Bread Baking

[FelafelBoy]

One of my bread baking machines is an Oster, which allows for an "express bake" 58 minute operation (for which "quick rise" yeast is required due to the lack of the rise period that slower acting yeast result in along with the "punch down" period for the second rise).

There is also an "express bake" 80 minute setting. What is this for?

I was familiar only with the 58 minute setting and the other "longer" time settings (more normal for 3 and 4 hour periods of baking).

The second attempt at making light whole wheat bread turned out better using the 58 minute setting, due to my using a larger amount of water.

The amount of water called for in the recipe was inadequate. An inadequate amount of water failed to activate the yeast adequately due to the fact that I had to add water after the first few minutes of mixing.

Ingredients for a 2 lb. loaf called for:
1 1/2 C warm water
1 T veg oil
3 T honey
1 C whole wheat flour
1 1/4 C Whole Wheat pastry flour
1 1/4 C bread flour
1/3 C gluten
1/2 t salt
2 t dry yeast

No way was 1 1/2 cup water adequate. I found that the correct amount was closer to 2 1/2. The second time, I just went with a visual look to ensure that the ball that was forming was of the right "texture" consistency.

Are liquid and dry measuring cups that different that such a measurement would cause a problem? I believe I used a liquid measuring cup for all my measurements. (Yes, I know a dry measuring cup should be used for the dry, liquid for the liquids. What compensation should I make when putting the flour in the liquid measuring cup?)

Using this recipe, the 58 minute express bake bread came out ok, not as "airy" as traditional bread, but still passable. What I noticed was that the taste didn't have the sweet moist taste as traditional store bread or what I might get at the restaurant. Was this due to the absence of ingredients such as milk and/or eggs?

I used canola oil and raw honey. I also wondered if the 58 minute setting should be reserved for the lighter non-whole wheat based breads. I did use whole wheat pastry flour as part of this recipe which I thought would provide some additional lightness.

If a recipe calls for "dry milk," what can be substituted for it - rice milk? If it is left out, what would happen, and if it is left out, can water or some other liquid be used to make up for the loss of the liquid volume?

[rainey]

I also recommended a cookbook for you that will help you see that the possibilities when you use your bread machine as a mixer and a proofing box for your dough instead of being locked into it's program. I see the post didn't appear. But look for "Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Maker by Linda Eckhardt and Dianna Butts. It will open a world of possibility and explain the concept I was getting at in more detail. There are recipes for everything from a classic sourdough to the whole grain struan that got Peter Reinhart started to a chocolate bread made from pre-ferments that will add flavor, texture and great interest to your bread.

[Channa]

You've already received much good info here, but let me add a few things, since your recipe is quite similar to my everyday bread. If you're using half white bread flour, there's no need for gluten and pastry flours. Use half white bread flour and half finely ground whole-wheat (not pastry) flour. I'd recommend KA flours for both, at least until you get more experience, because KA flours are very reliable.

3 Tbl. honey is plenty. I think the lack of sweetness you describe is actually bitterness from stale/rancid whole-wheat flour.

Dry milk - you can skip it, but you'll have to adjust the amount of flour. If you DO use dry milk, consider a heat-processed milk made especially for baking. You'll get a better rise:

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/i...

How are you measuring the flour -- spooning it into the cup and then leveling it with a straight-edge, or dipping the cup into the flour and then leveling? There can be almost 25% difference between the two methods.

You might want to use more salt. One tsp table salt, at least, would be more typical.

There are only two kinds of dry yeast -- active-dry and quick/rapid-rise. Quick-rise yeast is recommended for bread machines because it has finer granules, and will dissolve, even if mixed with flour. Regular (active dry) yeast must first be dissolved in water before mixing with other ingredients. Quick-rise yeast CAN be used for several rises. It need not be limited to one rise.

Good luck!

[FelafelBoy]

Channa - thanks for the info. I may try your suggestion of just using the bread flour and the ww flour, leaving out the ww pastry flour and gluten.

I did substitute the quick rise yeast for the other yeast due to the "express bake" setting's requirement for the faster yeast.

I did inquire to various companies and was told that the quick rise yeast (the "Red Star" brand package says "rises 50% faster") is specifically made for such faster baking methods such as the express bake one. Rapid rise and/or active dry yeast (SAF brand refers to it as "perfect rise") as well as the one that comes in the bread mixes made by Hodgson Mills (rapid rise) allow for a slower rise making use of the two rise cycle. The chemistry of the rise was explained to me by them. I have it written down somewhere - not memorized, but understood to some degree of the difference and the need to use one over the other.

