A lot depends on the ingredients and type of bread you make. We typically use one loaf per week of 100% whole wheat bread (or multi-grain bread) and it's nearly as fresh on day 7 as it was on day 2 because I use agave nectar for the sweetener and coconut oil for the fat. Both help to keep the moisture from migrating from the crumb through the crust. I also add chia seeds, which help with the moisture and contribute fiber and nutrition - but that's a bit of an oddball ingredient....

Storing bread in the refrigerator is the quickest way to make it stale. You may want to make 2 small loaves out of your recipe, or cut a large loaf in half - using one half and freezing the other. Staling is a whole study when it comes to bread.

-Crumbly -
*overbaked
*not enough hydration (it is better to err on the side of a wet dough than dry)
*too much flour (only add as much flour as it takes to form a nice soft dough)

-Vital Wheat Gluten -
The only time I add vital wheat gluten is if I'm using a large amount of a low-gluten flour (rye, spelt, barley, etc.) to compensate for the lack of gluten. If you use a quality brand of all-purpose flour, there is more than enough gluten to make a nice loaf of bread. Using bread flour will improve the loft, but isn't necessary.

-Slicing-
For sandwiches, I'd suggest making a sandwich-style bread recipe and bake it in a Pullman Pan (link below). Sandwich breads have a very fine crumb that not only is easier to slice, it also hold spreads better. If you are making an enriched loaf that tends to fall apart when you hold it, switch to a recipe for a sandwich loaf. There is a big difference between bread that is suitable for toasting (has a more open texture where it holds butter and jam/jelly when toasted) and sandwich bread.

A quality serrated bread knife is a good investment for anyone making their own bread. Pampered Chef has a great bread knife that is a great price as well.

-Dry (or liquid) milk-
Dairy products add protein, help tenderize the loaf, and enhances the crust color.

There is an enzyme in milk, whey and powdered milk. If you add too much of these ingredients to bread it can affect the volume, symmetery, cellular structure, and texture of the bread.

-Lecithin-
Just another of the many ingredient that became popular with the advent of the bread machine. I avoid soy products of all kinds, so this is something I just never add to bread.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: King Arthur Flour - Pullman Pan

Just lately, I have found that my recipes made with milk slice better, hold their shape better in a sandwich and do not become crumbly up to several days after baking. I saw this for real when I took an hours old loaf on our long weekend to the mountains. On day 4, it still sliced just as nicely and did not crumble at all. I used half evaporated milk from the can and half water for the liquid called for in the recipe. This was a light wheat recipe with 2 cups whole wheat flour to 4 cups unbleached all-purpose white flour.

Teresa

Grainlady - Thank you for your detailed answer. I knew you would have the information. I am going to print out your reply and put it with my recipes. I will check out the link. I bought some King Arthur bread flour today and am going to try that when I make my sourdough bread. I have never used Lecithin in making bread either. I didn't think I needed it.

Teresa - Thank you for the tip. I never would have thought of using evaporated milk. I will have to try it out sometime. I like to experiment. LOL

Clare

I agree, loaves with milk tend to stay firmer and not crumble, as do loaves with things like potatoes, butter, oil and eggs.

I've never added lecithin to anything, ever. I doubt I could buy it here anyway, even if I were inclined.

Gluten flour? Do you mean a high gluten bread flour? Or vital wheat gluten? I don't add either, but you might get a higher rising loaf with vital wheat gluten. I seldom buy high gluten bread flour, I just use all purpose, like I have for decades. I have used bread flour and even kneaded it by hand, in spite of the experts at King Arthur who say bread with bread flour CANNOT be kneaded by hand. Yeah, whatever, I've done it for years!

I never store bread in the refrigerator, it stales far too quickly, but I often freeze it. And I don't have one but Dad had a wooden box with slots that you put bread into and used the slots as guides to cut straight/thin slices.

Annie

I use my electric knife to get nice thin slices of my homemade bread. Love my gadgets, but this one is really handy.

