This post was first published in 2022 and revised in 2025. It will have been republished in 2025.
2022 – Pan Replacement
Drive Shafts
My Zojirushi Virtuoso (model BB-PAC20) bread machine, purchased in 2020, stopped working on June 27, 2022. The pan would not seat on the drive connectors in the base of the machine. One of the 2 drive shafts was seized. The drive shafts are attached to the pan, a manufactured assembly of parts. There was no way for me:
to remove the shaft, the bearing and the seals, or
to have the pan serviced and the shaft and bearings serviced or replaced anywhere in North America, or indeed, the world.
A user can try to replace a bread machine pan, if the manufacturer is still supplying replacement pans to its sales and service agents. Zojirushi’s machines are not unique in this respect.
The pan was already loaded with unmixed ingredients. I emptied the pan into a mixing bowl. I mixed the ingredients, kneaded the dough, and baked the dough in the oven. I set the oven to 350 ℉. I guessed time, and kept baking until the loaf was done. It had not risen properly, but it was edible.
Replacing the Pan
Zojirushi sells its branded bread machines through select retailers. On Vancouver Island, the retail distributor was Healthy Kitchens, an e-commerce store in or near Duncan BC, the successor of a retail store in Cowichan Bay or in Duncan – not far from Victoria. In 2022, the online store advertised the newer Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus, model BB-PDC20, and a replacement pan for the BB-PDC20. It did not list a replacement pan for a BB-PAC20 as available. In 2022 Zojirushi’s Canadian service/parts agency, Beaver Creek Electronics, in Richmond Hill, Ontario (in the Greater Toronto area) was selling replacement parts online and arranging delivery. It had:
8-BBP-P080 pan assemblies for the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso,
BX167810A-00 pan assemblies for the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus (“V+), and
kneading blades (Zojirushi’s term for the paddles or dough hooks in the pans) for both the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso and the BB-PDC20 V+.
Both pans are the large horizontal pans that will hold and bake a 2 pound loaf. The pans look the same but there was nothing from Zojirushi to say that the BX167810A-00 pan assembly was a replacement part for the older Virtuoso. I ordered the 8-BBP-P080 pan assembly (for the BB-PAC20) from Beaver Creek in Richmond Hill. It arrived July 5, 2022. I did not order new kneading blades at that time.
It probably would have been better to order a BX167810A-00 (V+) pan assembly, and a set of kneading blades manufactured as replacement blades for a BB-PDC20 V+. I discovered in 2025 that the pan assembly for the V+ fits in a Virtuoso. The main difference between the pan assemblies was how the drive shafts fit the kneading blades. Kneading blades have a limited service life, and should be replaced after 100 weeks of service of 1.5 to 2 loaves a week.
2025 – kneading blade failure
One of the my original Virtuoso blades failed in July 2025. The result and sign of the failure was that there was some dry flour in a pocket in the loaf at one end, when the machine stopped after the loaf had been baked. The machine had run. The machine had mixed most of the ingredients, kneaded dough and baked the loaf. The drive shaft had not moved the blade on the drive shaft at the end of loaf where I found the flour.
Upon a very close inspection, the flat area of the socket of one of the blades had disappeared, leaving a rounded socket that did not fit the drive shaft and did not rotate with the drive shaft. I took this picture. The blade at the top of the image is worn but still only points away from the flat portion of the drive shaft. The blade at the bottom of the image, completely worn, can be rotated around the shaft.
Another picture of my old blades . The blade that still works is at the top. There is still material visible in the socket to form a functional flat section. of the shaft. There is nothing left of the flat section of the socket of blade at the bottom:
The flat section of the socket of the blade is only about 3 mm. long. It does not run the full height of the socket.
No Blades
By 2025, there were no replacement blades for the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 available from any vendor in Canada or the USA. True replacement blades would be made of the same metal as original manufacturer’s blades, with the manufacturer’s no-stick coating.
Compatible Blades
There was a listing in the Amazon.ca market for “LEDBarz 8-BBP-P070 Bread Machine Kneading Paddle(2Pcs) Compatible with Zojirushi Bread Machine BB-PAC20”. The listing said “It is recommended to apply some cooking oil to the kneading paddle before use to enhance your baking experience, this is a top of the range replacement part that is compatible with Zojirushi bread machines such as the BB-PAC20 model”. The vendor was a “brand” which offer several other small parts for various device – evidently all shipped from China. It had negative or lukewarm reviews:
The new paddles for my Zojirushi fit but they do not have a non stick coating so consequently when removing the bread from the pan, big chunks of bread stay behind, stuck to the paddles. Very disappointing.
xxxx
They’re lacking a non-stick coating of any kind and are just highly polished instead, which means there’s a tendency for them to take divots out of the bread as it bakes very firmly onto them. But even the original paddles sometimes did that, so they’re a perfectly adequate substitute.
The LEDBarz blades fit on the drive shafts. They
are made of different material that the original authentic blades. (A blade weighs about 30 grams);
lack any no-stick coating.
The blades fit. The manufacturer’s advice to coat the blades with cooking oil was dubious – a few drops of oil would be absorbed like oil added as as ingredient, as the machine mixed and kneaded. I tested whether the blades, coated, would work when used when dough is not mixed in the pan and is placed in the pan to rise and bake. Under those conditions, the dough baked onto the blades, which tore holes in the loaf.
I tried using the machine simply as a proofing box and oven would work, if the shafts were coated with cooking oil. The dough must have absorbed the oil on the shafts as the dough rose. Some crumb baked onto the shafts, leaving the shafts coated in crumb and leaving small conical holes. Much better, but I was using time mixing and kneading, and not getting those functions from my Virtuoso machine.
I tried to “season” the blades by heading them, coating them with flax oil and baking the oil. This is the way to season cast iron griddles and frying pans and carbon steel woks. The oil baked onto the blades, but this did not alleviate the adhesion of dough, and the result that bread baked onto these blades.
I bought a V+ pan assembly and a set of V+ kneading blades. Not cheap, but this worked to mix, knead, rises and bake and to get loaves out of the pan without leaving those divots on the blades.
2022-25, Bread Machine
Loading the Bread Machine
The Zojirushi machines take fluids first, at the bottom of the pan. The “Operating Instruction & Recipes” booklet by Zojirushi USA, with the machine when I received it says: “Precisely measure the ingredients and add them to the baking pan in the following order … :
Water (liquid)
Flour – make a mound of flour
Sugar, dry milk, salt and butter
Make a depression in the middle of the flour and place the yeast”
The booklet did not say or suggest that this order saved the kneading blades or any component from any risk of damage.
I routinely loaded ingredients that dissolve or suspend in water in the liquid before the flour: salt, sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, milk, milk powder and butter.
I began to use table salt instead of kosher salt, which I used before 2022. As I have been measuring by weight, this has not made a difference in results. Kosher salt has larger crystals and can be used to replace table salt when measured by weight. Both kinds of crystals are small enough that they dissolve in water during the rest and mix/knead phases in a bread machine.
Bread machine manuals warn against using the time feature for a delayed-start timer with milk products, because of the risk of spoilage. I rarely set the timer on my bread machine.
Recipes
I stopped trying to put recipes online. I put my recipes into spread sheets that showed ingredients by weight and volume, and allowed for calculation of Bakers’ ratio, sodium content, and other details. This has allowed me to work on how much salt to use to get acceptable gluten development, and how much yeast and water are necessary to get a dough that flows, rise and springs without ballooning, collapsing or developing a dimpled or cratered top crust.
