Introduction

I bake medium loaves (1.5 lbs); low sodium; in a Panasonic SD-YD250.  I make comparisons to the source recipe, and annotations:

• {what I did} vs [the source recipe says]
• * low sodium; *M low sodium and machine
  

The salt measurement is a normal low sodium adjustment  – reduce salt and yeast by equal proportions.  The yeast measurement is customized for the Panasonic SD-250;  it may work in a machine with similiar features and cycle but may not work in many other machines.

The Challenge

Processing authentic pumpernickel is outside the capabilities of bread machines. There are retail/craft/home formulas for a rustic style with rye flour, e.g.  King Arthur Classic Pumpernickel baked in an oven.  Panasonic’s manual asserts rye flour leads to dense bread when used to replace other flour, and warns that mixing rye flour might  overload the motor.   Panasonic has one recipe in the manual for a light rye bread.

Rye flour has less of the proteins that build gluten than wheat flour.  It has pentosans which absorb water early in mixing but release it after periods of intensive mixing. The dough seems dry and elastic – it just holds it shape and is slow to relax.  The temptation is to add more water, but that may not be the answer. Bakers with control of speed and time would use a short the period of slow mixing for dough with significant amounts of rye flour, and little avoid faster intensive mixing according to Daniel DiMuzio’s Bread Baking, An Arisan’s Perspective (p. 51). DiMuzio notes that the pain de campagne blend of 90% white flour and 10% rye flour would be hydrated at 68% and mixed slowly for an artisan loaf. 

Light rye breads are soft  breads made with wheat flour, with rye flour or rye meal for flavour and texture, or light rye flour. There are dark or sour styles (retail/craft/home/bread machine) with wheat flour, rye flour and

• cocoa or ground coffee for dark colour,
• vinegar or sour cream for acidity
• corn meal, oatmeal or sunflower seeds for texture
  

Also, there are (retail/craft/home) rustic rye and rye sourdough styles.

Light rye bread may be made in pans, but the traditional presentation is a rustic torpedo shape. 

Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook has several recipes for Light Rye Breads. Some emulate the styles made in pans, and some aim to get the flavour of the traditional styles in a pan loaf.  Getting that is a challenge.

Rogers Foods mills Dark Rye Flour is available locally, and priced as a staple instead of a luxury good.  Rogers does not directly publish a volume to mass conversion. The food facts label indicates 1 cup = 120 grams = 4.2 oz.  Food Facts for Dark Rye flours from other mills are consistent.  120 grams is in the range of published values, which is confusing and wide.  Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter dark rye flour said 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g.   The rest of the range:

• BLBMC; Reinhardt’s Bread Bakers Apprentice – no factor stated
• The Bakery Network conversion chart – 1 cup “rye flour” = 4 oz. = 113.4
  
• Aqua-Calc converter light rye flour (or medium rye flour) – 1 cup = 102 g = 3.6 oz.
• The Traditional Oven’s  converter – 1 cup = 102 g. = 3.6 oz.  light rye?
• King Arthur Flour’s Ingredient Conversion chart – 1 cup = 3.625 oz.  light rye?

A formula with 2 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of rye flour will be about 70% wheat flour by weight and will form gluten.  This amount of rye flour is manageable; the paddle keeps turning and the dough ball creeps around the pan.  My machine vibrates  but does not appear to strain. At one cup of rye flour, the dough is dense and elastic – it holds the ball shape until late in the rise phase but flows and rises. At lower amounts of rye, the dough acts like white flour dough – it flows and rises normally.

The BLBMC light rye bread recipes work in my machine, but are very tightly balanced and need to be measured precisely.

The BLBMC recipes use caraway, fennel and anise seeds, dried orange peel and orange for flavour in varying amounts and combinations. Olive oil can be used to replace other oils. 

