From my experience, salt retards yeast growth and sugar encourages it. I'm not sure if I would reduce salt and yeast proportionally the same, but you probably can reduce the yeast somewhat when reducing the salt. I have not added ascorbic acid or vinegar to my bread dough, and so I do not know how that would affect the yeast, but it's possible that it retards it the same way salt does. I only add gluten when I add whole wheat or low gluten flour.

I've often read that you can reduce or eliminate salt in yeast breads with no impact other than flavor. Salt does have a retarding effect on yeast, so I agree that you may be able to reduce the amount and get similar proofing results. Not reducing the yeast somewhat might result in faster rise and/or stronger yeast flavor and less depth or complexity of flavor.

The Vit C, gluten and additional yeast and sugar may give the fellow a bread he likes without using salt -- the yeast, salt and Vit C would all impact the resulting flavor, but most bread bakers I know would say not in a good way. But that's a matter of preference -- adn there are a million ways to make bread because folks don't agree -- or want just one version.

If you are happy with reducing the yeast along with the salt, I'd keep doing what you are doing. If you want to try the other approach once to compare, I'd just make a single loaf until you know which method you prefer.

Shambo, in general I agree with you, salt will retard the growth of yeast, and so less salt can/should result in allowing a recipe to be made with less yeast.

As for the experts, well, they seldom even agree with each other. I know King Arthur Flour said for years that bread made with bread flour couldn't be successfully kneaded by hand. Yet, somehow, I managed to do just that for years. And they were the only ones that I could find that said that.

Other experts explained that I couldn't possibly freeze unbaked bread dough, it would kill the yeast (although commercial companies can do it). I did find that the yeast gave up after a couple of months but I can easily freeze dough for a month or so with no apparent ill effects.

I do not like added acidity in my bread, I can taste the vinegar/lemon/whatever. Others say they can't even taste it.

I say go with what experience shows works for you, and ignore the "experts". They'll say something else entirely tomorrow anyway. I remember when no one would consider making yeast bread without kneading it, it just wasn't possible. Yet now, no knead yeast breads are all over the internet. It's all about what is currently popular, gotta follow the fads, you know....

Annie

The rule-of-thumb I was taught in several bread classes when you reduce the salt, reduce the yeast by the same percentage. If you reduce the salt by 25%, then reduce the yeast by 25%. The second part of the equation -- make sure you keep an eye on how the dough rises, because there-in is where people can make a mistake. The suggested time for the rise may no longer apply. Dough is ready when it has doubled in bulk no matter how long it took.

I think the low-sodium instructions are rather "odd". You won't need more sugar for the yeast.... The carbohydrates in flour are just fine for that action (think Italian/French breads). I'll have to do a little more looking on the subject, and just hope I haven't donated the books.... If there is one rule for making bread, you'll find all the rules are broken sooner or later if you look at enough recipes ;-).

-Grainlady

I don't measure my yeast....well I do the "palm full" thing but never get out a measuring spoon.
If you make bread very much you will discover that as little as 1/2 tsp of yeast will successfully raise bread containing 4 cups of flour, if you wait long enough. Very often I will make a recipe containing 4 cups of flour with 4 teaspoons of years....that dough just jumps right up.
Yeast grows.....give it time, a warm moist place, a little carbs to eat....not too much salt and it will make bread for you.
Do you know you can "make yeast" out of flour, water and just what you catch out of the air?...Once you have captured some yeast, feed it, keep it warm and soon you will have enough yeast to make a whole bakery full of breads.
Don't worry about measuring your yeast....just wait long enough....it will do it's thing.

Linda-

What you are making with flour and water is a leaven (a natural leavening agent - aka starter or sourdough starter), rather than "yeast" - but I understand why you, or others, call it "yeast". The single-celled organism - yeast - is already present primarily on the grain the flour was milled from (which is why using a whole-grain flour is preferred to processed bleached/unbleached flour), and to a lesser extent in the air and also on every surface. You simply hold it in a friendly environment and foster it to make more. You can also use a lump of dough from your last batch of bread to leaven the next batch of dough. You can wrap that lump of floured dough in a piece of cloth and bury it in more flour to use later as a "starter".