Vital Wheat Gluten
Before the pandemic, it was possible to buy vital wheat gluten (“VWG”) in grocery stores in Victoria. Some stores stocked a brand milled by Millstream Natural Foods. Others stocked Bob’s Red Mill brand Vital Wheat Gluten. I was not able to find Millstream in retail stores or online. That supplier may have ceased offering it. Bob’s stopped offering the product under that name and ny 2022 offered “Gluten Flour” which is its new name for VWG. For a few months neither version of the product was in stores in Victoria. VWG is still being milled, and marketed the Market Stores in Victoria as of 2025, but not Loblaws, Save-On, Walmart or any other grocery store chain. People who have bread machines or who bake certain recipes at home may need it. But, there is a movement against gluten which may be making decision makers nervous that stocking the product harms the brand reputation of the company
Proofing Box Feature
The Zojirushi Virtuoso and V+ models uses the heating element to bake the ingredients, and also to:
warm the cold ingredients in a period of “rest” before the machine mixes and kneads the dough, and
raise the temperature in the pan to 91-95 °F (33-35 ºC) in the “rise” periods before baking when the yeast is fermenting the dough producing gas that inflated the dough.
This effect can be compared to using a proofing box. a device to keep dough warmer than room temperature (during primary fermentation or proofing)
None of the bread machines on the market surveyed by Beth Hensperger in her Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000) were said to have worked that way. The machines on the market at that time had timers setting the “rest” times. The dough was warm and moist after kneading (the action of kneading makes dough warm). The machine kept the heat and humidity by shelter inside the pan in the machine under a lid. The possibility of heating the unmixed ingredients and dough was not mentioned in that book. The development of a proofing box function involved different control chips and switches. It is a feature on the Zojirushi Virtuoso, the V+, the Zojirushi Supreme and some other Zojirushi machines. I think it was a feature on my Panasonic, although it was/is not discussed in the Panasonic material. I don’t know if a heated “rest” or “rise” phase has become common or standard in the industry or the market. I haven’t researched this.
Timed warm fermentation is a feature when that aids the machine to produce a predictable loaf in the set time. Artisan bakers extend and delay fermentation by mixing pre-ferments, and by refrigerating pre-ferments and doughs.
Oven Baking
Effort and Costs
I had not hand mixed and kneaded, used my stand mixer or made no-knead bread 0ften since I began to make bread in a bread machine. The bread machine makes good sandwich bread, if I get the flour, water, salt and yeast right. The bread machine and pan do not require the cleaning that mixing bowls and tools require.
I had, at one time, a stand mixer with a 7 quart bowl. I did not use it much and sold or donated it a few years ago. A stand mixer is a specialty appliance. Its main job is mixing and kneading bread dough.
I have a Bosch Compact stand mixer. Like other Bosch mixers, it is a multi-function device that powers a food processor, a blender and other powered accessories. It is smaller than most other stand mixers made for American consumers. It has a 4 quart bowl, big enough to mix and knead dough with 8 cups of flour – enough for two 9 inch x 5 inch loaves baked in oven baking pans. The motor is rated at 400 watts. Bosch’s larger (6.5 quart bowl, 18 cups flour capability) Universal stand mixer has been down graded by American Underwriters Laboratory from 800 watts to 500 watts.
A stand mixer reduces some of the labor of mixing and kneading, and the effort of cleaning up bowls, utensils and working space, but not as much labor as bread machine.
Oven baking
The first hot spell in 2022 ended the day the bread machine broke, but it was followed by other hot days. I only tried a few oven loaves on cool days. I found the dough rose slowly, and did not rise after I had put dough in bread pans for secondary proofing (final fermentation). I wondered about possible causes:
my low yeast/low salt approach,
my kitchen was to cool those days,
I was not giving the dough time, and/or
I handled the dough roughly.
There were several more hot days in August and early September 2025. I avoided oven baking. I thought I would experiment in the fall and winter. But I did not follow up until 2025. In 2025 I grew a mother starter (a culture of yeast and bacteria grown without using modern industrially grown baker’s yeast) and made some dough with sponges and starters made from the mother starter.
Sodium
Less is better
Baked bread, sold in stores and bakeries, is high in sodium due to the amount of salt used in baking, and sodium in some other baking ingredients including baking soda, baking powder, milk and powdered milk. Home baked bread is high in sodium due to the amount of salt in most recipes in books or on line. Bread machine bread, made with standard recipes, is high in sodium. For instance, a 1.5 lb. medium bread machine recipe for lean white (“French”) bread or for white sandwich bread may specify 1.5 tsp. salt and 2 tsp. instant yeast (the yeast may be similar to 2.75 tsp of active dry yeast). Both require 417 g. bread flour (3 cups). The water requirements will be different, but in a range from 237 g. (1 cup) to 1.5 cups.
Sodium is a micronutrient, but a healthy adult only needs 500 mg. daily.
1.5 tsp of salt is 8.5 g. This amount will contribute 3,360 mg. of sodium to a loaf. 1 moderately thick slice from that loaf will contain about 300 mg of sodium. Assuming 16 slices per loaf and 2 slices per sandwich, a sandwich will contain 400 mg. of sodium. While that sounds ok, 4 sandwiches in a day means 1600 mg. before counting any sodium from any other food. This makes it hard to restrict sodium consumption to the daily limits advised by agencies or or follow a DASH diet with sodium limitation. Agencies and recommendations:
the USDA – 2,300 mg.,
the WHO – 1,500 mg..
A 1.5 lb. medium bread machine recipe
for a multigrain loaf with bread flour and whole wheat flour may also specify 1.5 tsp salt but the yeast may be higher than 2 tsp. instant yeast. The water and water based fluid will be higher.
for a pure whole wheat loaf may specify 1.5 tsp. salt and 3 tsp. (1 Tbsp.) instant yeast. It may specify more than 3 cups of flour and 1.5 cups of water.
Each recipe may require or suggest a different program, and the mixing/kneading programs vary between machine brands and models. The set time for mixing/kneading, primary fermentation, bench rise and baking vary.
I have made bread with 50%, 33% and 25% of the salt in a standard recipe bread a few changes in crumb and the taste of the bread.
There are a few recipes for no-salt bread and no-salt bread machine bread online and in specialized recipe books.
I tried recipes from the Zojirushi Virtuoso Operating Instruction & Recipes booklet:
a medium bread machine loaf that uses equal portions of whole wheat flour and bread flour, which I adjusted to less than 1¼ tsp. active dry yeast for a 2 lb. large loaf, scaled down to a medium loaf1converted to instant yeast, and metric weight 3 g.;
a medium bread machine loaf that uses bread flour zero salt, and 1 Tbsp. of vinegar, and 2.16 g. (75 tsp.) instant yeast.
These low salt and zero-salt loaves worked. The results contradict the rule of thumb I have been following for reducing salt and yeast, and started a process of developing numbers for workable weights of yeast and salt for Virtuoso machines.
Instant yeast
I used SAF Red instant (dry)yeast until I had used up a 454 g. (1 lb.) bag in 2021. I had tried to weigh and average 1 tsp. samples. I thought 1 tsp. SAF Red instant yeast weighed 2.8 g., but sources said the standard for instant yeast was 3.12 or 3.15 g. I purchased a small bag of instant yeast (Red Barn stores brand) locally. It appeared to weigh 3.2 g. per tsp. I ordered another bag of SAF Red and tried to verify what 1 tsp. weighed to check on my recipes.
