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Questions? Start with the Search Bar: I’ve been posting recipes and answering questions on this site since 2007, so if you have a question, there’s probably a post that addresses it somewhere on this website. So, the first thing to do is to use the Search Bar on the Home Page. In narrower laptop or desktop displays, it sometimes appears right underneath the orange BreadIn5 logo, and on phones it’s right above where it says “How to make bread in five minutes a day?” Just type in the bread style, ingredient, or technique that you’re interested in, and the search-engine will show you posts on the topic, with recipes and answers to many questions.
Another place to look: the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) page (there’s also have a Gluten-Free FAQs page). If you don’t find your answer in the FAQs, you can post baking questions and comments, but please be brief, so I can get to all the questions.
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Questions are answered here on the website within 24 hours, often with a reference to a page number in our books where possible. Please remember that the blog is moderated, so your post may not appear until I’ve read and approved it; this can take 24 hours.
Hi!
Zoe just posted about making bread and I remembered I have your GF book on my shelf so I mixed it yesterday morning and today I just made a loaf of the GF basic flour mix bread. I think my remaining dough in the fridge is too dry. Can I add more water to it before I bake the next loaf?
Also, I chose to do sorghum and the starches along with 1/2 white rice and 1/2 brown rice for the rice flours. And, sadly I overworked the first loaf I shaped so it baked really dense. I know to be delicate for the next loaf!! Would that combo of rice flours along with the use of psyllium husk (not xantham) impact texture as well?
Thanks!!!
I’m not sure it’s overworking. On page 61, I talk about how if you’re swapping in brown rice flour, you need to add a little more water to the dough. Two tablespoons? I’m not sure how well it’s going to work putting it in after the fact. You’re going to knock a lot of the gas out of the dough. If you do that, maybe use this batch for flatbread?
The psyllium is not the problem either, at least that’s my best guess
I had a food possessor issue and lost some the water . I didn’t add enough water back so now I have dry dough in my refrigerator bucket. How do I add more water at this stage? Thanks!
You should be able to just mix it in, but I have no idea how much, because I have no idea how much you lost!
Ok. Thanks. I should have mentioned I’m also using a bread dome ceramic vessel to bake the bread. Now that it’s been in the fridge for four days the remaining dough will be tasty no matter the texture. I think what was most obvious to me is that the dough once combined was never “stringy” or “stretchy” like it looks in your photos. I think I’ll use the mixer rather than my hands the next time I mix the dry in with the wet ingredients. And I’ll look for flat options for today’s bake.
Once you get the hydration right, everything will follow
I live in Colorado, tried the master recipe for the Boule bread multiple times. I followed the recipe and each time when I baked the bread, it did rise, but when I portioned it to be baked and let it rest before baking it didn’t rise at all (which you communicated in the book), but it was very dense and felt like a “hockey puck”, very hard to cut too. I couldn’t make it look like on the cover of your book GF Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day. Do you have any suggestions?
Are you making any substitutions at all, including in the flour-brand? How are you measuring? Are you using a stand mixer (better results)? Does the dough look like it does in this video? https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2015/03/03/gluten-free-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-the-video/ Also, what altitude are you at?
Hi Jeff,
thank you for your reply. I use the Bob Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour. For the yeast I use Bob’s Red Mill active dry yeast. I use a stand mixer and I followed the measuring instructions from your book, using a knife to top off the measuring cups. I watched the video that you attached and the dough looks like in the video.
We are at 6,035 feet altitude.
Ah, that explains it. I never got good bread results with the Bob’s Red Mill GF pre-mixed product (known as “1:1”), and had the same experience with all the other commercial pre-mixes. They’re meant for cookies and sweets, not bread, which needs a level of structure that these don’t provide. That’s why I developed the custom mixes, which yes, are based on Bob’s flour products, but the content and proportions are not the same as the commercial pre-mixes. As you see in the book–I don’t use 1:1 GF flour or any other mix, you have to use my approach on pages 59 through 62, or you get hockey pucks, as you’ve found.
Great, I will go by the custom mix in the book then and no longer use the Bob’s Red Mill flour mix. Thank you so much for the quick response, Jeff.
Are freshly milled wheat berries measured differently than store bought whole wheat flour? This would be in reference to making your recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Plain and Simple.
Thank you! We’ve had great success with you original book (lovely baking smudges throughout!) and just purchased your Healthy Bread book.
It all depends on how your fresh-ground level of “grind” (fine to coarse) compares with commercial WW flour. There can be tremendous variability. Plus, there’s a second variable: how much moisture remains in the “berry” before grinding, as compared to commercial, which is very uniform (it’s always pretty dry). So you’re going to have to experiment; I’d start with commercial WW, see how the dough is supposed to look, and then move on to your fresh-ground. See my post on this at:
https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2009/11/11/using-fresh-ground-whole-wheat-flour-and-some-highlights-from-our-book-tour/
I have a question, I made the Artisian Master Recipe for Whole Grain Artisan Free-Form Loaf, the bread tastes terrific but after a 90 minute rest the bread had almost run off of the peel. I used King Arthur Whole Wheat flour and King Arthur AP flour and increased the water to 965grams per the instructions. I aslo added Vital Wheat Gluten. The dough worked easily and I thought I had nicely shaped loaves of about a pound each. Rested for 90 minutes under a metal bowl and …. slump. I got a little oven spring but not very much. Thoughts appreciated.
Kevin James
Sounds like it’s just too much water relative to the flour, and you’ll be fine decreasing it until it’s not so loose. Are you weighing the flours in addition to the water? If so, just decrease the water to 4 cups/2 lb/910 grams. Any chance you made a measurement error though? Reversed the amounts for AP versus WW flour?