I was told that the Red Star "quick rise" (rises 50% faster) will not have the power to rise the bread a second time and/or for a lengthy time. Because of its more immediate short burst of strength, I thought it may be just more suitable for breads made with lighter flour vs. the heavier whole wheat flour.

It is possible, as you said that the "bitterness" or off-taste may be attributable due to the rancidity of the flour (although I smelled the flours from the unopened bags and they didn't smell foul - the dates said, "best if used by..." the dates of which were about one year ago). As I mentioned, I was told by one of the flour companies/bread machine companies, that using a fast cycle such as the "express baking" one will produce a bread that does not have the kind of flavor that is desireable.

The other post responses dealing with the reply of "shaping" the bread ... my question regarded the explanation of the sequence of turning off the machine, allowing for the rise, then shaping, and continuing the rising/baking process.

I didn't get what was meant by "stirring" it down, turning off the machine, and allowing it to rest for two hours (in the machine?). Was the suggestion to let the machine mix the bread mix, knead it, allow it to rise (for how long?), then punch it down, let it sit in the machine, then remove it, knead it again, let it rest, then rise, then bake it? (In the "express bake" setting, the rising period takes about 20 minutes or so (didn't rise much, which is normal I was told for this kind of yeast), then baked.

[rainey]

I agree with you that whole wheat flour that was kept at room temperature for a year was probably rancid and much of the problem.

Here is a recipe that you should try, FelafelBoy. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipe... Even though it is written as a bread machine recipe it will help you abandon reliance on the bread machine's timer and Red Star's poor advice that your yeast is going to die before your bread is done.

As for all the rather specific distinctions about types of yeast, I have been using whatever I could lay my hands on for about 40 years and the practical differences are nearly indetectible in my experience. I have used conventional active yeast when nothing else was available, mixed it in my dry ingredients and gotten good rising with cold water. The bottom line is if you've got a couple live yeasts and a nutritious environment they are going to create a healthy colony and continue to until they've expended every bit of carbohydrate and sugar present.

You can substitute 1 1/2 cups of the white flour with whole wheat flour (but for heaven's sake buy a new bag and keep it refrigerated!) when you get to the dough. And probably the most volatile and challenging issue in dough is sweet. Sugar/honey/cane syrup/what-have-you puts everything on steroids and introduces the highest potential for exhausting the yeast's' ability to function. I'd stay away from trying to produce a "sweet" dough until you've mastered a basic one. The King Arthur rustic recipe will make a country boule that would rival Poilaine's. It's a great place to start!

[FelafelBoy]

Thanks for the suggestions.

It wasn't Red Star that advised me on the yeast thing. A person identified as a baker at one of the flour companies (I choose not to give the name, but it's a well-respected one) explained the action of the "quick rise" yeast over the slower longer lasting yeast in regards to this issue.

I did toss both my year old bread flour and whole wheat flour, even though they did not smell rancid. I bought new flour, the ww in a smaller amount, the bread flour only came in the five pound bag (smallest size), along with exchanging the quick rise yeast for the rapid rise active dry yeast.

I looked through some bread baking books at the bookstore over the weekend and was amazed at the science involved with this art. One can make bread at a simple level (the benefits of having the bread machine - it helps a newbie like me keep things simple and progress in a more manageable way - progressing from working "inside the box" to thinking and working "outside the box!").

My goal is one day to be functioning mostly "outside the box."

I did look through some books by P Reinhart and was amazed at the art and science involved with bread baking.

A person could make this a life long hobby and life's work.

Thanks for the KA link and the book suggestions. One thing at a time.

PS It was suggested in a previous post that I could leave out the "milk" or "dry milk" ingredient. I am somewhat lactose intolerant (though store bought bread containing dairy doesn't seem to bother me), so I hesitate to start adding milk. Perhaps dry milk powder interacts differently. Not to bring up "past" history, but I have in my storage closet in a sealed plastic bag a small amount of dry milk powder that I bought .... more than a year ago (but within the last few years). Does this ever go bad? I thought of including it in my next "custom made" bread. I don't live near a "health food store" that sells this stuff in bulk, so this small amount is what I originally bought for this purpose. How long can dry milk powder be stored for and is it just a simple mxing in with the dry ingredients?

By the way, in one of the bread machine books I looked through, there was a guidance made of placing ingredients like salt in a small defined corner of the top of the flour mix rather than just dumping it in. I wonder why there was such specification of keeping the salt separate. It was as though it is not to be mixed in with the water until the flour has had a chance to mix in with the water first.