King Arthur or its shipping contractor stopped shipping to Canada in 2023, and Red Barn stopped packaging and selling instant yeast. I found that Fleischmann’s make a product called IDY, an instant dry yeast, in 454 gram (1 lb.) bulk foil bags, available locally in Victoria. It works fine. In retail grocery stores in 2025, yeast, including yeast by Fleischmann’s is still marketed in glass bottles or very small (less than 1 Tablespoon) foil packets, labelled as active dry yeast, fast rise yeast, or bread machine yeast. Such is the belief of yeast growers and marketers in the value of names to sell things.
Reduction formula
A rule suggested by Beth Hensperger in the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”), is to reduce salt and yeast proportionately by weight is a rule of thumb. It works with wheat flour (bread flour and whole wheat flour) loave). There must be yeast or a leavening agent to make a dough that rises and can be baked into leavened bread. It is a good idea to have some salt. Salt affects hydration and gluten formation (a reaction between two proteins found in wheat flour). The amount of salt in most recipes is higher than what is necessary for gluten formation.
Following the BLBMC rule starts to produce loaves that do not flow and rise enough – the dough is not fermenting enough or is losing gas. I have reconsidered my approach to how much yeast and water to use to balance medium loaves.
I wrote and published this post in 2020 within a few months after I started using a Zojirushi Virtuoso bread machine. I made changes and reorganized. I made major changes and republished in 2025.
Zojirushi Virtuoso
The firm has a brief Wikipedia entry, which reports:
Zōjirushi Mahōbin Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese multinational manufacturer and marketer of vacuum flasks, beverage dispensers, thermos-style lunch jars, and consumer electronics including rice cookers, electric water boilers, hot plates, bread machines, electric kettles, and hot water dispensers.
There are subsidiary or related companies in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand and the USA. Zojirushi has Australian, Middle Eastern and European distributors. The global web page only list the USA company in the North America section. The two main Zojirushi web sites:
the global (international) web page. It displays in the English language. The global page does not mention bread machines.
the web page Zojirushi.com. The domain is controlled by the USA company, which publishes the .com page. This page is a portal to the USA web store. These pages and the web store discuss Zojirushi bread machines.
The relative authority and roles of the regions and regional companies are not stated. Zojirushi web pages do not say where Zojirushi products are manufactured. One third party site says, as to bread machines:
The company has several production sites, including its main factory in Osaka, Japan, where it produces a significant portion of its bread makers. Zojirushi also has partnerships with contract manufacturers in countries such as China and Thailand, where some of its products are assembled and tested.
TableAndSpoon, viewed July 21, 2025
Another third party site says:
Zojirushi is a Japanese company that produces a wide range of kitchen appliances, including bread machines. Zojirushi bread machines are designed and engineered in Japan, and the company’s manufacturing facilities are located in Japan, China, and Thailand.
The exact location of production may vary depending on the specific model and the year it was manufactured. …
The model BB-PAC20 was apparently the original Virtuoso.
The Bread Machine Diva (see links below) said in a post on her web page/blog “I bought [a BB-PAC20 Virtuoso bread machine] in 2013 and it’s still going strong. Yes, it’s more than 10 years old! I love love this bread machine! I make bread in it all the time and this machine has lasted longer than any bread machine I’ve ever owned.” The post has had undated changes and updates. She said she had replaced the kneading blades a few times which qualifies her statement about durability.
Reviews online that described and illustrated the Virtuoso BB-PAC20:
Breadmakers.com. As of 2025 site had been updated to discuss the V+.
the Bread Machine Diva site has material on Zojirushi’s BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus (“V+”), and BB-CEC20 Supreme (“Supreme”), as well as recipes.
The Bread Machine Diva site had resources, as of 2025, that may assist users of many machines – e.g. a page of links to manufacturer service sites and manuals.
By 2019, Zojirushi was marketing the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus (“V+”, and had stopped producing the Virtuoso.
The V+ is structurally and functionally similar to the Virtuoso. There were changes to the keypad and the courses (Zojirushi calls the programs that control the machine in kneading and baking a specific type of loaf”courses”. Courses are options turned on by touching buttons on the key pad. Other manufacturers have other names for courses, programs, controls and features.):
These Zojirushi bread machines are almost exactly the same when it comes to appearance and features. …
The biggest differences are the larger LCD and expanded course list of the Zojirushi BB-PDC20: it has 15 options compared to the 10 courses of the BB-PAC20. Another small difference is the control panel buttons that has white text on a black background.
Breadmakers.com, “Zojirushi BB-PDC20 Home Bakery Virtuoso Plus Review”
In 2022 Z0jirushi’s dealers and service agencies sold replacement pans and kneading blades for the Virtuoso for a few years. By 2025,it had discontinued those parts. In 2025, the USA web store and Amazon were offering to sell a BB-PDC20BA, (the Bread Machine Diva says the BA suffix is a code for the color scheme), with replacement parts for the BB-PDC20.
I found a refurbished Virtuoso BB-PAC20 in an online store in early 2020.
Virtuoso/V+ Basics
Dimensions
The outside dimensions (inches|cm) and weight of the Virtuoso, and the V+:
Model
End to end
Front to back
Height
Weight lb.|kg
Virtuoso
18|45.5
10.5|26.5
13|32.5
22.5|10.2
V+
18|45.5
10.5|26.5
12⅞|32.5
24|10.5
The body is metal. The outer surface of the lid is plastic. The lid has a metal inner shell that aligns to the top of pan. The lid is substantial, with a long hinge with stops that holds the lid just past vertical when raised.
The viewing window in the lid collects a little condensation during the rest period before the mix/knead phase and in the early minutes of that phase, but clears up. It lets me observe the knead and see the dough. Raising the lid turns off the motor, pausing the course until the lid is lowered into place.
These machine have a delay timer, as most bread machines do, that can be programmed to finish (and start) at a time up to 13 hours after loading and starting the machine. The timer is integrated with a clock, and can be set to time when the bread can be taken out of the machine.
Mixing Pan
The Virtuoso and the V+ have pan assemblies that can be removed from the machine to load ingredient, remove the dough or loaf, and for cleaning. The assemblies include the pans, handles, a base fitting, drive shafts, bearings and other parts. Pan assemblies are available as repair parts to the general public. I do not know if Zojirushi sells individual components of the pan assembly to service agencies.
There are very few differences between the pan assemblies of the two model. The mixing/baking pans of the Virtuoso and the V+ are identical in size.
In my experience, a V+ pan assembly fits a Virtuoso BB-PAC20 and can be used a replacement for a Virtuoso pan assembly – if a user uses mixing blades for the V+!
The pans are horizontal, and large in bread machine terminology – it will mix and bake a 2 lb. loaf. The inside measurements of the pan are 22 cm (9 inches) long by 13 cm (5 inches) wide. This pan is as long as a large (2 lb.) baking pan for loaves baked in an oven; and slightly wider. The pan is 13 cm (5 inches) high, and has clearance under the lid and lid element – i.e. capacity to bake a large (2 lb.) loaf. The pan has drive shafts for two “kneading blades” (i.e. dough hooks/paddles). The shafts pass through sealed assemblies in bottom of the pan, and have “wing nut” (also called in the literature about the V+ “coupling wing nuts” ) that fits into openings in the machines’ drive system.
