Bread making question

raewyn64, Apr 20, 12:35am
I am thinking of being a little adventurous this weekend and try to make a couple of different tyes of breads.
My question is, if I make one and have it doing its rising thing, then I make another and set it to rise and maybe a third, and I want to put them in the oven together, by the time the third one has risen will the first one still be ok in its risen state or will it have sat for too long!
Does that make sense!
Thanks for any tips and suggestions - I usually let the breadmaker do the work :)

lilyfield, Apr 20, 12:41am
you could always punch the first one back and rise again, it will be much faster in catching up with the third.

cappucino1, Apr 20, 12:44am
It is possible to over rise bread.Bread rises best in the warm so you can slow down the rising by putting it in a cooler place.If you make the three batches as close as possible to each other then it would be possible to have them ready to bake at the same time.

You can test where the bread is at in its rising by pushing your finger into the dough.If it springs back straight away and the indentation made by your finger disappears then it is still rising.If the hole stays then it has finished rising.

I would just keep an eye on it and if you think that the first batch will have finished rising before the third is ready then you could try and move the first to a cooler place for a while to slow it down.

raewyn64, Apr 20, 12:45am
Thanks for that. So I would normally make the dough, put it in a warm place to rise, then punch it back, let it rise again then bake (is that right)! So you are saying I add a second punch and rise on the first dough which should get it to rise again about the same time as the third loaf!

raewyn64, Apr 20, 12:46am
cappucino1 thanks for that - that makes a simple solution of moving it somewhere cooler and thanks for the tip on testing the dough.
Off now to find some interesting flour for the breads.

cappucino1, Apr 20, 12:49am
Yeah normally you knead then rise, then punch back, then shape the bread ready for baking and then rise again.If you wanted to you could add another punch back but I don't think you need to, I think that as long as there is not too much time between them then just moving it to a cooler place to slow down or stop the rising will be fine.There is usually a lot of variation in the time that bread takes to rise anyway so you would have to leave it for a long time in order to over rise it.

raewyn64, Apr 20, 12:49am
thanks so much for that I will give it a try :)

raewyn64, Apr 20, 12:52am
can i ask one other question. In the breadmaker I use Edmonds Surebake yeast (the one with the red lid). Is that ok with what I want to do now!

cappucino1, Apr 20, 12:59am
Yes, that's what I always use.As long as it still has a long enough shelf life left on it (not almost up to its date) then it shoulf be fine.You can get active dried yeast if you want to, it comes in a container the same as the surebake but it is more granulated.

You can also test the yeast that you have to make sure it is still OK by adding 1/2 teaspoon of sugar to 1/2 cup warm water and then adding 2 teaspoons of the yeast.Leave it form about 15 minutes and then see if it is showing signs of frothing or bubbling.

raewyn64, Apr 20, 1:01am
excellent thanks once again. I have been using it in the breadmaker and it is pretty new so I think it is fine - I shall check it when I get home just in case. I store it in the fridge.

cappucino1, Apr 20, 1:25am
Should be fine then, and if it is new don't worry too much about what happens when you test it.Sometimes I find that it froths up more than other times- it will still work in the bread.

raewyn64, Apr 21, 8:09am
so an update.
Yesterday I went out to Simplifood to get the flours. I usually get the breadmix and make it in the breadmaker. So I got some more breadmix; got some stoneground wholemeal flour and some Spelt flour. Today I cooked a loaf as usual with the breadmix in the breadmaker which came out fine. I then decided to make a loaf with the spelt flour but I decided to use the breadmaker instead of doing it by hand. Well it came out great. I have not made a loaf of bread before using flour instead of breadmix. It came up a lot higher and lighter than the other loaf. Tomorrow I am going to use teh stoneground wholemeal flour and see how it goes in the breadmaker.
So far I am happy with the results - thanks so much for your help yesterday.