Panasonic Rye Bread with Caraway and Onions

The Panasonic formula, with almost no rye flour, is simple but a very light rye. Basic Panasonic recipe, with low salt and local changes:

• 3 cups {Canadian All Purpose} flour [P bread flour]
• 1/8 cup {dark} rye flour
  
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 tbsp dry milk
• 1.5 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp caraway seeds
• 1/8 cup chopped onion
  
• {4.3 g (.75 tsp) *} salt [P 1.5 tsp]
  
• {1.4 g (.5 tsp) *M} instant yeast [P 2.5 tsp  instant]
  
• 1.1875 (1 3/16 = 1 cup + 3 tbsp) cup water
  

On those measurements TFW would be 430 g. (97% white flour) and hydration rate 65%.  In my first trial I cut 1/4 cup of white flour and added 1/8 rye cup flour. It was a wet dough, which flowed and rose well. But it was wet, for a white flour dough. On the portions listed here, hydration was 74%.  In B%:

Next trial tba

BLBMC Scandinavian Light Rye (p. 134)

On basic bake cycle:

• {278g. ( 2 cups) Canadian All Purpose} flour [BLBMC 1.875 bread flour]
• {120 g. (1 cup) dark} rye flour [BLBMC cups medium rye]
  
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1.0 tbsp caraway seeds [BLBMC 1.5 tbsp]
  
• {1 tsp fennel seeds}
• {1.5 tsp dried orange peel}
• {4.3 g (.75 tsp)*} salt [BLBMC 1.5 tsp]
  
• {0} gluten [BLBMC 1 tbsp + 1 tsp = 4 tsp]
  
• {1.8 g (.625 tsp) *M} instant yeast [BLBMC 2.5 tsp SAF instant]
  
• 1.5 tbsp {olive} oil
  
• 1 cup + 3 tbsp water [BLBMC 1 cup + 2 tbsp]
  

The B%:

Introduction

A medium loaf (1.5 lbs); low sodium; in a Panasonic SD-YD250.  I make comparisons to the source recipe, and annotations:

• {what I did} vs [the source recipe says]
• * low sodium; *M low sodium and machine
  

My salt measurement and yeast measurement are for 50% sodium.  The yeast measurement is customized for the Panasonic SD-250;  it may work in a machine with similiar features and cycle but may not work in many other machines.

The Challenge

My sister makes a bread machine Flax Seed Whole Wheat bread with 2.5 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of white flour, oatmeal, sunflower, flax and poppy seeds, flax meal, and 1.75 cups milk.  The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (p. 118) formula uses 1 cup whole wheat flour,  2 cups of bread flour.  So does a formula on the web Flax Seed Whole Wheat Bread. I used this formula, with a shift to more whole wheat flour; and adding the ingredients of my sister’s recipe.

When milk, real or reconstituted (powder plus water) is used, lactose, the natural sugar in milk is added.  Sugars on the outside of the dough carmelize when the dough is baked – i.e. the crust is firm and brown. Unpasteurized milk can lead to surprizes. Some bakers think milk,  real or reconstituted, should be scalded to denature proteins that may inhibit the action of the yeast, and for other reasons. I skipped this step. Whole milk has more fats, which may give a loaf a little extra shelf life.

Skim milk is 96% water. Honey varies but may be 20% water

The whole wheat flour, rolled oats and flax meal absorb fluid.  Skim milk or water + powder are alternatives. The result is a little lopsided but good. It had tasty firm crust; a dense crumb holds up, sliced. It needs the honey for flavour and hydration. 

The formula

On whole wheat cycle. :

• 278 g. or 9.75 oz. (2 cups) whole wheat flour [BLBMC 1 cup]
  
• 139 g. or 4.875 oz. (1 cup) Canadian All Purpose flour [BLBMC 2 cups bread flour]
  
• {12 g. (2 tbsp) ground flax}
  
• {2.8 g. (.5 tsp) salt *} [BLBMC 1 tsp]
  
• 2 tbsp flax seeds
  
• {1 tbsp poppy seeds}
  
• {25 g. (.25 cups) rolled oats}
  
• 0 gluten [BLBMC ? 1 tbsp].
  