A bread machine pan is both a mixing bowl and a baking pan. A metal baking pan can be oiled when dough is place in a pan to rise and bake. The bowl of an electric mixer must adhere to the dough to mix and knead, and then allow a loaf to rise and slide out after baking.
The interiors of the pans on both models have a no-stick coating that functions well and seems durable. The pan coating releases the loaf easily at the end of the bake cycle; the paddles stay on the shafts in the pan.
There is a metal rectangle riveted to the base of the pan that fits into the “baking pan receptacle” a rectangle 6¼ inches (15.5 cm.) inside the machine the base of the pan. There are fittings at the long ends of the rectangles. The pan is pushed into the base to lock the pan in, and tilted slightly to unlock. Locking the pan puts the wing nuts on the drive shafts into the drive system. Seating the pan in the base requires light pressure.
The mixing and kneading are performed by two kneading blades driven by a drive train powered by a 100 watt electric motor in the Virtuoso and the V+. This is not as powerful as the motors on stand mixers marketed to home bakers.
Zojirushi uses the motor for long periods of mixing/kneading in programming the “courses” in the control set. This ensures that the dough is fully mixed and hydrated. Zojirushi gives the dough time to ferment in the Rise phases of its courses.
Drive Shafts
Two drive shafts, mechanically attached, are part of the pan assembly on both machines. The shafts are steel and not treated with no-stick coating. The kneading blades fit on the drive shafts; each shafts fit into a socket at one of each kneading blade. (Coupling) wing nuts mechanically fixed to the ends of the drive shafts below (outside) the pan, fit into openings attached to in the drive system. The blades are rotated in jumps when drive motor is running.
Here is a 2025 picture of the inside of my Virtuoso BB-PAC20 pan assembly showing the bottom of the pan, with drive shafts, without kneading blades. The inside of a V+ pan, visually, would appear to be identical:
In both models:
Shafts project into the inside of the pan assembly though holes located in small depressions in the base of the pans.
A shaft, measured from the bottom of a depression, is about 250 mm high.
A drive shaft is mainly round, 8 mm in diameter.
There are flat sections at the top of each shaft. The bottom of the blade is held off the base of the pan by the way the blade and the shaft connect, which creates a gap.
The gap is about the width of a gift card, about .75 to .80 mm over the main bottom area of the pan – (larger in the depression at the base of a drive shaft).
The width of a gift card, and kneading blade, are shown in this photo. The kneading blade is laid flat on the table top. The width of the gift card was determined with a digital caliper:
Another way to get a look at an image of a drive shaft in a pan assembly: in the support pages at Zojirushi.com (the USA site), find a manual for the V+. You may have to download the manual as a pdf file; look at the section “Attach the Kneading Blades to the Rotating Shafts in the Baking Pan” (p. 14 for the V+).
There is a tiny change in the dimensions of the drive shafts between the models.
The shafts are round except for an area at the top of the shaft which has a flat section. There is flat section at very top of the shaft. There is a 2nd flat area immediately next to the top of the shaft – i.e. a deeper area or notch in the shaft. The differences are in the flat sections:
Dimension
Virtuoso
Virtuoso Plus
Top section
2.05 mm
1.99 mm
Notch section
2.95 mm
5.95 mm
The differences are matched by changes in the sockets of the mixing blades that fit over the drive shafts. The kneading blades for the V+ are different than the blades for the Virtuoso.
Kneading Blades
A kneading blade was shown in an image above. The blades appear to be cast from aluminum. The blades have no-stick coating. The weights of my two old blades as of July 2025 and new blades for the V+:
Worn out blade – 17.9 grams;
Worn but working blade – 18. 1 grams;
New V+ blade – 18.0 to 18.12 grams.
A blade for either machine has a cylindrical socket that fits around a drive shaft. The height of the socket is just a tad less than 25 mm. high. Each is 60 mm. long, measuring from end to end including the socket. The height of the blade portion is 30 mm.
The inside of the socket is round for a distance from the bottom (this is hard to measure). The measurement for the Virtuoso is about 18.7 mm. For the V+ it is about 15.7 mm. There is a short round section at the top of the socket for about 2.0 or 2.1 mm on the blades for both model. The inside diameter of the socket, in the round section, is 8.5 mm.
The flat areas of the sockets near the top of the blade corresponding to the flat area in notches in the drive shafts. The flat surfaces are aligned with each other when the blade is in position on the shaft. This is how force is transmitted to the blade when the drive system is active (when the machine is mixing/kneading or “knocking down” during the a rise phase). The blade cannot engage the shaft unless the blade is oriented correctly. The bottom of the flat area of the socket hits the bottom of the flat area of the notch area of shaft, which stops the blade from dropping along the shaft and hitting the bottom of the pan – it creates small gap. The top of the flat area catches the top of the notch in the shaft unless the blade is aligned. This keep the blades from lifting, sliding or falling off the shafts except when in alignment.
The V+ blades do not drop to the bottom of the shaft of the older Virtuoso. Virtuoso blades and the “compatibles” found in online stores and markets will drop to0 far down the shafts of a V+ pan.
When a blade in working condition is fitted to a drive shaft, the top of the socket will align a fraction of a millimeter below the top of the shaft; the bottom of the socket and the bottom of the blade are held off the bottom of the pan. When the flat area of the socket is worn out, the blade does not engage the drive shaft. This has consequences:
The blade contacts the base of the pan – it rest on the bottom of the pan;
The drive shaft will spin in the socket without moving the blade.
Before a blade is worn out, when a blade is worn enough it may contact the pan.
The manual recommends wet ingredients be loaded first. This machine uses the usual way of keeping yeast away from the water: the user puts yeast in last, after the flour. When the machine is loaded, both blades are in the water or wet ingredients. Both blades mix the dough. The Operating Instruction & Recipe Book (manual) included a number of recipes. The manual could be viewed at the manufacturer’s USA web site as a pdf before it was manual was removed. Most of the recipes are for large (2 lb.) loaves.
The outside of the shaft is a quarter millimeter from the inside of the socket. Water, including water with dissolved and suspended solids, can penetrate this space, and some dough normally gets in.
In my experience:
Baked material does not adhere to the blades if the blades are in good condition;
Tiny amounts of crumb (baked material) stick to the upper tips of the drive shafts;
A minute amount of dough gets into the sockets and bakes into a layer of crumb that makes the blades stick to the drive shafts
The blades may trap a little crust when the loaf is removed from the pan. When some crust is trapped, sometimes some crumb adheres to the trapped crust and may be torn out of the loaf. This depends of the final angle of the blades and the type of bread. A lean bread with a strong crust and crumb can tear..
The pan releases the loaf; the blades say with the pan. The blades may have a small amount of crumb or crust adhering. I waiting for the pan to cool and put water in the pan to a depth that covers the blades and shafts. After a short soak I can twist the blades and release them off the shafts (manually).
This photo shows the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 pan with blades. One blade is worn but still working; one is completely worn out:
The worn out blade rotates freely on the shaft and rests on the bottom of the pan.
Mixing and kneading are a single phase. The dough ball will not fill the pan until the dough ferments (rises), or the loaf springs during the first few minutes after the baking phases begins. During kneading, the dough should form a single ball that moves around the bottom of the pan. A wet dough may form two balls. Generally, the dough flows together and forms a loaf when the dough has fermented and sprung.
