Oatmeal Bread Question

pink_warm_mama_1

15 years ago

My oatmeal bread is delicious, but is more crumbly than it should be. How can I correct? Thank you

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Comments (3)

lindac
15 years ago
Add more vital wheat gluten and a little less oatmeal.
Linda C
teresa_nc7
15 years ago
Does your recipe call for pouring hot water over the oatmeal first and letting it sit and soak until cool? I think my recipe has the water boiling. You can also use leftover cooked oatmeal in oatmeal bread.
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grainlady_ks
15 years ago
Non-gluten and low-gluten additions such as oats/oat flour tend to make bread more crumbly - that's just a natural characteristic.

Following Linda C's advise and adding vital wheat gluten could improve the loaf, but too much vital wheat gluten will make the loaf dry and tough. I'm not a fan of vital wheat gluten UNLESS you are using an unusually large percentage of low-gluten or non-gluten flour.

You don't say what your proportions are nor what type of other flour you are using. If you are using all-purpose flour, try switching to high-gluten bread flour and see if you get different results before adding vital wheat gluten.

There are other things that contribute to bread that crumbles, including:

- Over fermentation (allowing the dough to rise too long). This may be possible because allowing a dough that has a high percentage of low- or non-gluten flour probably doesn't have the extensibility to proof to "double". I'd keep it under "double" for both the first fermentation and the final proofing before it goes into he oven. Use a dough rising bucket, rather than a slant-sided bowl, so you don't have to guess if dough has doubled or not.

- Rising conditions that are too warm. This often happens from using the pre-heated oven method and proofing dough in the oven (and failing to check the ACTUAL oven temperature before parking the dough in the oven), or the boiling water in the microwave method (also at risk for a much higher temperature for rising dough if you don't check the temperature with an oven thermometer).

- Adding too much flour. If you tend to add a lot of additional flour during kneading and get a stiff dough, too much flour to liquid ration, this can also contribute to bread that's crumbly.

As an aside... I'm assuming you are thoroughly cooling your loaf on a wire rack before cutting the loaf. If you cut into a warm loaf, you'll compromise the crumb.

-Grainlady

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Oatmeal Bread Question

Comments (3)

lindac

teresa_nc7

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