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The main reasons I found for lack of rise in my bread are, in order of
importance:
1) Ingredients are too cold: warm up the water in the microwave (or by
whatever other means) first. Once I did that, the bread started rising
quite well.
2) Pre-knead the dough for 15 minutes. This makes a huge difference. Just
set the machine on the cycle you want and press start. After 15 minutes,
press stop and then restart the cycle from the beginning. If you want to
make the bread on the timer, then just put all the ingredients into the
breadpan EXCEPT for 1 cup of flour and the yeast. Let the machine knead the
stuff in the breadpan for 15 minutes and then press stop, and add the last
cup of flour, add the yeast on top, and set the timer.
3) Not enough liquids: there, one has to be careful. Not enough liquid will
prevent the bread from rising well, but too much liquid will make it rise
well, but then it will collapse. This is especially true with Rye bread.
Too much liquid will make it so that the insides of the bread will spill
out when you removed the bread at the end of the cycle.
4) You use gluten, so this might not matter. But just in case, make sure
your wheat flour is made from hard wheat. You should not have to use
gluten. For the rye bread, gluten should also not be necessary, but if you
really like fluffy bread, then add it anyways.
Yields
1 Servings