In some circumstances one of the blades can be lifted out of attachment to the drive shaft When this happens, the dough ball may stay at one end of the pan. The dough may flow enough fill the pan and bake into a normally shapes loaf when there is enough dough in the pan. Some times, one end of the loaf may be bigger and rise higher, or the loaf may show other signs of the way it rose and and sprung in the pan.
Heating
The heating elements of both models have the same energy settings. The main 600 watt heating element is under the pan, laid out in rectangle inside the space where the pan rests while the machine operates. There is a second 40 watt element in the lid. It is not visible when the lid is raised. It is inside the lid around the viewing window .
The main heating element is on, heating the space around the pan to 248-302 F (120-150 C) for baking the loaf in these courses:
Regular (& Quick) Basic,
Regular (& Quick) Whole Wheat,
Gluten-Free,
Cake
Home-made
Jam (heat).
The heat is on at a low temperature to heat the ingredients in the initial “rest” phase, which occurs in most courses. The heat is on at 91-95 F (33-35 C) during up to 3 Rise phases in these courses:
Regular (& Quick) Basic,
Regular (& Quick) Whole Wheat,
Regular (& Quick) Dough,
Gluten-Free,
Sourdough starter,
Home-made.
The Virtuoso and V+ turn the heating element on for short intervals during the rise phases to raise the temperature in the mixing/baking pan to enhance or speed up fermentation.
The control panel has a control button to set a crust setting of light, medium or dark. This function is active only in Regular Basic (V+ White), Quick Basic, (V+ Rapid White) gluten free and cake courses (programs).
Courses
Phases
The wheat flour baking courses were called Regular Basic, Quick Basic, Regular Wheat and Quick Wheat in the Virtuoso. The names are changed in the V+, but the times for the phases of the course are the same:
Virtu0so
Regular Basic
Quick Basic
Regular Wheat
Quick Wheat
V+
White
Rapid White
Whole Wheat
Rapid Wheat
A baking course has 4 phases.
Name
Action and purpose
Rest
The ingredients are heated a little above the ambient temperature around the machine
Mix/Knead
1. (a) Mix the ingredients, dissolve soluble solids (e.g. salt, sugar, milk powder, butter), dilute or disperse honey or sweet syrup or 1. 1. (b) Begin to hydrate the flour; /and 2. Hydrate the flour further and/or work the proteins in the flour into gluten.
Rise(s)
Fermentation. The element(s) warms the space around the pan to 91-95 ℉ (33-35 ℃) The motor is deployed to move the blades for knockdowns at the beginning of Rise 2 and Rise 3. A program with three Rise phases has sequence of rise-knockdown-rise-knockdown-rise.
Bake
The element(s) heats the space around the pan to 248-302 ℉ (120-150 ℃) to bake the loaf.
The amount of time devoted to each phase varies, but is fixed for each of the programmed courses. There is no setting to change any phase of any course for loaf size. The mix/knead phases are longer than in many other machines but not as long as in some Panasonic models.
Regular and Quick
The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 Zojirushi “Quick” courses were variations of the Regular Basic, Bake Whole Wheat and Dough courses. The differences between Regular and Quick courses were the amounts of yeast, and timing. The V+ does not have “Quick” courses but has “Fast Rise” White and Wheat courses. When the Bread Machine Diva wrote about the V+in 2021, she complained that the V+ lacked the “Quick Dough” course of the Virtuoso, which she found useful in using the Virtuoso to mix/knead and proof dough that would be hand shaped and baked in an oven – e.g. dinner rolls
Zojirushi said in the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 manual that it has tested the its programs with Fleishmann Yeast products – active dry yeast for the Regular Basic, Bake (Whole) Wheat and Dough programs, and “Fast-Rise” dry yeast for the Quick versions. This was standard for Zojirushi’s bread machines before the V+. When the V+ was released, Zojirushi’s recipes ceased to refer to active dry yeast and began to refer to instant yeast. A Virtuoso BB-PAC20 user can use instant yeast for a “Regular” course, if the amount is converted.
The brand of yeast is not important. There are no functional differences between instant yeast and Fast or Quick rise yeast products; the yeast strains are equivalent and the amounts and types of coating are the same. The Bread Machine Diva has done an article on that subject. I agree.
The times (in minutes) for these phases :
Course (Program)
Rest
Mix/Knead
Rise 1
Rise 2
Rise 3
Bake
Regular Basic
31
19
35
20
40
60
Quick Basic
18
22
20
35
0
50
R. Bake Wheat
31-41
22
27-37
30
20-30
60-70
Quick Wheat
15
27
13
30
0
60
R. Dough
23
20
45
22
0
x
Quick Dough
10
20
10
10
0
x
The Virtuoso Quick courses use more yeast with same amounts of flour, water, salt, and other ingredients. I compared manufacturer’s recipes for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves, from the manual. In a Virtuoso:
White bread is prepared on the Regular Basic and Quick Basic courses.
100% whole wheat bread is prepared on the Wheat Basic and Wheat Quick courses.
I converted Active dry yeast to Instant yeast to compare yeast quantities more clearly for the Virtuoso.
Course
Regular
Regular
Quick
Yeast (dry)
Active
Instant
Instant
Salt
Basic White Bread
1½ tsp.
4.2 g. (1½ tsp.)
2.8 g.
4.5 g.
100% Whole Wheat
1 tsp.
4.2 g. (1½ tsp.)
2.8 g.
4.5 g.
Dough, Starter, Other
The Virtuoso uses mix/knead and rise phases in the regular and quick (dough courses. These courses do not proceed to the bake phase; the user should turn the dough out immediately at the end of the course, and shape and bake the dough in an oven. The V+ has a Dough course.
The Sourdough starter courses in both machine have a short Mix phase and a single 120 minute Rise (not 3 Rises). The Recipe booklet and Book of the respective machines have recipes to make a starter from flour and water and (commercial baker’s) yeast which can then be used to bake bread later
The machines, in this course, can mix a starter or a pre-ferment (e.g. levain, sponge, poolish, biga). The fermentation time can be extended by leaving the pre-ferment in the pan longer. It could be a useful feature for users who want to use a bread machine instead of using other methods of growing and feeding “mother” starters or making pre-ferments.
These machines have:
a cake course for cake mixes, soda bread, corn bread and other chemically leavened (baking powder and/or baking soda) mixes;
a gluten-free bake course for gluten-free breads, which has a 17 minute knead phase, and a 35 minute three step rise phase;
a Jam course which heats and cooks the ingredients, then mixes them.
Home Made
The Virtuoso and V+ provide for saving 3 “Home made” courses (custom programs) in which a user may set the time for the initial rest, mix/knead, rise (3x), and bake phases in a range. Temperatures for the rise phases and bake phase are preset.
Raisins, Fruits, Seeds
A baking course by default, sounds a beep to prompt the user to add raisins or other ingredients late in the kneading phase. The prompt can be turned off when the machine is set. This feature was no changed in the V+/
Not included in the Virtuoso..
The Virtuoso did not have
a French or European bread course,
an explicitly named multigrain course, course or
a No Salt course
but can manage these breads.
Rye bread
There is no rye course. Zojirushi had/has recipes in the (Whole) Wheat course sections for bread with a little rye flour in its recipe books:
for the Virtuoso, a printed “Operating Instructions and Recipes” booklet; in the “Wheat” (i.e. Whole Wheat) course section. I still have my copy – the booklet was removed from the support material available to consumers and the public at Zojirushi.com;
the Z+”Recipe Book”, a V+ support document at Zojirushi.com, still available in 2025.
