salt. Once you add the salt those gluten strands really tighten up. That's another method you can incorporate. I never add salt until I see the gluten is developed - whether making bread by hand or in the bread machine.

If you are using fat in your recipe, at what point in the mixing you add it will also affect the dough, gluten development, and the bread texture. If you add fat early in the mixing it coats the gluten strands and "shortens" them. Add the fat later, after the gluten has begun to develop, and you'll have a more open texture to the bread and a higher rise. Neither is right or wrong, but at what point in mixing you add the fat will help determine what your bread texture is. Add it early and you have a more closed, even, almost cake-like texture. This is great for bread you want to use for sandwiches. That texture will hold the mayo on top and won't fall apart when handled. Add it late and you'll achieve a taller loaf with a more open texture. Now you have bread that is great for toast. Those nice open spots will hold the butter and jam.

If you are using a stand mixer for kneading and you use a fast speed and then switch to a lower speed during kneading, this is bad for the gluten strands. The dough will have the same characteristics as over-kneading - the dough will be sticky and no longer elastic. Bread scientists have termed this condition "unmixing". You can remedy this by going back to the higher speed until the dough is satiny and elastic again.

By hand, good kneading takes about 10-minutes.

-Grainlady

Thank you! Your post gives me a lot of things to try. I've been doing a first rise of 3x so that is something to work on.

Grainlady, you have certainly made some interesting points about the timing of the addition of fat and salt and the number of times the dough rises. I knew it was better to add the salt a little later but the rest of your information in the last post is new to me. I have just started to use my bread maker, after a hiatus of several decades, to make dough. I've made Annie's honey wheat, the sour cream rye that Lpink posted (three times for that recipe), and a wheat and Coaches Oats recipe this last weekend. Each time I've used the whole wheat cycle because it had two rises in the machine, before the dough is shaped, while the dough cycle on my machine only allows it to rise once. The results have been good, but I would prefer a more open texture. I have just taken the dough out of the bread machine and shaped it, only once for baking in bread pans, the other times for baking directly on a stone and let it rise a third time after shaping.

I have been using the whole wheat cycle because it allowed the flour and the liquid to rest with no mixing for 30 minutes before it starts (although I have wondered how effective this is since there is no motion in the machine and the dry ingredients just sit there for 30 minutes, absorbing only some of the liquid).

The timing for that cycle is: rest 30 min, mix 5 min, knead 15 min, rise 1, 50 min, punch down 10 seconds, rise 2, 25 min. At that point I take the dough out of the machine and shape and let it rise a third time and then bake in the oven.

My other option is using the dough cycle, which I have not tried yet, the timing sequence for the dough cycle is: mix 3 min, knead 27 min, rise 60 min. Then take the dough out of the machine and shape and let rise a second time and bake.

I see your point about fewer rises and I could either try the actual dough cycle or set my kitchen time to take the dough out after the first rise in the whole wheat cycle, which would maintain the 30 minute starting rest. Of course I could put the ingredients in the bread maker and wait 30 minutes and then start the actual dough cycle.

Which timing would you choose? And at what point would you add the salt and the fat (if the recipe includes olive oil or butter)? I'm willing to experiment but would love your opinion as a starting point. You may remember my first attempt from about six weeks ago and my post saying that when I used what I thought was the appropriately sized pans, my bread rose over the top so quickly I thought something was wrong. And the advise I got on that post from LindaC who said "when it's risen, it's risen!). Since then I have watched the dough rather than the clock. But I still like to know the science of things.

So far I have kept my resolve to bake most of our bread this year, and we have not purchased any yet. It's an adventure.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Lee

lsr2002 (Lee)-

Depending on the bread recipe, I'll usually try to incorporate an overnight sponge and then I'll use the Quick Dough Cycle the next morning to finish the dough. Essentially, I only use my bread machine for mixing and kneading and nothing more.

A sponge will help lighten the loaf, especially since I use freshly-milled flour. I'll use the liquid (NO egg - I add it the next morning), about half of the flour, all the yeast, and when using whole wheat flour I'll add 1/8-1/4 t. ascorbic acid to the recipe.

The reason for adding ascorbic acid is because there is a substance in the wheat germ - Glutathione - which breaks down the gluten. The ascorbic acid powder will counteract the negative effects of Glutathione. Ascorbic acid helps to prevent the gluten bonds from breaking down. It also promotes yeast growth and your yeast will work longer and faster. The ascorbic acid produces the acidic atmosphere in which yeast grows best. Don't use ascorbic acid if you are making sourdough bread because it's already naturally acidic.

Mix the ingredients for the sponge on the Quick Dough Cycle until it is completely blended (about 5-7 minutes of mixing). Turn the bread machine off and allow the mixture to sit at least 2-1/2-hours. According to "experts", 2-1/2 hours seems to be the magic number, but as little as a 30-minute sponge will help the texture and taste of bread. I like an overnight sponge for freshly-milled whole wheat flour. It softens the bran and allows the gluten time to hydrate which results in light, high-rising loaves of bread, not those heavy bricks associated with 100% whole wheat flour loaves.

The next morning I add the remaining ingredients and the remaining flour on the top the sponge and use the Quick Dough Cycle to finish the dough. If I want the bread to have a more open texture I wait until the dough has developed the gluten during kneading, and a nice soft dough ball has formed. Set a timer, if you are like me, so I don't forget to add the fat/salt. Add it by the time the "add-in" beep sounds, if not before. You may want to give your dough a light dusting of additional flour to help the fat incorporate quickly into the dough.

I use all the same science in a bread machine that I would if making bread by hand.

I stop the bread machine and remove the dough as soon as the machine has completed the kneading. Place the dough in a dough rising bucket, snap on the lid and allow the dough to rise until it's ALMOST double. The bread machine has a timed rise, but dough doesn't rise to a clock. It rises according to the strength of the yeast, the ambient temperature, and the moisture in and around it. Not a timer. LindaC is absolutely correct "It's risen when it's risen".

Check your local library for a copy of "CookWise" by Shirley O. Corriher and read the first 100 pages if you'd like a concise look at bread-making science.

Happy baking!!!

-Grainlady

''the first 100 pages if you'd like a concise look''

That's funny. But I will. Bread is very interesting. I wish it had 1/4 the calories.

Amen. And butter, while we're at it.

Thank you so much Grainlady. I can't try the overnight sponge until tomorrow night because of my cardic rehab exercise schedule, but I will start it tomorrow night and bake on Saturday. I have long admired Ann_t's overnight breads and while she has given me a great deal of help with basic French bread, I've been timid about trying the sponge/biga method. Now I'm excited about it.

LOL Johnliu, when you have known Grainlady a little longer you will know that 100 pages on cooking techniques is nothing for her to read and absorb. And yes, I'll be looking for the book too. It is one that I've wanted to buy for several years. I'll check online to see if our library has it and then order it to buy.

Amen again JvdH! If only bread and butter had less calories.

Thanks again.

Lee

This kneading technique was recommended over at the fresh loaf. It was new to me, and I thought you might be interested in checking it out too.

Here is a link that might be useful: How to knead

Wow you guys!! Thanks for all the very insightful info.

Practice, practice, practice... Hoping to try a honey wheat loaf this weekend.

botanical_drifter