Another thing that makes bread crumbly is not developing the gluten. Are you kneading it enough? There is, or was, a popular sandwich restaurant chain that had a nice selection of good-tasting whole-grain breads that unfortunately fell into pieces as you ate your sandwich. The gluten never developed.
As for slicing, practice helps. And for getting straight, even slices, the trick is to keep your eye on the loaf, not on the slice.

I'm happy for the tips because lately my bread has been coming out too crumbly. Now I know why.

I turn my bread loaf on its side to slice. For some reason, I can see what I'm doing better that way. Maybe it's just a quirk, but it works for me.

Sally

I make bread both by hand, in my bread machine and sometimes my KA mixer.

I always use milk, have never used milk powder. I'm not going to buy an ingredient that I normally wouldn't have in the pantry.

I also leave the bread out for a long time to thoroughly cool, and it makes it easier to slice. I used an electric knife initially, but I've found that by leaving it out, hardens the crust enough that slicing thin is quite easy. DH likes thin slices.

Both the Honey Whole Wheat and my white bread work well for slicing thin.

I wouldn't suggest storing it in the frig. We actually freeze the sliced loaf, and just pop off the slices as we need them. They come apart quite easily.

I keep dry milk in the pantry just for breadmaking. It's a LOT cheaper than fresh milk, and no one can tell the difference. Never drink it, though.

I usually keep powdered milk for when I've run out of milk. I don't know how much everyone is paying for milk but I can buy fresh milk at Quik Trip for 1.39 a half gallon. Powdered milk is actually more expensive for me.

And I HATE those boxed envelopes of dried milk. Seems I can't find the smaller box of loose dried milk anymore and Yes! the large box is very expensive!

Teresa

So many replies - thanks everyone! The overall census seems to be to use milk and don't store in the refrigerator. Remember bread boxes that were kept on the counter. I grew up with bread stored that way. You don't see those much anymore.

Annie - The bag says Vital Wheat Gluten flour. I didn't know there were different types. I have never added it before to my bread but willing to try anything. I am using it for the first time with a sourdough recipe. I have had on and off success with my sourdough bread.

bryansda - I tried an electric knife. Even went out and bought one, first one we have had in years. I ended up really butchering the slices. I guess I need more pratice or maybe a better knife. I went back to my large "amazing" Ginsu knife to slice bread.

cloudy_christine - Thanks for the tip. I tend to keep my eyes on my fingers. Me and knives - best not go there. There is a reason DH returned the electric knife.

sall2 - Laying the bread on its side, I use to do that with my old bread machine bread, but with this one the sides are all equal. Very confusing! I am putting today's loaf in a round bread pan because it is sourdough. Easier to slice too.

jasdip - Is the recipe for Honey Whole Wheat posted somewhere?

jasdip, sherrmann, ci_lantro, Teresa - I have thrown out more milk powder than I have used. I only use it in recipes. Hated the stuff as a kid. Parents made watery powdered milk it to save money. Uck! And today it is more expensive than regular milk.

Thanks again everyone. Got to go beat up some bread.
Clare

I only use powdered milk products (Morning Moo's and Grandma's Country Cream) and have large quantities of it in food storage, but when it comes to adding dry powdered milk to bread, King Arthur's Baker's Special Dry Milk is the best choice. Well worth the price. You'll see a noticeable difference in the rise of your loaves.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: King Arthur Flour - Baker's Special Dry Milk

Hi Clare,
Here's the recipe, but cut it in half for the bread machine.

HONEY WHOLE WHEAT BREAD

3 cups all purpose flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 pkg. active dry yeast
2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup honey
3 Tbsp. oil
1 egg

Grainlady - Thanks for the tip and link.

jasdip - Thanks for the recipe for Honey Whole Wheat. I will have to make it sometime.

The sourdough loaf with the 1/2 WW flour and bread flour and added Vital Wheat Gluten flour really came out great. It rose better than others have in the past. I cooked it in my enameled cast iron round 6 qt pan. Makes a perfect round loaf.