• {1.4 g (.5 tsp) instant yeast *M} [BLBMC 1.5 tsp]
  
• 2 tbsp {olive} oil [BLBMC canola]
  
• 3 tbsp honey
• {1.375 cups skim milk or 35 g. (5 tbsp) skim milk powder + 325 g. (1.375 cups) water} [BLBMC 1.125 cups water + .25 cups dry milk]
  

The hydration rate is consistent with soft dough. In B%:

Recipes

These are bread machine medium loaf recipes I used working out my approach to bread machine baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250.  I baked each once or more when I was working out yeast and low sodium in June, July and August, 2018; these are in the table [T] at the end of this post. In that test table I state the flour, fluid, salt and yeast used in one particular trial – which often failed.

I added a few other recipes.

I identify recipes that worked. I added baker percentage tables scaling medium formulas to small.  Some are for Panasonic machines, and may not work in other machines.  Others recite and adapt or scale Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”) formulas.  My adaptations may not work in machines that differ from my Panasonic SD-YD250.

Generally:

• In summarize recipes as published.  Many – mainly the BLBMC recipes – did not work in my Panasonic;
• In tables with the recipes I recorded successful loaves I have made a low sodium adjustment for salt and yeast;
• Flour is noted in cups with alternative measurement by weight most of the time;
  
• Wheat flour, by Rogers, a Canadian mill:
  • All-Purpose flour (i.e. bread flour); 1 cup = 4.875 (4 7/8) or 4.9 oz = 138 or 139 grams;
  • Bread Flour for White Bread;
  • Whole Wheat flour; 1 cup = 4.875 (4 7/8) oz = 138 grams.
  • Whole Wheat Bread Flour (a blend of Whole Wheat and white flour, and added gluten);
    
• Rye Flour. In one trial, Nunnweiler Organic Dark (I had a bag in the fridge). Rogers Dark Rye Flour
  
• Yeast in tsp; in some trials in grams; 1 tsp = 2.8 g. Trials 1-6 Fleishmann’s Quick-Rise; others SAF Red Instant dry;
  
• Salt in grams (For table salt 1 tsp = 5.7 grams); the % of the salt in the published recipe.

[T] Panasonic Basic White Loaf

This recipe works at published. At 50% salt, I would back off on hydration by a few grams.

Panasonic Manual or online. Basic bake cycle:

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1.5 tbsp dry milk
• 1.5 tbsp butter
• 1.5 tbsp sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp (instant) yeast
• 1.25 cups water

Low salt, bakers percentage and scale to small:

[T] Panasonic 100% Whole Wheat

This recipe works at published.

Panasonic Manual or 100 % Whole Wheat. Bake Whole wheat cycle:

• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1.5 tbsp. dry milk
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp (instant) yeast
• 1.5 tbsp butter
• 1.5 tbsp molasses
• 1.25 cups water

Low salt, bakers percentage, and scaled to small loaf:

[T] Whole Wheat Bread Flour – Maple Syrup

In the test table at the end, trials 7, 8, 10, 11 I refer to “White Whole”.  I never did the source recipe, at BLBMC (p. 127) “White Whole Wheat Flour Bread” with White Whole Wheat flour, a specialty flour. Or this variation variation with 3 cups of flour.  BLBMC says basic bake or bake whole wheat cycle; the alternative seems to have used a basic bake “white bread” cycle.

I never got a good result, which I attributed to the use of 3.25 cups of flour, wrong salt/yeast ratio, and the use of of Rogers blend “Whole Wheat Bread Flour”. The problem is more the latter – the flour I used was higher in protein (gluten) than white whole wheat.