[rainey]

Instructions are written by technical people and they are probably interpreting the fact that salt stabilizes and slows yeast activity to mean that if the salt is in contact with the yeast it will inhibit it. The flaw in that logic is that the yeast is not active until it's wet and by that time the salt is thoroughly incorporated as it was always meant to be. In other words, that's any instruction you can ignore.

Dry milk powder keeps a long time because it's usually non-fat to begin with and then has no moisture to support bacterial growth. But I don't know how it may or may not affect a lactose intolerance problem. You can make wonderful bread without any milk or dairy at all. When you use things like milk (with fat) and butter you make a more tender dough.

[Channa]

Well, it sounds like you're making progress! I'd still skip the milk powder. If you fear your bread will be less tender without it, then increase the oil to 2 tablespoons. If you DO use the old milk powder, then smell it first, as it can acquire a funky smell.

Back to yeast -- there are mainly only two kinds of dry baker's yeast:

Active dry yeast -- larger granules, less active, and must be dissolved.

Instant yeast, which goes by many names -- quick-rise, rapid-rise, bread machine, fast-rising, fast-acting, perfect rise, etc. They have smaller granules, so don't require dissolving, and are more active, so you can use less of them.

These might help:

http://redstaryeast.com/lessons/yeast_types__usage/

http://redstaryeast.com/lessons/yeast...

Good luck! Let us know how you're getting on.

[chowser]

The advice the person who gave you the advice on instant yeast was wrong. Peter Reinhart uses instant yeast in his recipes, just a small amount, for long rises. If you want a good book on using the bread maker to make good bread, I'd recommend Rose Levy Berenbaum's Bread Bible. I found it at the library (as well as shelves of excellent books on bread). She uses the bread maker as an appliance to help make the bread but not as something where you'd put in all the ingredients. However, if you do not want to get into the technical aspects of bread making, I can post my go-to whole wheat bread recipe (it's half bread flour and half whole wheat) that makes a good soft sandwich bread and contains no milk/powder. I do, though, take the dough out and bake it in the oven. I have baked in in the bread maker, but don't like the results nearly as much.

[FelafelBoy]

I did replace the Red Star "quick rise yeast" (which is labeled as rising flour 50% faster and which was told to me to be the best kind of yeast for that "express bake" setting) with Red Star "active dry" yeast which was described on its label as "ideal for bread machines or traditional bread baking." Your description referred to the need (or recommendation) to dissolve it in water first. Could I not place it on top of the flour mixture in the bread machine like the other kinds of yeast? If I do have to dissolve it in water first, how does that process affect the sequence that the bread machines state, referring to liquid first, then the dry ingredients, then place the yeast on the top of the flour, then start the machine?

I discovered the KA website and it really is excellent. I scanned the section on recipes for bread machine bread (even has a section on bread machine bread that is baked outside of the unit). I will try its whole wheat bread recipe. It looks very simple.

I am tempted to add in some other ingredients I have been holding onto for awhile (I add them to my oatmeal mixture!) - millet, organic whole grain rye, flax seeds, poppy seeds, oats. I could use my coffee grinder to grind the millet, organic whole grain rye, and/or flax seeds into a fine powder and then add that to the whole wheat and/or bread flour.

I think the KA site will help educate me, but it will take a long time to do so. There is so much to learn about baking. Even the ideal way to prepare an oven for bread baking is involved. Some book even had a section on the PH of the water used in the ingredients!!

Is there some absolute rule as to when to use gluten? (If bread flour is used, does that negate the need for using gluten, which seems to be called for when whole grains are the primary ingredient.)
I wonder at what percentage of the use of bread flour or white flour does gluten no longer need to be used, i.e. if the bread mix consists of at least 1/4 bread flour (the rest whole wheat or some other whole grain).

I am tempted to make the easiest bread consisting of just white flour, but I have read that while that bread may taste great, for health reasons, it is desirable to have more fiber as part of the bread makeup, which is why I would want at least some other kinds of whole grain flour present. (I think millet is also a very healthy grain. More and more stores even sell more exotic grains such as spelt which I think would not affect the final product other than adding nutrition. Some of the store breads I have seen at places like TJ and more frequently traditional supermarkets consist of ingredients that are quite exotic.)

[chowser]

It must have been someone else who mentioned yeast in water. When using regular yeast, you can dissolve it in warm water first to get it started but with long rises, it's not necessary. I think with a bread maker, if you're planning to use a regular cycle that you do need the instant yeast, or at least increase the active dry yeast at least three fold.