Clare

For powdered milk, I also hate buying those huge boxes of it. Fortuntely for me, stores similar to Henry's, Sprouts, Wild Oats, have bulk bins. One of the items in a bulk bin is powdered milk, so I can buy it in smaller quantities. Then I put it in a jar, mark it, and store it in the fridge to keep it fresher.

Donna

I use this recipe from allrecipes.com -

Simple Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

Ingredients

3 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
1/3 cup honey
5 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon salt
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

In a large bowl, mix warm water, yeast, and 1/3 cup honey. Add 5 cups white bread flour, and stir to combine. Let set for 30 minutes, or until big and bubbly.
Mix in 3 tablespoons melted butter, 1/3 cup honey, and salt. Stir in 2 cups whole wheat flour. Flour a flat surface and knead with whole wheat flour until not real sticky - just pulling away from the counter, but still sticky to touch. This may take an additional 2 to 4 cups of whole wheat flour. Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat the surface of the dough. Cover with a dishtowel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled.
Punch down, and divide into 3 loaves. Place in greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans, and allow to rise until dough has topped the pans by one inch.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 to 30 minutes; do not overbake. Lightly brush the tops of loaves with 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine when done to prevent crust from getting hard. Cool completely.

I use King Arthur whole wheat white flour and can slice it very thin.

Donna - Unfortunately we don't have any of those places around here. The only places that sell in bulk is health food stores like Whole Foods and it is more expensive. : >(

oasisowner - Thanks for the recipe.

Clare

Thanks for that link, Grainlady! I didn't know they had Diastatic malt powder, which is somewhat difficult to find.

I've been using my electric meat slicer for slicing bread, and it does a great job, but is not worth the cost, if that would be all you use it for. I have a Cutco bread knife that my sister gave me, and it works very well also for making thin slices.

I still store bread in the refrigerator to keep it from getting moldy - I find it gets staler from being in the freezer, but warming it in the toaster oven helps.

Lars

Lars-

Glad you found the diastatic malt, but you can make your own for pennies...

Sprout 1/4 - 1/2 cup of barley or whole wheat berries for 2-3 days - until the sprout is about the same length as the grain. Dry in a dehydrator at a low temperature -100-degrees F (don't let the temperature get over 130-degrees F or you'll kill the enzymes in the grain) - until completely dry. Mill into flour and store in your freezer. If you don't have a grain mill, you can mill small amounts of dried sprouted grain in a coffee/spice mill. Use approximately 1 t. per loaf.

You can sprout your grain in a quart jar with some netting or cheesecloth over the opening (secured with the jar ring or a rubber band). My favorite sprouter is an EasySprout (check on-line for best price). I always have a couple of them in use making sprouts of all kinds, and have been making my own diastatic malt for years now.

If you need more instruction for sprouting, I'll be happy to give the details.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: EasySprout

Thanks again!! I would really prefer to make my own malt since it is somewhat expensive and difficult to store. I will now definitely have to buy a dehydrator, but I've been wanting to do that anyway. First I'll have to find the thread that said which one was the best, and then I'll dry all sorts of things. I've been buying dried vegetables and really like them - some of them I prefer to frozen vegetables.

Back to the bread - I might add that I generally add VWG to my pizza dough, but not very much. And I do add it to rye and pumpernickel bread.

Lars

Aptosca:

I forgot the Oil in my Recipe for the last Braided Bread.

It was dry and Crumbly.
************************

Also sub Powdered Milk for Whole Milk.

If I have any Vanilla Ice Cream , I-ll throw in a couple tablespoons.

Lou

Grainlady - I love the King Arthur Flour website. I didn't know there were so many unique ingredients. It was fun to peruse the site.

Lars - I tried an electric knife and I butchered the slices. In what recipe do you use the diastatic malt? I have a great dark molasses rye bread recipe. Suppose to be like the bread you get at the Outback restaurant. I am going to try adding VWG to it next time to see if it will rise more.