• 3.25 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1 tbsp gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• .25 cups maple syrup
• 2 tbsp olive oil or nut oil
• 1.25 cups water

I tried it at 3 cups with a blend of  50% Whole Wheat and 50% white flour but it rises too much.  This blend rises more than white flour on its own or whole wheat on its own. The white flour contributes gluten; the whole wheat ferments. I have had better results with 67-33 and 33-67 blends.  I think 67% whole wheat, with this hydration? 

My unsuccessful most recent version, low sodium for the Panasonic device. Basic bake cycle:

• 209 g. (1.5 cups) whole wheat flour
• 209 g. (1.5) cups Canadian AP white flour
• .75 tsp salt
• .5 tsp instant yeast
• .25 cups maple syrup
• 2 tbsp olive oil or nut oil
• 1.25 cups water

This converts to metric weight and scales this way:

[T] Chuck Williams’s Country French

BLBMC (p. 200).  70% white flour in the style of country breads. Pain de campagne, with whole wheat (not rye) flour.  Adapted from Williams Sonoma recipe for La Cloche device. Basic or French bread cycle:

• .75 cup whole wheat flour
  
• 2.25 cups bread flour
• 2 tbsp. gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1.75 tsp instant yeast
  
• 1.25 cups water

[T] Dakota Bread

BLBMC (p. 119) or Beth Hensperger blog: Dakota Bread. Basic cycle:

• .75 cup whole wheat flour
  
• 2.25 cups bread flour
• .25 cup bulgur cracked wheat
• .25 cup raw sunflower seeds
• .25 cup raw pumpkin seeds chopped
• 1.5 tsp sesame seeds
  
• 2 tsp. poppy seeds
  
• 2 tbsp. gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1.75 tsp instant yeast
  
• 1.25 cups water

I tried it as a 50% whole wheat. Low sodium. Less yeast than Hensperger said, but for my Panasonic. More robust with more whole wheat. It scales. I think.

Panasonic French Bread

Panasonic Manual. French bread bake cycle:

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tsp (instant) yeast
• 1 5/16 (1.25 cups + 1 tbsp) water

This recipe uses 3 cups of flour like a medium loaf but comes out in an extra-large rectangular block that fills the extra-large pan.  A loaf scaled to small loaf ingredient portion might be acceptable. It works in a low sodium formula.

[T] Three Seed Whole Wheat Bread

BLBMC (p. 116). Basic or whole wheat cycle:

• 1.5 cup whole wheat
• 1.5 cups bread flour
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp. gluten
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 2 tbsp sesame seeds
• 2 tsp poppy seeds
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 3 tbsp non-fat (skim) dry milk
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• 1.25 cups water

[T] Flax Seed Whole Wheat Bread

BLBMC (p. 118). Basic or whole wheat cycle:

• 1 cup whole wheat
• 2 cups bread flour
• 4 tbsp flax
  
• 2 tbsp. gluten
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• .25 cups non-fat (skim) dry milk
• .25 cups (4 tbsp) honey
• 2 tbsp canola oil
• 1.125 cups water

[T] Buttermilk Whole Wheat Bread

BLBMC (p. 108). Basic or whole wheat cycle:

• 1.5 cup whole wheat
• 1.5 cups bread flour
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
  
• 2 tbsp maple syrop
• 2 tbsp canola oil
• 1.125 cups buttermilk

[T] Irish Potato Brown Bread

BLBMC (p. 117). Whole wheat cycle:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup bread flour
• .25 cup instant potato flakes
• 1 tbsp + 2 tsp gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 3 tbsp butter, cut in chunks
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1.25 cups water
  

[T] Scandinavian Light Rye

BLBMC (p. 134). Basic cycle:

• 1.875 cups bread flour
• 1.125 cup medium rye flour
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1.5 tbsp caraway seeds
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp + 1 tsp gluten
• 2.5 tsp instant yeast
• 1.5 tbsp canola oil
  