One was “light rye” requiring over 4 cups of bread flour and ⅔ cup of rye flour to make a large (2lb.) loaf in the Virtuoso publication, changed to about 3 cups of bread flour, ½ whole wheat flour and 1 cup of rye flour for the V+. Both publications have recipes for a “pumpernickel” loaf with wheat flour, cocoa powder and instant coffee, and less than a cup of rye flour.
The Virtuoso (and the V+) do not handle rye flour beyond a very small amount. The machine does sandwich bread made from wheat flours, with some options.
Differences
+/-
The V+ has all the courses the Virtuoso had including Sourdough starter, Cake, Gluten Free, Jam, but it lacks a Quick/Rapid Dough course.
European Bread
The V+ has a European bread course, which seems to be intended for baking lean crusty bread. On of the recipes in V+ recipe book is identical to the recipe in the Virtuoso BB-PAC20 “Instruction & Recipes” booklet for Crusty French bread in the Home Made section. The booklet include a suggestion on programming a Home Made courses for the recipe. The suggestion is almost identical to the “European” bread course in the V+ :
Rest
Mix/Knead
Rise 1
Rise 2
Rise 3
Bake
22
18
35
50
Off
70
Multigrain
The V+ has a multigrain program, similar to the V+ White and Whole Wheat programs. The V+ recipe book has Multigrain course recipes – most of which were Virtuoso Basic or Wheat course recipes.
Most loaves which involve mixtures of large amounts hard wheat wheat flour – either bread flour or whole wheat and some non-wheat flours (e.g. buckwheat, soya) flours and items like rolled oats and bulgur can be mixed and baked in regular bake and Bake (Whole) Wheat courses in either machine.
No Salt
The Virtuoso had a No Salt recipe for a bread flour white bread loaf, but did not have a dedicated course for mixing and baking salt-free bread. The V+ has a No Salt course which has a recipe in the V+ recipe book.
Any bread machine can bake bread made without salt (or using vinegar to slow the action of the yeast – e.g the Zojirushi No salt sandwich loaf). Baking bread without using salt requires using less yeast.
Etc.
The V+ has courses for bread made without sugar and vegan bread.
Loaf Size, Yeast & Salt
Medium Loaves
A recipe for a medium loaf can be mixed, kneaded, proofed and baked in the large loaf pan of a BB-PAC20 on the factory settings for the regular bake and whole wheat bake programs on the machine’s settings. . A few recipes in the “Operating Instructions and Recipes” booklet are for medium (1.5 lb.) versions of large loaf recipes.
A medium (1.5 lb.) loaf is 75% of a large loaf recipe. The dough for a medium loaf generally will flow and fill the bottom of the pan as the dough rises. The height of a medium loaf, baked, from the bottom of the pan to top of the loaf at the wall of the pan is about 8 cm at the side of the pan; to the top of the crowned (domed) top of the loaf, 10-11 cm.
I tested the 1.5 lb. (medium) recipes in the Virtuoso “Operating Instructions and Recipes” booklet. I tested the recipes without reducing salt or yeast. I tested medium recipes if given, or large recipes scaled to medium, for loaves made with Bread flour and/or Whole Wheat flour. I converted yeast in these recipes from Active dry yeast to instant yeast. I include the weight in grams of main ingredients for medium loaves, in the recipes published by Zojirushi:
Name
p.
Course
B fl.
WW fl.
H2O
Salt
IY
White Bread
14-15
Regular Basic
416
0
240
8.4
2.8
100% WW
18
Regular Wheat
0
420
320
5.6
2.8
Italian Wheat
19
Regular Wheat
256
180
270
6.3
3.8
Crusty French
44
Home made i.e. custom
416
0
240
5.6
2.8
These medium recipes worked. The dough flowed enough to fill the pan to both ends and front to back. It rose, sprung and baked into loaves within the pan and well under the lid. I put these recipes into worksheets or tables for my future reference to help work out conversions for recipes from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook and other sources.
These recipes will work with less salt than the recipes in manuals say.
Yeast
Medium loaf recipes from the Bread Lover’ Bread Machine Cookbook (2000) (“BLBMC“) recommended 1.75 tsp. (5.5 g.) or 2 tsp. (6.2 grams) +/- instant yeast for 3 cups of bread flour, or 1.5+ cups bread flour blended with 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour, and 1.5 tsp salt. For the BB-PAC20, I need 50-70% of the instant yeast in a BLBMC recipe. (A little more than I would use in my Panasonic.) I also bake with less salt, and reduce yeast for that reason as well.
Virtuosos supports low sodium baking, as any bread machine does.
It is possible to keep a Virtuoso running by using a V+ (BB-PDC20) pan assembly and V+ (BB-PDC20) kneading blades. Zojirushi never advised consumers or sales forces about the possibility of using V+ baking pan assembly and kneading blades in a Virtuoso.
Value
Price
The retail price of a Virtuoso, when new machines were available was a premium price – more expensive than most other bread machines.
The Virtuoso Plus BB-PDC20BA was offered for sale in the US, for $420 ($US) in July 2025 in the Zojirushi.com (USA) web store and on amazon.com. The BB-PDC20BA was offered for sale in Canada on amazon.ca, on sale, with “free” delivery for $626 ($Canada) at the same time. The currency exchange rate, shipping and tariffs were a factor in the pricing. Availability in Canada from was uncertain. Zojirushi and actors in the supply chain, and Amazon.com would not sell or ship to Canadian buyers
Virtues
The Virtuoso BB-PAC20 is quiet. It is stable, partly due to its weight, and partly because it is a balanced machine It doesn’t rattle or try to dance off the counter, unlike many machines by other manufacturers, and earlier Zojirushi bread machines.
It is good at sandwich loaves made with wheat flour, water and yeast – the kind of loaves that industrial bakers mass produce with direct (or straight) dough methods. It lets such dough “rise” (ferment), and bake for about an hour in a baking chamber smaller but as hot as a conventional oven. The loaves develops an even crumb structure and a sweet brown crust.
The inside of baking pan and the exterior surfaces of the kneading blades have been treated with a no-stick coating. The drive shafts are not coated. Non-stick coating of baking pans is a common feature of bread machines made after 1980,
The Virtuoso provides heat while the dough is being “proofed” (i.e. rising or fermenting before the dough is baked), incorporating the function of a proofing box (a device used by some bakeries and a few home bakers) into the bread machine.
The V+ has the same features.
Limitations
While Zojirushi suggests that the Virtuoso and V+ can mix, knead and bake any kind of loaf, with any ingredients a user may want, these machines are specialized. I use the Virtuoso for wheat flour loaves. It is what it is and it ain’t what it ain’t.
I have not tried to use the gluten free programs and recipes. I was not influenced by that feature.
The blog at the Zojirushi USA site said the non-stick coating:
… is made using PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene, a polymer that is applied in a two-step process with a primer and a topcoat. It is nonreactive, inert, ultra-smooth, hydrophobic, and resistant to abrasions, corrosion, and heat.
PTFE is a PFAS chemical which can be a hazard for the workers who may be exposed, and for persons consuming products prepared in cookware with coating made with PTFE, using the word hazard in the sense explained by the Government of Canada’s Centre for Safety and Occupational Health, (“CCHOS”), as source of potential danger:
A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or someone.
Basically, a hazard is the potential for harm or an adverse effect (for example, to people as health effects, to organizations as property or equipment losses, or to the environment).
