Ever wondered why is my bread dense and heavy or why is my bread crumbly? Learning to make the perfect loaf of homemade bread, that doesn't fall flat, can be tricky. Trickier still when you add in sourdough, but these tips for better bread baking will help you turn out the perfect sandwich loaf or any bread recipe you're making.
As we head into the late Fall and Winter season, you can find me in the kitchen baking a lot more as we put the garden to the rest for the winter. If you’re like me, your sourdough starter goes into hiatus. Maybe you’re entirely new to the bread baking scene and are super excited to get started, or perhaps you’ve done some bread baking in the past, but are looking up your game. If you’re any of these, this post is for you!
Listen in below to the full podcast, Episode #211 Tips for Better Bread Baking (no more dense or crumbly loaves) of the Pioneering Today Podcast, where we don’t just inspire you, but give you the clear steps to create the homegrown garden, pantry, kitchen and life you want for your family and homestead.
The two main issues that I often hear with baking bread loaves are:
- The bread is not rising as much as you would like.
- The bread is too crumbly when you cut it.
So, with that, I'll be sharing tips and tricks for better bread baking.
Tips for Better Bread Baking (no more dense or crumbly loaves)
Let me preface to say the sourdough bread can be a little bit tricky to get a good rise from as compared to making bread with regular yeast to leaven your bread. The trick to getting the best rise is to learn how visually read the sourdough starter and use it when it’s beginning its active state.
Getting the perfect rise
The starter itself has to be strong enough to rise bread without adding additional store bought yeast. If you started it from scratch, this takes at least 4 weeks before you begin to use it for baking any bread. When the starter has risen to about 30% is when you want to start making up your bread dough. So if it is completely doubled by the time you start your bread, then you actually went past the point of being active and is starting to come back down. It needs to be in its active stage so that your culture and the good yeast are consuming the food so that you get that excellent rise on your bread.
The other important aspects of getting a good rise is the temperature in your home so that it can actually rise up. You also need to bake it at the right time as you don’t want it to be overproofed or underproofed.
Getting the perfect texture
When it comes to texture, our goal is to get the perfectly great sliceable sandwich loaf. If your bread comes out too crumbly, we need to make sure that the gluten strands were developed sufficiently. The easiest way to know this is to achieve windowpane when you are kneading your dough, and you are getting ready to form your loaf.
If you achieved windowpane and you’re bread loaf was still crumbly, then it could be an issue of being too dry. In this instance, my recommendation is to add a little bit more fat. My favorite fat to add to my bread is melted butter. I personally love the flavor and extra richness that the butter gives the bread. If you are dairy-free, you can add coconut oil or olive oil to increase the fat. I recommend adding about a tablespoon more of fat to the recipe to help with the dryness.
The last culprit that can leave you with crumbly bread is cutting into the loaf too soon. It’s so hard to take our bread baked bread from the oven and not immediately slice into it, but if you’re looking for improved texture, you must let the loaf cool completely. For a regular loaf, it has to cool for at least an hour. For artisan loaves, they need to completely cool for two hours.
Resources for better baking:
Whether you’re a newbie and want to learn how to be a pro baker or you’ve tried your hand and baking sourdough and it didn’t turn out well have the solution for you! Check out my FREE Sourdough Video Series! In this training, I share all my secrets on how to create a sourdough starter from start to finish with some of my favorite recipes.
More Homemade Bread Recipes and Resources
- Honey Whole Wheat Bread Easy Sandwich Bread Recipe
- Easy No Knead Artisan Bread Recipe
- Best Beginner Sourdough Sandwich Bread No Yeast
- Grandma’s Easy Homemade Dinner Rolls (With Fresh-Milled Flour)
- Sourdough Chocolate Bread
- Grandma's Date Bread
- DIY No-Knead Bread Mix in a Jar
- How to Store Homemade Bread (Stays Fresh Longer!)
- Grinding Flour and Beyond- The Homesteader’s Guide to a Home Mill
- Best Flour for Baking- Home Baker’s Flour Guide 101
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what is windowpane?
Donna, Windowpane is when you are kneading the dough, you take a little piece and stretch it, when you have it thin and you can see light through the dough, that is the windowpane. When that happens the dough is ready to bake.
Hi Melissa,
I have been trying to make whole wheat sourdough bread with an all purpose flour sourdough starter. Do you have a recipe for this? I’m also wanting to learn how to make a sourdough pizza crust. Thank you.
I don’t have my whole wheat sourdough bread recipe on the blog, it is inside my Homemade Bread Baking course here https://melissa-norris.mykajabi.com/store as well as in my book Hand Made (which has quite a few sourdough recipes as well as regular yeast recipes too) http://handmadethebook.com/
I’ll work on a sourdough pizza crust recipe!
Hello Melissa!
Thank you so much for sharing these precious tips. Learned so much new info. Such treasure. I’m so happy to have stumbled across your wonderful blog. Keep it up!
Best wishes,
Ann
Hi Melissa. One week I made great bread with my sourdough starter. Now that was with already ground full strength unbleached flour for both the starter and the bread. Last week I got my millstone and Hard White Wheat berries and used freshly ground flour to feed my starter. I then made bread with freshly ground flour and the starter. I used the extra water as you requested in your blog. The bread did rise, but turned out very dense. Any recommendations?
It’s usually not quite as high and fluffy with fresh ground wheat as all-purpose, but did you adjust the kneading times? I find it’s easier to cut back on the amount of flour with hard white wheat so it’s a wetter dough (without adding more water). This isn’t a sourdough recipe but uses that principal https://melissaknorris.com/honey-whole-wheat-bread-easy-sandwich-bread-recipe/
Why do the yeast roll recipes that don’t require needing come out different each time they are baked some to dry and crumbly some don’t rise enough but the recipe says you added all-in-one Bowl Let It Rise take it out make a loaf / form your rolls rise it again and it should be perfect any help with making this come out true
Love your videos….looking forward to try and make homemade bread.
I so enjoy learning all your tips and tricks in baking. Thank you for sharing what you’ve learned. 💗
Melissa! What a great job you are doing! I live in Central Oregon and breed Boer goats for meat. Do you have goats on your homestead? One of the things that is challenging is cooking goat meat in a delicious way. It is low-fat, game-like, and red meat – very healthy, but the only success I really have had is cooking a leg of goat in a pressure cooker. Have any insight on that? I have a sister in Bellingham, a brother near Colville, and grew up in Washington….would like to visit you when in the area. Is that possible?
I don’t have any experience with goat, sorry. Pressure cooking always produces tender meat for us on tougher pieces of meat. Yes, we actually just opened a farmstay on our farm. Here’s more info about that! https://norrisfarmstead.com