• 1.125 cups water

[T] Bohemian Black Bread

BLBMC (p. 138). Basic or whole wheat cycle:

• 1.75 cups bread flour
  
• 1 cup medium or dark rye flour
• .25 cups wheat bran
• 2 tbsp unsweetened Dutch Process cocoa
• 1.5 tsp instant espresso powder
• 1.5 tsp caraway seeds
• .5 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tbsp gluten
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 3 tbsp butter, melted
• 1.5 tbsp molasses
• 1.125 cups water

This is the table of the loaves tested for yeast and sodium levels, listing how much flour, fluid, salt and yeast used. In this table I state the salt and yeast used in one particular trial. Also the Cm column is a rough measurement or estimate of the height of the loaf with some notations:

• ^ gassed and rose to top of the pan or ballooned
• / lopsided or asymmetric;
• * a manual step to deflate the dough on that trial.

Bread machines came on the market about 1986, and became popular outside Japan by the late 1990s.  My first bread machine was a Black & Decker B1561. I replaced it with a Panasonic  SD-YD250 in 2016.

A professional baker works at scale with labour saving technology, with some control over parts of the process – how long to mix, rest, bake and control over temperature. A home baker works at smaller scale, with control of time and oven controls.  A home baker working dough for a couple of loaves may put the loaves in bread pans or shape the.

A bread machine has a heating element, a motor, and a double purpose pan – baking pan and mixing bowl – mounted to the frame. The bowl has a paddle shaped mixing device (it may be called a dough hook or kneader) connected to the power train by a shaft in sealed bearings at the bottom of the pan. The loaf has to be baked in the machine pan.  The dough has to develop gluten, flow, and rise within the machine cycle.  If the dough flow and rises, it fill the pan and takes the shape of the pan, and springs into space above the dough when the baking element is turned on.

The machine therefore specializes in mixing dough that works this way.  It has to be wet – say a hydration rate of 70% to 74%.  A dry dough may not flow.  A wet dough may collapse,

A bread machine processes a few cups of flour into a dough or baked loaf in less than 4 hours.   As a rule, a user selects among program options; only a few machines allow users to program custom cycles changing the duration of mixing and fermentation periods.  Bread machine cycles cannot be reprogrammed.  Most machines have cycles for baking dough leavened with yeast including a basic bake cycle, a dough cycle and a fast cycle manufacturers call Bake (Rapid), Turbo, Quick Bake, Rapid, etc. for quick-rise baking. Some have separate cycles for whole wheat dough and bread.

Bread machines produce good results with white flour and whole wheat flour – baked loaves, and pizza and flatbread doughs – better than some retail offerings.  Lacking preservatives, home baked loaves have a short shelf life.

Bread machine manufacturers and recipe writers discuss small (1 lb.), medium (1.5 lb.), large (2 lb.) and extra large (2.5 lb.) loaves.   These terms also describe the capacity of the pan expected to contain and bake enough ingredients to produce those loaves. The recipes provide a list of ingredients to fill a pan large enough to hold those ingredients. Typically, a small loaf made of wheat flour would have 2 cups of flour; a medium loaf 3 cups of flour and a large loaf 4 cups of flour.  Water or fluid will depend.  Bread machine recipes tend to be a bit wetter than comparable home oven recipes. 

Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (Harvard Common Press, 2000) (BLBMC) was a comprehensive resource.  It suggested that a bread machine could mix dough for almost any kind of bread. 

Several cookbooks for home bakers refer to baker percentage (B%), a mathematical method of managing the production of bread. For instance Peter Reinhardt devotes pages 40-45 of The Bread Baker’s Apprentice to this topic.