Before we had the varieties of baker's yeast we know and use today, a natural leavening agent, often called "yeast", was also made with any number of ingredients, including hops and potatoes, but also the so-called "wild" yeast from peach tree leaves, the leaves from cabbage (that silvery/gray film on the inside of the leaves), and also grapes or grape skins (also that silvery/gray film on the outside of grapes), cornmeal, and a number of other things. It was made into both liquid and dry forms.

I've made salt-free bread for a friend on a low-sodium diet using a natural leaver. So, yes, it will rise without salt. Although, at least with our hard water, we do have some sodium in our tap water that will contribute at least a tiny amount of sodium.

-Grainlady

From what I've read, the wild yeast that we feed up in sourdough starter is one particular strain, no matter what and where it came from, but that's after it's had a chance to duke it out with the other organisms, so there might be many others as well in a freshly made starter. Commercial yeast is a different strain.

As to the additives, I often use Vitamin C as the acid for soaking my freshly milled whole wheat. Because it's easiest. One jar of crystals may outlast me. I can taste it--it makes the bread ever so slightly sour, like sourdough (which is also acidic)--but it's pleasant in the breads I use it in. Since fresh flour is so sweet, it gives it some balance.

I don't know what the large amount of acid in Shambo's guy's bread is for. Wouldn't it be better at that point to make sourdough if it's for flavor? King Arthur makes sourdough flavoring for people who want the taste without the technique. :) Or does the acid fool your tongue into thinking it's salty?

BTW, one of my favorite breads is Tuscan bread, which has no salt. It's perfectly normal bread, just flour, water, and yeast. It's often eaten with salty things, though (think Tuscan tapanades, cured meats, etc.).

It seems to me that everything this guy was doing was trying to mimic the kind of bread baking he's used to, rather than learning different breads and methods more suitable to his ends He may be a low salt expert, but that doesn't make him a bread expert. So the acid to provoke the salty taste, the more yeast and sugar to promote a really fast rise, and the gluten to help sustain the rise that's happening too fast.

The only bread I put any kind of sweetening in is a highly enriched challah.

My point in the above post was that yeast grows....you put some in with stuff it eats, like flour and it grows. The longer you wait the more yeast....unless you run out of food, or the dough gets so acedic that the kind of yeast you have used won't grow.

Thanks for your comments. I should have originally described this guy as a self-proclaimed expert. And as Pllog pointed out, "He may be a low salt expert, but that doesn't make him a bread expert." I guess that's my quibble with him. If salt is reduced or eliminated, I cannot understand increasing both the yeast and sugar as a result. Especially if the bread is being baked in a machine. It seems to me that the dough would definitely overproof and then collapse during the baking cycle. I think his many bread machine recipes just set up people who genuinely want lower sodium bread for failure . A majority of his bread recipes complete the entire bread-making process, from kneading to baking, in a bread machine.

Here's his full recipe for white bread. It makes two loaves, so it's just kneaded and proofed in the machine.

Best White Bread

"This recipe may rise high enough to push on the lid of your bread machine. This bun/bread will excite your whole family. It’s soft, great texture, perfect for burgers or
sandwiches and closer to commercial feel than any we’ve done before.

2 cups filtered water, warmed to (105o F - 110o F) (trace)

1 whole egg

6 tablespoon
extra-virgin olive oil (trace)

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/3 teaspoon ascorbic acid (trace)

5 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons soy flour or granulated soy lecithin

2 tablespoons potato flour

3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten

2 tablespoons white granulated sugar (trace)

2 tablespoons malted wheat barley

1 tablespoon plus 1
teaspoon bread machine yeast

Agreed with Linda. So long as it has moisture, food and warmth, as well as a comfy bed, yeast will grow, eventually. On bread machine timing, however, it may not.

So, I will start by saying I don't know anything about the quirks of bread machines other than I know there are quirks, and they do require instant yeast = rapid rise.

Having said that, and understanding that my hand made dough reactions may be wrong, what I see is a lot of sugar for a two pound loaf/two one pound loaves (assuming the size from reading previous bread machine threads). The malt is also sweet, though gives malt flavor and can help the rise if it's the right kind. That's a lot of yeast. That's a huge amount of VWG. I don't know what the potato flour is for--is it potato starch or something more like bread flour? In that quantity it seems harmless, anyway. That's a lot of ascorbic acid, which is usually measured by the pinch. Must be for the flavor and maybe to retard mold. All that oil and all that yeast are fighting each other. That may be the reason for the VWG. The oil shortens the gluten. The yeast is trying to stretch it. I'm no expert here, though, and will defer to Grainlady.