As adding gluten goes, it depends on the texture of the bread you want. If you want a sandwich bread that is a little softer, you don't need it. With a heartier crusty bread, it helps. The bread flour is higher in gluten (not exactly gluten but proteins that become gluten when worked and moistened but it's more complicated) already. The longer you knead the dough, the more gluten is developed so you could use even regular white AP flour, knead more and get the same results as starting with bread flour and/or adding vital wheat gluten. The problem with the bread maker is that you can't control the length of time of the kneading easily. So, there is no rule of thumb on using vital wheat gluten--it depends on 1) the texture of the bread you want, the softer, the less gluten; 2) the type of flour you're using so as you said, bread flour would use less than white and 3) length of time of kneading.

Bread baking is an art and a science and as much as I try to read about it, I've barely scratched the surface. So, the question is, do you want to know all that (geeky details and all), or are you just looking for a way to put everything in the bread maker and push the button? If it's the latter, you can just ask people for their favorite ww bread maker recipes.

[rainey]

Bread has so few ingredients and the main one is flour. Flour can absorb a lot of liquid and it can also dry out in an atmosphere that lacks humidity. That's why bakers use weigh rather than volume when working with flour or grains. And that's why the water called for in your recipe wasn't adequate on this occasion. On another it could be too much. You should always be prepared to adjust the liquid to the right texture of the dough as opposed to being locked into volume metrics.

When dry milk is called for it's boosting the protein content. I don't think it adds a lot in terms of flavor or texture. You could simply leave it out if you don't have any on hand.

The classic French braguette is made with water, salt, yeast and white flour. By law that's it. Nothing can be added or eliminated and the proportions should be correct. The taste is fabulous without milk or eggs. The thing that makes the difference is what's missing in your bread machine -- TIME. Bread is not about "express" but about allowing the yeast to develop a vigorous colony that produce the sugars and alcohols that give bread great flavor.

Next time, put in your ingredients. Leave the top open. Use a spray bottle of water or spoons of additional flour to get a nice slack dough. Then shut the top so the skin of the dough doesn't dry out and turn off the machine after the first rise is complete and the dough gets stirred down. Come back a couple hours later, take the dough out and shape it in a pan or in a large free form ball. Let it rise one more time. Bake it in your oven. The same recipe and ingredients will give you a much better loaf. If you don't want to bake it by hand, just restart the machine and let it go through it's full cycle baking the bread. You'll still notice a big difference.

[FelafelBoy]

Your comment about the yeast needing time to produce the sugars and alcohol which result in the "taste" of bread may explain why the bread I made at the "express" time tasted flat and maybe even stale (not sure about that, but the bread had a slightly off floury flat taste as though there wasn't enough sweet taste to balance the flour taste - I had stored the flours in unopened/sealed bags for about a year at room temperature (a full year of the four seasons where I live, including residential temperatures ranging from 56 to the 80's).

I used the express cycle as an experiment to see if the machine could produce edible tasty bread in that shortened time. I have used my other machine to make bread from Hodgson Mills boxed bread mixes at the normal basic/whole wheat cycle (about 3 1/2 hours) and the bread came out very tasty (but all I had to do with that was to just add the oil and water).

Regarding allowing the bread to rise once, and take it out later and bake it in the oven. I may be misunderstanding your point. With the normal longer cycle, the bread machine allows the bread to rise once, gets punched down, rests, then rises later, then bakes. Sure, if it is taken out, it can be "shaped" as desired.

I had hoped that the express cycle (maybe the 80 minute process will result in better tasting bread, assuming my flour isn't "stale") would allow me to make custom made bread more quickly.

Interesting points made earlier about the purpose of gluten, as well as the comments made about the purpose of dry milk in the mix .

Is "bread machine" flour the same as "bread flour?" I have seen in supermarkets bags of flour labeled as "bread flour."

Is gluten used primarily with heavier grains to provide the "structure" as mentioned earlier by board member todao? How do you know when to use it if you are improvising on ingredients? (The recipe I had wasn't necessarily for the "express" cycle, but I thought if I used the quick rise yeast and added gluten, the three various flours called for would result in an edible product. It did turn out ok, just that the taste was flat, bordering on either too floury, slight stale, or not sweet enough - it didn't taste good like the Hodgson Mills Whole Wheat Honey bread mix I made before on the normal basic/whole wheat machine cycle which lasts for about 3 1/2 hours).

