stbonner, I never just go by the recipe, the amount of flour you need to use can be more or less, depending on humidity, type of flour, lots of things. I'm still perplexed as to how someone can measure or weigh something and get the same loaf of bread every time, I never do. It's too dry or too wet sometimes and needs adjustment. Other times, it's fine and I don't need to add anything.

I check my dough after it begins kneading for consistency and adjust the liquids or solids as needed.

I seldom use the recipes in the manual, I use my own recipes and they aren't mostly bread machine recipes either. They always come out fine.

Good luck, I hope this helps.

Annie

Annie, usually can get a consistent result without adjusting the flour or water - though I always check. I'm surprised how consistent it is for the challah that I bake almost every week. I suspect that my flour doesn't vary in its water content very much because I live in a dry climate.

stboner, in addition to what Annie mentioned, a lot of us use the bread maker to mix and rise the dough but then take it out to form the loaves and bake - we can check on the bread and take it out when it is ready rather than relying on the program in the bread maker.

We use the bread maker a lot but the only recipe from its manual that we use its pizza dough recipe.

cloud swift, you're right, I never bake in the machine, I just use the dough cycle and make everything from cinnamon rolls to pizza dough to loaves to dinner rolls with the dough, but I bake everything in the oven, I prefer the texture of the crust when ovenbaked. I'm not sure the baking process would make it too dry, though, I always seem to find the dough more "steamed" in the machine, but it could be a factor that I hadn't considered.

I just use a recipe that I like and use the machine to do the "arm work".

Annie

When it comes to bread recipes (machine or manual), the flour measurements are just a good guess (and sometimes they're not even "good"). Gluten amounts in flour will vary from bag to bag and brand to brand; and gluten is a main determinate for proper hydration.

If your flour is stored in the bag in a humid kitchen, then there will be more moisture in the flour than someone who stores flour in an air-tight container in the dry environment of the freezer/refrigerator - as a secondary source for some hydration.

If you change the type of flour called for in the recipe - from all-purpose to high-gluten bread flour (or vise versa) - or you substitute part of the high-gluten flour for a low-gluten flour (rye, spelt, kamut, barley, oat, etc.) - you'll also need to alter the hydration.

As others shared, you MUST check and adjust the hydration as needed. Start checking it about 5 minutes into the mixing/kneading. You want the dough to be formed into a soft, sticky ball. A solid ball is going to be too dry. When you touch the dough ball with your finger, a tiny bit should stick to your finger. A dry or stiff dough ball will result in dry bread just like making bread by hand.

You can also switch from sugar to honey and you may find you have a crumb that is more moist.

I'm another who never bakes in the Zo - it's just my main tool for mixing and kneading. I won't even let the dough rise in the machine - I'd rather control that in a dough rising bucket. Sometimes I want a long slow cool rise, which you can never get in a bread machine. I use freshly-milled flour, so allowing a timed rise in the bread machine tends to over-proof the dough. Freshly-milled flour doesn't have the extensibility commercial white flour has. Bread machines were designed to use commercial flour in them, and I never use commercial flour. I also bake breads to temperature - checked with an instant read thermometer.

-Grainlady

Wow, you can sure tell I'm a bread rookie! Thanks for the great advice, everyone. I will try again with the machine, but check the dough (I had no idea I was supposed to do that) and also try baking the bread in the oven.