The bearings and seals of the drive shafts built into the baking pan or either machine can wear out. This happened with my Virtuoso, in 2022. At that time replacement pan assemblies for that model were still available.
The bit of metal that is used to make the flat section of the socket of a kneading blades will wear out. If that part of the blade was not weak and loose, the whole machine might fail. The V+ appears to be better than the Virtuoso – the socket of the kneading blade has more material in a critical area. The kneading blades are vulnerable to wear and eventual failure. This appears to have been a design feature. The feature probably has a safety justification.
The Bread Machine Diva said in a post about the Virtuoso in 2019:
… I use my bread machine two to three times every week. In my experience, Zojirushi bread machines will last four to six years under those conditions. Paddles [kneading blade] and other parts are available on Amazon or from Zojirushi.
I do need to buy new paddles every few years.
Bread Machine Diva, “What Bread Machine Should You Buy” – why Zojirushi, July 14, 2019, last updated April 5, 2025, viewed July 30, 2025
She did not explain what led her to buying new kneading blades.
Zojirushi did/does not discuss the issue of regular replacement of parts in any of its bread machines. (Except there was a reference to a battery for the internal clock in the Virtuoso “Operating Instructions and Recipes” booklet). There was no discussion of service life or the need to periodically replace kneading blades .
Zojirushi made pan assemblies and kneading blades for the BB-PAC20 available for a few years after the model BB-PDC20 was introduced (2019); replacement parts for the BB-PAC20 disappeared from Canada by 2025. In 2025, a few retailers in the USA still offered to sell BB-PAC20 pan assemblies and ship them to Canada. Blades were gone in Canada and the USA by July 2025 except “compatible” blades without coating made by a third party manufacturer in the Amazon market. The vendor and Amazon offered prompt service without any practical assurance that the goods were fit for the purpose.
Bread has some sodium without salt, but the main source of sodium is salt. Humans can taste salt but cannot know how, by taste, much salt is in their food, or how much sodium they are consuming. The reasons that too much salt makes food taste bad but a small amount improves flavour have not been explained by anatomical research on the human sensory organs. (“salt … enhances the taste of other foods … making them more palatable and relatively sweeter”, Salt enhances flavour by suppressing bitterness, Nature, Vol. 387, Issue 6633, pp. 563 (1997)).
Salt contains 39.3% sodium by mass. 1 tsp. of table salt weighs 5.7 grams, and contains 2,240 mg. of sodium.
Sodium is a micro-nutrient. It is necessary to metabolism, in small amounts. The minimum physiological requirement for sodium is between 115 and 500 milligrams per day depending on sweating due to physical activity, and whether the person is adapted to the climate” according to the papers cited in the Wikipedia article Sodium in Biology.
1,200 to 1,500 milligrams per day intake for sodium is adequate. On average, people in the USA consume 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, an amount that promotes hypertension. The American government has advised that the average adult person should not consume more that 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. The American Heart Association recommends the USDA recommendation should be 1,500 mg. per day. The World Health Organization sets the level of 1,500 mg. per day.
Bread baked with salt or a high sodium chemical leavening agent cannot be purchased in a grocery store or even a small bakery. Commercial bakers may have departed from the industrial standard of adding salt to dough in the amount of 1.8 to 2 % of the flour, by weight, but will not explain the process to wholesale buyers or retail consumers. The amount of sodium in a “serving” may be on a Nutrition Facts label if the bread is packaged for retail sale.
The BC chain Thrifty’s (a branch of the Canadian national chain Sobeys) had a sodium free whole wheat loaf before 2019, but it disappeared from the stores.
Sodium Sources – Bread Ingredients
Minor
Wheat flour, yeast, vital wheat gluten and cider vinegar contain small amounts of sodium, according to samples in the USDA FoodData Central database:
Wheat flour has 3 mg. sodium per 100 grams – 3 cups of flour in a typical medium loaf weighs over 400 g. and has 10-12 mg. sodium;
Instant Yeast has 75 mg. sodium per 100 grams – 3 grams of instant yeast has 2 mg. sodium;
Vital Wheat gluten has 8 mg. in 1 Tbsp. (8 grams);
Cider Vinegar has .77 mg. sodium per tablespoon.
Milk, buttermilk, cheese, eggs and other ingredients used in baking bread have sodium. The yeast used to leaven bread (or the coatings used to preserve yeast) has sodium.
Food consumed with bread contributes sodium – e.g. butter, margerine, mayonnaise, mustard, prepared meat, pickles, mustard, spreads, jams etc. Nutrition Facts labels, required to be accurate to nearest gram, will claim 0 sodium. USDA FoodData Central tables may show as little as 1 mg. in 100 gram units.
Salt
Salt is an element of most bread leavened with yeast (including leaven made from a sourdough or other starter). Salt is often used in recipes made with chemical leavening agents which include sodium. Dough made with a chemical leavening agent are mixed but not kneaded.
Salt is the major source of sodium in bread. The accepted standard for yeasted bread, in industrial baking and for recipe writers in the late 19th century, the 20th century, and the early 21st century has been salt in the ratio of 1-2% of the flour by weight. The reasons for this ratio may have been explained somewhere. The ratio was established as industrial and home baking evolved, before scientific experiments on the role of sodium were performed, and scientific theories were published. The ratio was established when salt become an affordable commodity, at a time when the health effects of sodium were not known.
Bread recipes for home bakers can be assumed to be refer to table salt with standard crystal size and to refer to manufactured marked measuring spoons, leveled off.
Salt in a bread recipe for home bakers is frequently (almost always):
1½ tsp. – i.e. 8.6 g. in a 3 cup recipe for a 1½ lb. medium loaf. Few medium loaf recipes exceed 8.6 grams of salt per loaf;
2 tsp. in a 4 cup recipe for a 2 lb. large loaf.
This ratio became established when industrially produced bread became the standard by which people recognized palatable bread.
For volume measurement for small batches, ½ tsp. (2.85 grams) of table salt for 1 cup of wheat flour – whether bread flour, all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour is standard. Converting to weight, this matches the commercial practice.
The sodium in a loaf, or a slice, can estimated, assuming 1 loaf yields 18 slices. The daily sodium intake by eating 8 slices (4 sandwiches) a day, made with bread made with salt in the ratio of salt in amount stated in a medium loaf, without taking other sodium sources into account:
Salt tsp.
Salt grams
Sodium per medium loaf milligrams (mg.)
Sodium per slice, mg.
Sodium mg. 8 slices daily
½
2.9
1,120
62.2
498
¾
4.3
1,680
93.3
746
1
5.7
2,240
124.4
996
1¼
7.1
2,800
155.6
1,245
1½
8.6
3,360
186.7
1,493
1¾
10
3,920
217.8
1,742
2
11.4
4,480
248.8
1,992
Baking Soda & Baking Powder
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is used in baking as a chemical leaving agent. Baking soda has some other uses in cooking, and several other uses. It is also used as an ingredient in manufacturing baking powder. Some nonyeasted baking recipes use both baking powder and baking soda. 1 tsp. of baking soda has 1,246 mg. of sodium. A medium loaf of a typical soda bread will have at least 1 tsp. of baking soda.
Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent used in baking. It has less sodium than baking soda, but is still a significant source.