Frankly, it reads like the guy just mad scientisted his way through, throwing in this and that until he liked the flavor and it came out okay. Which doesn't make it a bad recipe, necessarily, just a weird one. I'm sure a far simpler recipe can be made in a bread machine.

Pllog, I forgot to ask. Would you mind sharing your recipe for the Tuscan salt-free bread? I'd like to give it a try. Thanks!

Bread is so very simple.......don't make it hard. When you use a bread machine you limit yourself....just add yeast flour and salt to water....mix it up and wait a while.....shape the result into loaves and bake....voila! Bread.
When you get the basics figured out...like adding and subtracting, you can start with the higher mathmatics.

I don't really have a good recipe of my own for Tuscan bread. My very favorite was a commercial brand that was whole wheat, but I can't get it anymore, so was trying to replicate it. It's a basic bread, so you can get recipes in Reinhart, Leader, King Arthur, and all kinds of places on the 'net. My notes from when I was working on it make me think that the original recipe came from Daniel Leader's Local Breads. I had thought that it might have http://www.virtuousbread.com/ but I can't find it there.

The kind of Tuscan bread we get in restaurants has more flavor than one would imagine (certainly a lot more than the "bland" tag that most put on it). I have a feeling they use the old dough method, as well as a long rise. I wouldn't advise trying quicky methods without adding some kind of flavor. Malt, herbs, rye, spices, aliums, etc., can enhance it, since you won't be eating it with salty things.

Linda, I wish you could talk to that guy. I'm with you. I think he's making the whole thing way too complicated. Plus I don't think he understands the breadmaking process in the first place. I've read other things he's written, and he's coming from the premise that lessening or omitting salt means that bread dough won't rise well. So he adds extra yeast, and then extra sugar for the yeast, and on & on it goes.

I figure if he doesn't understand what's going on, I'm not going to follow his recipes. And I don't. I usually use recipes from this forum or KAF and just cut both the yeast & salt in half. As I said earlier, that approach means that I can make pretty much whatever bread I feel like making. I don't limit myself to salt-less recipes.

I just get steamed when he keeps perpetuating misinformation and making things so darn complicated. People who follow his website or buy his many cookbooks may end up having difficulty making decent low sodium bread on their own, especially if they try to bake loaves in a bread machine. All that yeast & extra sugar plus no salt whatsoever means the dough will probably overproof and then collapse in the machine. It's easy to catch dough before it overproofs when it's sitting on your counter and you can see it easily. It's a whole other story when you've got a bread machine. Yet most of his recipes are for machines. His idea is that bread machines make producing low sodium bread really easy. As long as you follow his foolproof recipes, that is.

Anyhow, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

Can your husband have some salt in bread of none?
Why are you using a bread machine? is it easier to wash than a bowl a spoon and your hands?
If my dough has over proofed I put it back on the board, beat it flat and re-shape. Smells a little "boozy" while baking and tastes a bit "yeasty"....but it's fine....and for people who love that yeasty taste, beyond "fine".
I have just shaped and set to rise the last of last week's bread and made a batch of this week's bread. I am considering making a batch of no salt bread while my kitchen is a mess....but heaven knows, I have done that....but not on purpose!
Not at all sure what all the worry about salt yeast and sugar is....I have made bread, as I usually do, and forgotten the salt. Never knew it until I tasted it....
Flour water yeast....give it time and a warm spot and you will have dough.

Linda, I make bread with half the salt called for in recipes. I don't see the need to make 100% salt free bread. I use my bread machine as others do, mainly for kneading. (Although during our hot summers, I often bake in the machine too.) If there are not more than 5 cups of flour in the recipe, I also use it for rising. But more than 5, and I'll use my bread rising bucket. And, yes, I've done my share of accidental overproofing, punching down again, and re-shaping.

I just think this guy is making things difficult for those who've just been put on low sodium diets. He tells them to get a bread machine and then gives him recipes that may not work well in a machine. They might not know enough to diagnose their problems and feel like failures.