Lou - Vanilla Ice Cream - interesting, I never would have thought of that. Does it make it sweet? Should you leave out any sugar or other sweetener when adding that? Does it affect the texture? I sometimes substitute powdered buttermilk powder for milk or milk powder.

Clare

Lars - I was curious so looked up diastatic malt on the web and I found this information. You can dry the sprouts in the oven instead of buying a dehydrator. I might try making my own since I already have a dehydrator.
Clare

Here is a link that might be useful: diastatic malt

aptosca/Clare-

-Be careful how much VWG you add. Too much will make the bread tough, not just give it loft, and it often takes longer to knead and develop the gluten the more you add.

-Gluten absorbs moisture like a sponge, so you may also need to use less flour if you add VWG - so go by the "feel" of the dough and aim for a well-hydrated, soft dough. Stiff dry dough will make a dry, squatty loaf.

Personally, I think you will get more loft by using King Arthur Baker's Special Dry Milk in an enriched loaf of bread, rather than adding VWG. Additional VWG is generally unnecessary if you use bread flour or even all-purpose flour.

If you've never made rye bread before, rye flour in bread dough will cause the dough to be characteristically sticky, and because of this people tend to add too much flour during kneading (especially if the rye flour is 20% of the total amount of flour, or more) to off-set the stickness - a big no-no.... A simple way to solve this problem, if you are making the dough by hand, is by placing the dough in a large freezer zip-lock bag (use a freezer bag because the plastic is thicker and takes more "abuse" from kneading).

Place the dough into the freezer-bag, press out as much air as possible before closing, and knead the dough while it's in the bag, from the outside of the bag (a la Bread-In-A-Bag - see link below). You can still adjust the hydration, but this should help keep from adding too much flour because the stickiness from the rye flour won't be sticking to your hands.

There are also kneading gloves that can be used for sticky doughs, but a freezer zip-lock bag an easy fix (and probably less expensive). When the dough has been kneaded enough, press the dough into one corner of the bag; open the bag and turn it inside out to get the dough out. BTW - this is one bag you won't want to wash and save ;-).

A mistake often made, and why the dough doesn't seem to raise as high as you'd like, is from using the wrong amount of dough for the pan size. This is also the cause of over- or under-proofing. As an example: if you make a recipe that makes 1-1/2-pounds of dough (about 3-cups of flour in the recipe) and place it in a 9x5" pan (which are generally designed to be used for loaves of quick breads), that's the wrong pan for that amount of dough - a standard-size loaf pan is a better choice - 8-1/2x4-1/2".

Jumbo pan - 10x4-1/2" - approx. 4-5 c. flour - 2+ pounds of dough
Quick Bread Pan - 9x5" - 4 c. flour - 2# dough
Standard Loaf - 8-1/2x4-1/2" - 3 c. flour - 1-1/2# dough
Medium Loaf - 7-1/2x3-1/2" - 2-1/2 c. flour - 1# dough
Small Loaf - 5-3/4x3-3/4" - 1-1/2 c. flour - 8 oz. dough

Here is a link that might be useful: Easy Yeast Breads In a Bag

I just thought of a question.

How do you know if a bread should be risen 2 or 3 times?
I've been making a recipe for white bread recently, a French bread pull and flavour, and it calls for 2 rises, shaping then a 3rd rise and bake.

They don't get as high as they should and I wonder if the yeast is worn out from all that rising.

The Honey Whole Wheat and my other white bread only calls for 1 rise, shaping, rising and baking.

jasdip, I made the recipe 1/2 for bread machine use. It tastes really great but the top fell in, I noticed there's more yeast than the typical bread machine recipe calls for, usually about 1 1/4 tsp actually, I've heard too much yeast in a bread machine causes this. Do you think for a bread machine that one whole pkg of yeast is too much? Anyone?

