Bread in a Stand mixer

Are you saying that these ingredients, recipes and techniques don't scale down to a smaller KA "Professional Heavy-Duty 475w" 5qt mixer doing a 2-loaf recipe? When they knead their dough does it stick to the bowl and tear as the hook rotates?

Patrick

I'm using: King Arthur Bread Flour and King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour (both unbleached). Also I sometimes use a very small amount (~half cup) of Buckwheat flour (I'm a buckwheat person).

Patrick

Those bakers using machines understand the principles. of the KNEADING PROCESS ..but unfortunately for you .IMO ..YOU DON'T...!

The logic of your failure is indeed simple...that is .you are inflexible or stubborn , apprehensive , and impatient...

Inflexible...you are unwilling to try some ideas posted here

Apprehensive....you are worried that the dough is too wet that is why you dump more flour that results in your problem

Impatient- you don't have the patience to get the feel of the dough by hand by practicing hand kneading and relate that to the machine mxing and conversely ....You want to make the dough .....ONLY with machines!

If you don't understand how the dough evolves from the flour and water by doing it manually and getting the right feel about iit before you use the mixers will be difficult for your inflexible mind to grasp the basic principles of breadmaking.even if you have the state of the art machineries to do the task.

Those three defects....Inflexibility, apprehensiveness, and impatience...are the ones that you have to tackle first before ....you try to obtain the solution to your 'simple 'problem

.That are the main faults that I find from some slow to learn students when I was a part time teacher in the baking school....in the past

If you are impatient, but inexperienced and demand the result to come out consistent and perfect the first time you make a certain dough recipe .you will never get what you want.

..Please take time to think and relate to your faulty experience the guidance from many posters of your thread .

What is happening to you can be related to the Chinese saying...

.You want to drink my tea ,, then empty your cup first so I can pour my brew into it... That is the way it is...

If you insist in your way that literally your cup is full ( or you think that you are already knowledgeable?) and don't want to decant it as you think its as good ( or your methods is already the right one ) then this thread will end in a stalemate.....this thread will perpetuate without you absorbing anything useful from it.

You want to profit from the posters ideas here.....Re-read the posts and think...about it...

.Some ideas posted in the thread may not be the answer you are looking for ..but they are related to your question ..... If and only IF you exercise patience and think about it...you will realize that all posts to this thread have important views that can help solve your problem...

They don't. Baking recipes don't scale as readily as most others. But you're missing the point: commercial bakeries aren't doing the same kind of thing you are. It's, for all intents and purposes, a different series of tasks. Note "different ingredients" and "different equipment" and "different recipes" and "different techniques."

Forgive me, Patrick, but I grow impatient with this. Go read about bread and baking. When you know more, ask more questions not so basic and filled with conjectures. Maybe read a professional baking book with professional recipes - Wayne Gisslen's is easy reading and very authoritative - so you can grasp the differences.

What seems like a simple subject is a good deal more complex than it appears from the point of view of a rookie if you try to analyze it this way. But do note that millions of amateur bakers produce perfectly serviceable breads every day without knowing all the technical intricacies. It's entirely possible to sophisticate oneself unto paralysis.

Pastorio

Tell me that you can make 75 loaves on your next shift and then tell me how your eyes and your arms are doing.

A loaf....OK................production yet leads to another conclusion.

Hi Patrick,

Often, a simple resting of the dough will eliminate the stickiness problem:

I'd suggest mixing the ingredients just long enough that there are no pockets of dry flour.

Then, do nothing with it for about twenty minutes.

Then, continue with whatever process you intended.

It is likely to solve the problem you describe, and adding all that extra flour is not the route to success.

All the best,

The person I wrote that to is baking in his home. It's not a production situation anything like what we did in my restaurants. If it were, the suggestion would obviously have been different, couched in professional terms. But the whole discussion wouldn't have happened with a pro.

Pastorio

Yes, Okay this sounds like a good plan. Thanks Kenneth, Patrick

Why do you believe that the dough has to form a complete ball and clean the bowl? Is the bread you are getting unsatisfactory?

The bread I'm getting is quite good but remember I'm a newbie so I don't claim to be able to judge whether it's a good as it reasonably should be.

The reason I believe it should form a complete ball is that I believe I'm getting excessive sticking (ie. much of the entire mass of the dough -up to a level of about 3" in the bowl- is sticking ...that's alot of surface area). I believe that what I'm seeing is a considerable amount of tearing of the dough and it's this tearing that I'm really concerned about rather than an absence of a ball-shape. It's my understanding that proper kneading implies that there be little or no tearing.

Patrick

Del Cecchi wrote:

One thing that I have observed here is that people get upset about the smallest things. Sometimes it is good to look around and see that people are starving, there are several wars going on, and our government seems to think it is fine to torture people. If your bread tastes good, don't worry about "tearing." It's bread after all, not rocket science.

Graham

Keep it in mind....a firm dough will likely tear than a softer one.... Regardless if you are using a mixer or kneading it vigorously with your hand.