Dough/bread Improver

I am looking at trying it out tomorrow on a wholemeal/granary base mixture recipie.Will let everyone know how it turns out.

You are of course correct.
We must remember that the  improver is essential in the commercial manufacture of bread.
You can of course have it both ways and I am in the process of a 24 hour ferment with half the flour, after which, the rest of the flour plus improver will be added.

I find that the improved texture and keeping properties make the improver a worthwhile addition to the bread that I make.
Adding improver is the only way I have been able to make a 100% wholemeal loaf that was light.

Frank

That seems to be a problem for a lot of people. I've always managed to make 100% wholemeal loaves as light as any white loaf I've made but, because it's always been that way, it's not really possible for me to figure out why! I can only assume that it's down to the very strong Canadian wholemeal flour I use.

'Artisan' really just means that it's made by hand but the term has, for some time, been used of bread to indicate that it's made the traditional way, which includes the long proving you mention. I suppose it's almost another way of saying 'real bread'.

Long proving does many things that make bread what it is, or should be. During the long proving acid bacteria develop which partly digest some of the dough's starches, making the bread easier for us to digest. They also produce that tangy taste, which at least one of Kenwood's recipes suggest you simulate by adding vinegar to your ingredients. It also allows all of the yeast in the dough to be fully-fermented, ensuring that none remains in the baked bread. High yeast intake, associated with the large amounts of yeast used in modern accelerated bread-making processes, it has been suggested, may be a contributory factor in the rise in Candida overgrowth over the last fifty years.

There's more information here: http://breadmatters.com/, especially under the menu option "Advocacy", from where I've condensed the above information. It makes facinating reading for anyone that's interested in bread and breadmaking.

Follow the link to the Bread Matters site. Go to the Advocacy page and read the document Bread & Time. As I said, it's from there that I condensed the information

Email Andrew Whitley and tell him. He's very approachable and will definitely be interested in correcting a mistake or misleading statement if someone points it out.

I understood it to mean that, having used up all of the available food (and with a little help from the salt, of course), no live yeast remains in the baked bread but I can see that what's written could easily mislead.

Last edited by FloweryHans (01-02-2010 05:43:21)

I understand that salt plays some part in the process.

Do let us know what Andrew Whitley says.

Well lots been happening while i'm playing bread & being ill. I made it with the improver it is much lighter almost the texture of a white,you could say a more open texture not dense and heavy. But shape wise i am still not happy with it there is still some improvement to be made. I made it in  my bread maker (kenwood 450) will give it another go to get the shape right.

Miss Merrywidow -You can get the Improver from Lakeland the cost about 7.99 ( for 200gms(Claybrook Mill Dough Improver),that was where I got mine. Internet they sell in large bulk quantities if you have someone else to share with thats o.k, that what I found.

Thank u Frank1 for the info.

I finally have had fantastic success in wholemeal/seeded loaf bread. Even my fussy daughter who usually dont eat wholemeal/brown bread loves it. She even had 2 large slices of them could not get enough of them.This I added 1 tsp of dough improver to the flour. It certainly made alot of difference to the texture of the bread. It becomes more like a white bread texture. light, open and not heavy. and wet and dense like you expect ite to be.

It was certainly worth it all the try outs. For all those bread bakers out there dont give up if your first,2,3 or 4th attempt was not successful just keep tryin it and changing one thing at the time so you can keep track what you change 1st, 2nd and so on.

Keep Baking!!

Your Dad sounds like he was a wonderful man and excellent baker. Us "Old-timers" who use sourdough never need any of these new-fangled improvers.

Have you checked out the sourdough thread

This is all very interesting as a retired bakery lecturer I would have loved to have had you all as my students because I always liked the ones who asked questions and challenged concepts and came up with ideas. We used to do test baking with our Technology students where we deliberately changed recipes eg from no salt in a dough to high levels of salt. We then compared the finished loaves against a loaf made with the correct amount. By doing this the students were able to appreciate why recipes were formulated in a specific way and what happened when the recipe was changed. This helped them in the future when they had bad batches of bread because they would be able to identify the faults. A very good book, if you can get it, is The Students Technology of Breadmaking & Flour Confectionery by W. J. Fance a former head of baking at a college. It covers everything from ingredients, faults, methods and formula.
I would agree that bakers are scientists as everything that I bake has it's own basic formula which I convert into a recipe to make any particular size mix. From these basic formulae I can make adjustments depending on what flavour or effect I want to create in the finished product. It is only by understanding your ingredients and the interaction between them that you will make good baked products.