Hmmm, I don't use the amount of salt called for in my breads, I usually use half. I don't like tasting salt in bread. But I've never cut back my yeast. I'm going to try doing that and see what the difference is.

That's interesting. My regular "multi" bread is whole grain wheat and rye flour, with seeds and whole grains mixed in. I don't use any sweetening because home milled wheat is so sweet, but I do use a higher proportion of salt than I do for white breads. Rule of thumb is 1.8-2.2% of flour weight, and I use 2.64%. Oh, but I suppose as a percentage of total weight, rather than just of the flour it's 2.16%, so still within normal range, but on the high side. I scant salt in most baking usually. Enough for the reactions, but not usually as much as recipes say. But my multi bread needs salt. :)

Why is home milled wheat sweet?
And...Shambo, you know he's making money over making people believe making bread is harder than it really is.

Many grains are sweet. Raw rolled oats are really sweet, corn is positively sugary (hence corn syrup), and the home milled wheat flour has a sweet flavor too. My theory, given what I've learned so far, was that it was because it hadn't had a chance to start going rancid. All the experts say it can take anything from hours to a few weeks for whole grain wheat flour to start going rancid. My theory, by extension, was that the whole style of using honey with whole grain wheat was to mask the bitterness of less than fresh flour. Until I made my first efforts using wheatberries (before I got the mill), I thought my King Arthur whole wheat flour was just fine. It doesn't compare at all!

According to something Grainlady said recently, there are also some less bitter kinds of red wheat, and that may be true of the kinds that are easily available to me for home milling. It also may be that the honey thing was for these more bitter kinds of wheat. White wheatberries are less likely to be proclaimed bitter when milled, as well, but even my red wheat tastes sweet when the flour is fresh. Not sweet like oats or corn, but sweet nevertheless.

Honey in breads has other uses besides providing sweetness. Honey is a humectant.
What about home milling makes the grain sweeter? And don't wheat berries and other whole grains go rancid before milling as well as after, albeit more slowly?

Linda asked, "Why is home milled wheat sweet?". It's not the milling, it's the tannins in the bran that determine whether the grain is sweet or bitter. There are three genes that determine the bran color in wheat. Most red wheat varieties these days only have one or two of those genes, so they are not as bitter as they were a couple decades ago. The granddaddy of all hard red wheat, Turkey Red, has all three genes and is dark and somewhat bitter. White wheat varieties lack the genes that determine the bran color, leaving the taste of white wheat to be sweeter due to the lack of tannins in the bran. This is a selling point in the market for some commercial food products. It's why some brands of commercial "whole wheat bread" have a mild, sweeter, flavor than those made with red wheat varieties, as well as a very light color.

Hard wheat keeps for decades without going rancid due to the bran coating the grain. Once the bran is broken (in the milling process), then the oil located in the germ of the wheat is exposed to oxygen and that's when it oxidizes and begins to go rancid. Other whole grains that are considered "soft grains", or oily grains, can go rancid while whole. In home food storage, we only keep those grains for a few years, at most.

Honey in bread is also beneficial if you freeze your bread - helping to keep it moist; and it also aids in preventing mold growth if you aren't going to freeze it.

-Grainlady

I certainly know that different cultivars of wheat have different tastes and properties, but pillog stated that home milled flour was so sweet....that milled oats were sweet. I guess she meant that the variety of wheat she used was sweeter than other wheat not that home milled wheat was sweeter as a general thing..

It's commercial rolled oats that I said were sweet. Try some raw out of the bag.

When I said home milled wheat flour was sweet -- no "so", it's sweet as opposed to sour or bitter or salty, not so sweet like corn or barley -- I meant freshly milled as opposed to commercial like King Arthur, as I said. Ann T. has talked about getting flour from a local mill, which could be a much shorter time from mill to kitchen and just as fresh tasting. I experienced even white flour going rancid during my unexpectedly extended kitchen remodel; it was in air-tight canisters.

As to variety, again, I'm comparing red wheatberries, milled at home, to red wheat commercial flour. Most of the wheat I've bought has been from Palouse or Arrowhead Mills. Neither looks as dark, whole, as some of the wheat I remember from childhood, but the King Arthur and Gold Medal whole wheat flour doesn't look as dark either. I don't know if they're also using less red, less bitter, two-gene wheat varieties as well. It's possible.