It is a tool taught to professional bakers, and addressed in culinary texts such as Daniel T. DiMuzio’s Bread Baking; An Artisan’s Perspective. For the baker-manager, it is a calculation to scale inputs up or down to  create 2, 10, 100 or 1,000 consistent loaves of bread. The assumptions are consistency of ingredients, equipment, energy, working space, and time.  For managing production, every ingredient is put into the formula.  The formula can be use to build dashboard indicator of the use of a bakery.  It is as precise as it needs to be, for how it is used. Bakers tinker with the applications of the method. B% is explained:

• Bread Bakers Guild of America;
• The Fresh Loaf;
• King Arthur Flour;
• Bakers Percentage Revised – The Artisan Net article
• Baker Percentage – Wikipedia Article.

Total flour weight is determined.  Flour does not include all dry ingredients. It is flour which has plant proteins and starch that form dough and ferment when mixed, hydrated and stretch and folded. It includes the ground product of grains, including flour and meal. All flour is counted even when flours differ in density and protein content. It is conventional to express the relative amounts of flour as a percentage of the total flour weight (e.g. 50% bread flour and 50% whole wheat; or 90% bread flour and 10% rye flour). 

The weight of every other ingredient is expressed as a percentage of the weight of the flour.

Fluid is weighed – the main fluid that yields water.  Milk is nearly all water and almost the same density as water.  Oils don’t count.  The fluid percentage is called the hydration rate, a scale of how wet, sticky and messy the dough is.  Eggs, honey and other ingredients that contain water are not counted but may be noted to see if a dough has a higher hydration rate than the fluid percentage accounts for.

The ingredient that mean a product is bread is yeast. Yeast means, normally, one of the strains of yeast commercially grown and distributed as a leaving agent. Salt is a chemical control on yeast, and vital to a stable process. It weighs what it weighs.  Granularity matters in baking,  but not for B%.

Bread recipes for the home baker usually list ingredients measured by volume: cups, tablespoons etc.  The measurement of ingredients introduces discrepancies. Recipes can be misinterpreted.  A cup may mean the amount that fits in the cup used by the recipe writer and tester, rather than a standard measuring cup.  A US cup is .87 of a an Imperial (U.K., many other English speaking countries) cup.  An Imperial cup is 1.2 US cups.  A metric cup is a quarter liter (250 millilitres) which is .88 Imperial cups or 1.06 US cups. The amount of flour in a cup by volume depends on how the cup is scooped or filled.   

A recipe for a 1 lb. loaf of bread typically requires 2 cups of white bread flour or whole wheat flour.  For 1-3 cups of flour,  2% salt and 1% yeast means fractions of a gram of salt and yeast.

Measuring by weight is more exact – but converting volume to weight is fuzzy. The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook suggests 1 cup of bread flour or whole wheat flour converts at 5 oz.  Panasonic suggests, in its bread machine recipes, measuring bread flour and whole wheat flour by weight at the conversion rate of 1 cup = 4.9 oz.  Reinhart (The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and other books) say 4.5 oz.; he measures differently.  4 and 7/8 oz. (4.875) or 4.9 reconciles to recipes in BLBMC and other recipes that use flour as scooped into a measuring cup.  Scales in ounces go down to 1/8 oz, but not necessarily to decimal fractions.  Metric kitchen scales go to the nearest gram; there are some scales that go down to the nearest .1 gram  Conversions of 1 cup for white bread flour and whole wheat flour:

• 4.875 (4 and 7/8) oz. = 138 g.
  
• 4.9 oz. = 139 g.
  
• 5 oz. = 141 g.
  

The volume to mass conversion for other flours varies. Millers have conversions for their products – e.g.  King Arthur. There are generic conversion calculators and tables but these have to used with care.

A US cup of water reliably converts to 236.6 grams.  (An Imperial cup of water reliably converts to 284 grams. A Canadian cup is 224 grams. A metric cup of water is 250 grams.)  Engineers deal with variation of the density of water with temperature in some applications.  Bakers are not as precise.

A US cup of milk converts to 245 grams.

Table salt 1 tsp = 5.7; but some table salts are fine-grained and more dense

Instant dry yeast 1 tsp = 2.8 g.