HI there I bake in a relatively high altitude of 1000 metres or more than 3000 feet (Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia). It took me some adjustment to cope with the higher altitude than I was used to, but I finally found that baking at 140 degrees Celsius for around 35 minutes produced a perfect loaf. I'm using 2 cups of hard baker's flour to 1.5 cups of mixed-grain. The air up here is usually dry but for the past month we've had unusually high humidity. Would that explain why, all of a sudden, my bread rises by only half to two-thirds its normal volume on its second rising .. and doesn't improve at all during the baking. I'm getting bread which is almost half its normal height. It was gluggier than normal also, till I dropped the baking temp down 10 degrees to 130 degrees Celsius. Is there a way to compensate for this? I guess the situation isn't helped by the fact that Australia is only now starting to recover from a prolonged drought which has, reports suggest, led to production of flour with less than normal levels of protein.
- posted
17 years ago