And while I understand the good uses of honey, it isn't used much in white breads and since the Earth movement in the 1970's, at the very least, seems to be inextricably tied to whole wheat by most of the more casual bread bakers. I don't like the flavor of honey wheat bread, so I notice. :)

Interesting....actually whole wheat flour is higher in sugar than white flour, and according to the USDA rolled oats have no sugar at all. And they don't taste sweet to me. You really can't say taste is an absence of other tastes, like you can say that white is the absence of all pigment, nor that white light is a combination of all. Taste is a blend of all those components you perceive, and the latest intelligence is that taste is not on your tongue but in your nose.
What was the Earth movement of the 70's??....seems I missed that.
I use about 1 T of honey per loaf in most everyday breads. If i want to make French bread to go with a specific meal, I don't or if I am making a brioche or a challah I use sugar.

"...you know he's making money over making people believe making bread is harder than it really is."

Linda, I think you hit the nail on the head. He's creating a mystery (that only he can unravel) regarding breadmaking that's unnecessary, especially for beginners. I've received many emails from people just starting out eating low sodium and they're almost in panic mode. The "Do Not Eat" lists from doctors always place bread near the top.

They're advised to get bread machines so they can easily produce their own salt-free breads. And then they run into recipes like the one I posted earlier. So many weird ingredients with absolutely no explanation as to why they're needed. Then this guy guarantees perfection when baked in a bread machine: "This recipe
succeeds 100% of the time and produces a bread that is terrific for sandwiches, toast and other uses." Who can make that kind of promise? So if your bread is a flop, you're to blame. Somehow you didn't follow the guru's instructions carefully enough. Very demoralizing.

I use about 3000 mg's of sodium per 2 small loaves of bread. I figure that's 1500 mgs per loaf....and a loaf is easily cut into about 12 slices....so even at full salt a slice is 150 mgs. Cut the salt in half and you have about 75 mgs per slice. Dip it into good olive oil seasoned with fresh garlic and perhaps some fresh basil....and you have a very yummy low sodium treat.
Bread is basic stupid easy!! It's good I suppose to know the science behind it but it still happens when you mix flour, water yeast and a little time. Just as meat roasts without worrying about thermodynamic principles and the temperature at which cartilege gelatinizes. Might be good to know those things....but you put a hunk of meat in the oven and it will cook, stick it over a fire and it will grill

I didn't mean that it was an absence of the other tastes. Just that it tastes sweet to me in the realm of basic tastes, like olives taste salty. Oats taste sweeter to me than wheat. As you say, it's a whole complex, and I'm sure that the presence of the bran in my flour is part of what keeps it from tasting sweeter.

Re sweetening, I put barley malt in my pizza dough for flavor, and it also adds a little sweetness, but I don't put any sugar or honey or anything in daily bread. Since I do put some acid (Vit. C and/or sourdough), it does well enough for the preservative value. We hadn't used up too much of the good bread before the break from leaven before Passover, so I just threw it in a zipper bag and into the freezer. It was already a few days old, and only wrapped in the Bees Wrap. I was surprised at how fresh seeming it was when defrosted. I'm attributing that to the sourdough.

Shambo, that's awful!!! I think "guru" was a good word choice--he's trying to create devoted followers who can't live without him.

You could tell those who ask that they can try asking at Italian bakeries and restaurants where they bake their own bread if they have a salt free pane. If they can find one to buy while they're learning to take care of themselves, it'll be a boon.

Just thought to add re sweet: Fluffy white bread, whether French, "artisan", Italian, flatbread, "homestyle", or even sourdough if it's not mostly crust, tastes downright sugary to me. :)

That's the amalyse in your saliva converting the starch into dextrose and maltose which are sugars. The sugar isn't in the flour, but your mouth converts the starch into sugar when you chew.
That's why spaghetti frequently gives people digestive distress because it just slides down and doesn't get mixed with saliva and takes longer to digest.
There's not sugar in that bread to begin with but after you put it in your mouth and get some saliva on it it converts to sugar.

That's very interesting, Linda! I figured the "tastes like sugar" in white bread had to be the starch, but I didn't know it was actually converting into sugar right there in the mouth! For the record, the home milled flour just tastes sweet, not sugary, though I figure it probably is doing the same thing, though less readily from having the bran, etc.