Do I risk an improperly risen bread by using the quick rise yeast on the longer bread machine cycle? If the "express" baking setting is not used, how else could the quick rise yeast be used?

And last, thanks for the fresh loaf site reference.

[chowser]

Mixes you buy and bread machine recipes usually call for more than flour, yeast, water and salt because you don't have the time for flavor to develop so the addition of the other ingredients help. As Rainey said, you can use the bread machine just to mix/knead/rise the dough, but make the rise cycle longer by stopping the macine (which heats it to speed the rise). The longer rise,at a cooler temperature, will create more flavor. You can choose to bake in the machine but you won't get as nice of a loaf as you would in the oven.

As gluten goes, it is developed when the flour proteins are mixed with water/liquid and kneaded. The more you knead, the more gluten. You can start out with a higher protein flour, like bread flour (even whole wheat) so you knead less. Or, you could even use an AP flour and knead more to develop the gluten. The more gluten, the stronger the texture (so you get a bread texture vs texture like a cake where you want little gluten). Adding vital wheat gluten adds more gluten so you don't need to knead as long and still get the same structure.

You can use a quick rise yeast but if the bread machine cycle is longer than the recipe calls for, I'd reduce the yeast. Yeast multiplies which causes the dough to rise (simplistic answer because it is more complex) so the longer the rise, the more yeast will develop. If you already start out with a large amount of yeast and have a longer rise, you could end up with a loaf that is too large.

[cookie_eater]

Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice is a good book that I recommend to people. It covers the general ideas of bread baking the best that I have seen.

There's 2 types of dry yeast available. Active dry yeast, the traditional dry yeast which needs to be put in water first, and instant or bread machine or rapid-rise yeast, which is a different strain that should be mixed with dry ingredients. I use active for pita bread and pizza dough and instant for other stuff.

Bread flour is flour that is higher in protein. The brand and protein content of flour makes a difference. Gluten is a component of wheat and some other grains. I don't like the texture and flavor when it's added in large quantities to make all whole-wheat or multi-grain bread light and fluffy so I don't know any more about it.

[FelafelBoy]

I am not sure what you mean by the way you described the rising process.

The way I read your description, there are THREE rising periods - first by way of the machine (by "stirred down," do yo mean "punched down" by the machine's paddle wheel?). The second rise WOULD take place if the flour was allowed to sit as you suggest (by coming back after a couple of hours). If the dough is taken out at that point and put in another container and allowed to sit, that will be another rise. There is the three I count.

The quick rise yeast is used specifically for a one rise effort - it doesn't have the power to create another rise from what I have heard.

I would find it helpful if you explained the step by step process for this partial use of the bread machine and using a longer period of time for rising both in and outside the machine's container. Your description of "coming back a couple of hours later" confused me as I assumed the mixture is going to rise again after being left for two hours.

I have learned that quick rise yeast in a 58 or 80 minute cycle is not going to produce the "sweetness" or flavor in the yeast and is not recommended. That may explain why my bread tasted more on the flat and nonsweet side. Is there any other use I can make with the quick rise yeast other than tossing it?

Did a later post in this thread regarding using less yeast refer to the quick rise yeast? I was told that this kind of yeast doesn't have much staying power. How do bread bakers use it to make decent tasting bread then?

From now on, I am going to stick with the rapid rise yeast for bread machines unless someone can tell me how I can make better use of the quick rise yeast.
(Would using a lighter flour combination be a better use of the express bake setting than my choice of the bread flour/whole wheat flour/whole wheat pastry?)

[rainey]

I hope someone else will step in and help. At the moment I'm in a hospital recovering from a broken knee cap and typing is difficult.

If you're still having trouble in a week or two I should be able to sit up and type. But the bottom line is you need to get conventional yeast and not try to make fast dough.

[cookie_eater]

I believe rainey is advising you to shape the bread. Shaping makes a big difference. You can read more about the basics in Reinhart's book.

The flavor of bread develops over time. In general a faster dough will have less flavor.

What you heard about quick rise yeast is not right. If your recipe says to use active dry yeast and you are substituting quick rise yeast, you should use less quick rise yeast by about 1/4 to 1/3. I would err on the side of too little yeast as you can let the dough rise longer. When the dough is ready, the yeast will have eaten all that it can and produced the most gas that the dough can hold without breaking down.

[rainey]

Peter Reinhard's books on bread are excellent! But I'm not sure the OP is ready to abandon his bread machine. No matter. He can make excellent dough with his machine if he's prepared to boss it around a little.