Arkansas girl, I've made that and other recipes using the bread machine. I typically put 2 1/4 tsp yeast in. I've baked it, and used the dough cycle. Both honey wheat and white.

I had the top fall in once, on a white loaf, but the other times it didn't and the yeast was the same.

Lars, you might try the thrift store if you have any. I always see deyhdrators.

jasdip-

How many rises depends on the type of bread you are making, type of yeast you are using, and the method used to make the bread.

Because our flour is no longer bromated, it doesn't have the extensibility it once had, so three rises may not get the best quality bread.

Multiple rises will generally give a finer texture to the bread, but if you don't carefully watch the dough you can easily over-proof it using multiple rises. I'd suggest using a dough-rising bucket so you can see exactly when the dough has achieved "double". If you are using a slant-sided bowl and playing peek-a-boo under a dish towel, it's less accurate to determine "double" than a straight-sided dough rising bucket. And if you go by a clock, it's completely unreliable - rising times in a recipe are just a good (or bad) guess. Dough rises according to the strength,type and amount of the yeast, hydration of the dough, moisture in the air, and the ambient temperature. In fact, because our flour is no longer bromated, it is suggested we only allow the dough to rise to just UNDER double.

If you are using a fast-acting yeast (SAF-Instant, Quick-Rise, Rapid-Rise, Bread Machine Yeast), they are designed to help make bread quickly and may not have the "umph" it takes for multiple rises.

Personally, I just don't take the time to do a third rise. I also don't want to risk the yeast failing. And I doubt if the average person could detect the difference in the bread. I've yet to see a loaf of bread made in 1-hour on the Quick Cycle in a bread machine go uneaten. I even have an old recipe for 30-Minute Hamburger Buns, and yes, it takes 30-minutes from start to finish. I wouldn't enter them in the fair (as a food judge at fairs, I can attest to that fact), but the recipe came in handy when a bunch of teenagers showed up unexpectedly and you had to make that 1-pound of hamburger feed the multitude by serving Sloppy Joes and you needed more buns.

There are many things you can do to influence the texture besides multiple rises.
-Using a sponge method, instead of a direct dough method.

-The ambient temperature the dough rises in will also influence the texture - either using optimum rising temperature of 75-80-degrees F, a long cool rise, or something in between.

-Whether you add the fat early in the mixing, or after the gluten has developed, as another way to alter the crumb - even using the exact same recipe.

-Grainlady

Thanks Grainlady!
I was thinking of adding more yeast, but I'm just going to try making the same recipe, but just doing the standard 2 rises, and forgoing the extra!!

I also have a large 8-cup glass measuring (cup) with straighter sides. I'll rise the dough in that. Where would one find a dough-raising bucket? Sounds intriguing.

jasdip-

I purchased food storage containers with graduated markings on the side, and a tight-fitting lid, at a local restaurant supply store in several sizes to accommodate different amounts of dough. The one I use most often is 2-quart (enough space for 2+ pounds of dough). The link below is exactly like the ones I have, but for a lot less $$$$.

Handle the dough with oiled hands and pat it into the bottom of the container. Snap the lid on tight - makes a perfect little environment that holds the moisture inside the container - it also eliminates drafts. If you pat 1-quart of dough into the container, it will be "double" when it reaches the 2-quart line.

You can also use a plastic ice cream bucket or canister of some kind. Just measure where the dough is in the container, double the measurement and mark where that is on the container. Use a grease pencil (which will rub off) or a piece of masking tape. Just be sure to mark whether the top or the bottom of the tape is the measure. Start checking the rise of the dough after 20-minutes.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: King Arthur Flour - dough rising bucket

Clare:
It does not add to the sweetness. How much sugar is in 2 tablespoons of Ice Cream ???

I have had a lot of comments about subing Vanilla Ice Cream, for Cream.

I do not have Cream on hand but always have Vanilla Ice Cream, sooooo !!!!!.

Then I Googled it and found out , I was right in my thinking.

Hello !!! all you doubting Thomasses.

LOU