SB 008| Why Is My Bread Dough Collapsing?

Absolutely. Start looking for those visual cues and that should help a lot. You can also place a small pan of boiling water on the bottom of your turned off oven, dough on the middle shelf, and let it hang out for 20-60 minutes. This is a good trick for speeding up your fermentation or proofing in a cold kitchen.

Thank you. Glad you found this discussion so informative!

Hi Roma, welcome to Stella Culinary and thanks for the question.

It can sometimes be difficult to judge how much a bread has risen during proofing just by looking at it. A good visual and tactile cue is poking it with your finger.

If the indentation your finger makes:

• Bounces back quickly, then it's under proofed.
• Bounces back slowly but steadily, it's ready to bake.
• Doesn't respond at all, it's over proofed.

Also remember that high hydration dough (above 75%) has a tendency to collapse if not handled really gently, because the extra water weight will collapse the gluten structure. But if your bread is at 70% hydration or below, then the collapsing and lack of oven spring is due to a weak gluten structure caused by over proofing, or using less than 80% bread flour in your formulation.

@ TinaBakes,

In general, if you go over 20% whole wheat or grain, you're going to have issues with the density of the loaf, and the dough itself collapsing.

When working with whole grains and whole wheat flour, try combining with a portion of your water from the recipe and allow it to sit overnight. Then add the rest of your ingredients, and bake as normal.

Once the bread dough collapses, it's done; there's no saving it.

I would recommend getting your technique down first with a bread recipe that contains 20% whole wheat or less, and then go from there. It is possible to do 100% whole wheat/grain loaves that are good, but it takes a lot of practice and technical development. Get a couple of wins under your belt before you start attempting something as difficult as 100% whole grain.

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