[todao]

The only true difference between dry and wet measuring cups is the fact that, with a wet measure cup, you can't level off the top of the measured amount of dry ingredients so the actual amount of flour you'll use will always be different than it would be using a dry measure vessel.
The other factor that you're dealing with is that 2 1/2 cups of "measured" flour will not be the same at an equivalent amount that is weighed. Weighted flour typically weights in at somewhere between 4.5 and 5 ounces per cup, depending on who wrote the formula, what flour they used (gluten and protein amounts can vary from one flour to another) and atmospheric conditions at the time you mix the ingredients. If you can get a scale you'll be much more capable of making adjustments to improve the outcome of your bread baking experience over time, provided you also keep good notes about each step you take in the dough preparation process.
If you must use a measuring cup, don't use a wet measure vessel for your flour. Sift the flour into the dry measuring cup until the flour is well mounded, the use the back of a butter knife to scrape off the mounded portion of the flour so that the cup is filled to the brim; that's you "cup".
For the powdered milk, you can substitute whole milk but you'll need to adjust your liquid ingredients accordingly. If your bread making instructions call for 1/4 cup dry milk you can use one cup of whole milk (it usually mixes at a ratio of about 4:1) but you'll need to decrease the other liquid ingredient (usually water) by a cup.
You wouldn't want to substitute rice milk for dry milk; it doesn't have the fat content that your recipe needs to work properly.

[FelafelBoy]

Thanks for the additional insights on aspects of baking such as the use of the scale and dry/liquid milk ratio.

Here's what my research came up with ...

the express bake 58 and 80 minute process calls for different ingredients (a higher temperature is used for baking and the resulting loaf will be more dense and not rise as much, the 80 less dense than the 58 minute one):

1. hot not warm water
2. quick rise not active yeast
3. less salt
4. bread machine flour

With my "experiment," the bread came out ok . Now I know why the crust was so good (a higher temperature was used for baking). I think the use of the gluten saved this loaf from turning into a rock. While I did use whole wheat flour, and ww pastry flour, I also used bread flour as well as additional gluten, which apparently helped to lift the flour into a decent loaf.

As the manual said (read online), a higher temperature will cause cracking in the top crust which is exactly what happened, as well as that crust which I have yet to get by baking at the normal whole wheat and/or basic setting.

Can I assume that "bread" flour (such as that made by King Arthur) is not the same as "bread MACHINE" flour? (I read the ingredients on the KA bread flour package and didn't see any gluten listed.

It is interesting that bread machine flour is supposedly higher in carbohydrate/protein ratio than plain flour. If I wanted to minimize the greater carb presence in bread machine flour, could I just substitute normal flour (be it whole wheat, white, bread) and add gluten? That way I could get the lifting effect of gluten and the greater protein presence from the flour.

I also read that bread machine bread should be stored in a ventilated PLASTIC bag at room temperature (or in the freezer), not stored in the refrigerator as it dries out more in that setting. I thought bread is supposed to be stored in a sealed paper bag.

[todao]

Well, that's a lot to cover. First of all, allow me to say that gluten does not provide "lift" to the loaf. Gluten provides structure, leavening agents provide the "lift". Making bread in a machine is quite different from making bread using other methods. When a machine determines the variables for processing the dough, the variables are fixed and you have no options that allow you to make independent judgments at the dough develops. That's probably why the mixture used in machines is often referred to as a recipe rather than a formula, a term typically applied to bread made by hand.
Gluten and protein are important ingredients in any flour used for bread making but although they are related, they are not the same and each offers its own impact to the finished product.
I believe you would benefit from this forum:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/1421...
where, IMO, you'll find a broader base of information to help you work through your issues with your bread machine baking.

[Laralee]

I'm not an expert in the technical stuff of bread machines, but I can tell you that I regularly use a good quality bread flour like King Arthur's (not the machine flour) with good results. I don't normally add gluten, but I do use a mix of white and wheat flour (usually hard spring wheat flour.) I think gluten is for people who want to use pure whole wheat flour and skip the white flour altogether.

They're right about bread not storing well in the fridge. The freezer works okay if you use a plastic zip-type freezer bag (I've not tried the ventilated bag.) The ventilated plastic bag is unnecessary for storing at room temp. The bread does need to cool completely before you put it in a plastic bag though, or it will sweat and get soggy. One thing that works well and saves on resources is making hamburger-sized buns instead of bread loaves. The buns last longer and can be stored in a pot with a lid instead of plastic.