There are sodium-free substitutes for the chemical leavening agents, available for sale online through outlets such as Healthy Heart Market:
a baking soda substitute called Energ-G, manufactured by Energ-G Foods Inc., Seattle, Washington, USA. It is made with calcium carbonate. It is
a baking powder substitute called Featherweight manufactured by Hain Pure Foods, Boulder, Colorado, USA. It is made with calcium carbonate.
Avoiding sodium means eating less bread or eating bread made with less sodium. Low sodium yeast bread involves using less salt.
Calculating sodium in bread
The sodium in a loaf of bread can be determined by measurement and calculation. Weigh salt, baking soda, baking powder, milk, milk powder, eggs and other ingredients that contain sodium – even consider flour and yeast – and apply standard factors to get sodium content. I have been adding notes on the amount of sodium in baking ingredients to my baking ingredient table, appended at the end of this post. I refer to those notes and calculate the amount of sodium in the ingredients of a loaf of bread.
A loaf baked in a pan 9 inches long high can be sliced into 18 slices, each ½ inch thick. The amount of bread in a slice will depend on the area of the slice, which is dependent on its dimensions in the plane at a right angle to the length of the loaf. A large (2 lb.) loaf baked in a large pan (oven or long horizontal bread machine pan) will be 9 inches long, but differ in its other dimensions. A medium (1.5 lb.) loaf baked a large pan will weigh less, and have less salt, than a large loaf.
It is possible to estimate the amount of sodium in a slice of bread by dividing a loaf 9 inches long into 18 slices and counting slices. A person might eat 8 slices cut from a medium loaf 9 inches long per day, but less slices cut from a large loaf 9 inches long.
I have columns in spreadsheets for my regular bread recipes, with columns for the ingredients for medium loaves, for quantities, and for calculation (e.g. B%).
I have a column of cells for:
the Na mg. (sodium, in milligrams) in each ingredient in a medium loaf, and
calculation cells for
total Na mg. per medium loaf,
Na mg. per slice (loaf ∕18) and
daily consumption (slice x8).
Bread
Flour & water
Flour, water, salt and yeast are normal ingredients in bread, regardless of how it is mixed, kneaded and baked. Once yeast or salt has been mixed with water, a baker cannot go back. When dough is worked in bakery, the baker can add water or flour during kneading to get the dough wetter or drier and affect texture. A baker has some control of time and and the conditions where the dough is held as it ferments and rises.
Yeast
Breads (except some flatbreads and crackers) require flour, water and a leavening agent – usually bakers yeast. Yeast affects rising time, loaf shape and size, crumb structure (regular with small spaces or large irregular spaces), flavor, loaf spring, and the amount of time it takes to prepare and bake a loaf. Yeast can be controlled by measurement and choice of yeast, and by taking time. Dough rises faster with more yeast. The additional yeast costs more and affects the taste of the bread. The right amount of yeast is vital knowledge for any baker.
During the 20th century, wet yeast cakes were manufactured, but superceded by dry yeasts. First, there were active dry yeasts. Then active dry yeast became more active, and the coating changed. Late in the 20th century dry yeast was improved and evolved into instant yeast and other very similar products with new names – Rapid-Rise, Quick Rise, Bread Machine. It is all dried, coated, bakers’ yeast. Active Dry yeast measurement for recipes that call for active dry yeast have to be converted for instant yeast if a user wants to substitute an instant yeast.
Salt
Zero Salt
Leaving salt out can reduce some of the expense, time and effort of making bread. Flavour can be ignored if the bread simply provides bulk and starch. This can depend. The absence of salt it less noticed in the context of a highly flavoured meal.
Salt is not required in roti or equivalent unyeasted flatbreads in South Asia, many other flatbreads.
Salt has been observed to affect dough and bread for centuries. Bakers, millers and other industrial actors involved in bread making developed recipes and processes, and developed industrial science. In the 19th and 20th centuries industrial baking scientists and academic food scientists pursued questions that concerned them. Some of their research has been published publicly, and become known. Bakers used salt to improve their products when salt mines began to produce inexpensive salt for the markets in Europe.
Salt is an ingredient in most recipes for leavened bread. Italian Pane Toscano (Tuscan Bread). Pane Toscano is a rare exception. It is known by a nickname that translates to “tasteless bread”.
Food Writing
Food writing for bakers and for the general public has tended to focus on cooking methods, recipes and taste. This informationcan be vague about scientific detail.
Some academic science affected baking and food processing – the modern science of microbiology was started by Louis Pasteur’s 19th century work. The science explaining the chemistry and biochemistry of baking did exist until the 19th and 20th centuries, and has changed.
The cooking/baking writer Beth Hensperger wrote, explaining the role of salt in bread baking for home bakers and bread machine users at the end of the 20th century:
Salt is a flavor enhancer and plays a role in controlling the activity of yeast. … salt is optional in bread but a lack is very noticeable in the finished flavor. Too much salt, on the other hand, leaves a bitter taste and can inhibit yeast activity. Too little salt leaves a flat taste and can cause the dough to feel slightly slack in the kneading. …
Beth Hensperger, The Bread Bible, 1999
… the little bit [of salt] that most recipes call for acts as a stabiliser so that the yeast does not overferment. It helps to condition and toughen the protein strands so that they do not break easily during the rising process and the dough expands smoothly.
….
Without the right amount of salt, the dough will rise too fast. This especially true in the environment of the bread machine, which is warm and very hospitable to the yeast.
Beth Hensperger, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, 2000
Daniel DiMuzio, discussing artisanal baking, said:
Salt … strengthens the gluten bonds, … extending the amount of time necessary to develop gluten in dough. It also functions as an antioxidant, effectively reducing reducing the loss of caroten pigments and … flavor components during mixing.
Daniel T. DiMuzio, Bread Baking (2010), p. 51
Bakers, baking teachers and cookbooks warn that reducing salt changes bread, and downplay the health effects:
Salt is added to bread dough at approximately 1.8 to 2% of the weight of flour. Sticking to this percentage ensures there is enough salt present in the dough to do its very important job. Once you start to decrease that amount, the quality of your bread starts to decline as well.
Generally, we advise bakers to not leave out salt entirely when making bread. Not only will your dough be slack and difficult to work with (the worst!), but the baked loaf will turn out bland and flavorless. The good news is, the amount of salt in the average slice of bread is actually very small, so it’s generally worth it to stick to the measurement called for in a recipe. …
….
Salt has four important functions in bread, all the way from kneading to eating. Most crucially, it:
Some bakers’ folk knowledge is contradictory. Does salt kill mold and opportunistic micro-organisms and make bread last longer? Does salt keep bread moist? Does salt promote the conditions under which mold and opportunisitic micro-organisms will infest and spoil bread?
Science
Dough
Emily Buhler addressed science and the hands-on experience of kneading dough in her practical and concise book in Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021). She explained what happens to wheat flour and water when they are mixed, with yeast (and salt) kneaded and baked.
Wheat flour, milled from ripe seed kernels, is mainly starch, containing complex sugar molecules and protein molecules. When flour is mixed with water, yeast and salt, the water molecules do not bond with the flour. Water, a polar solvent, surrounds and suspends rather than dissolving protein molecules. Bread dough is a colloid of proteins in water (this kind of colloid is a “sol”). Electrical attraction between positive charged atoms in the proteins and negatively charged oxygen atoms in water molecules holds the water molecules in a polar orientation.
Fermentation
Bakers have known for centuries that salt inhibits the rising of the dough (the fermention of the glucose by the yeast and the release of gas by the yeast). In the last couple of centuries, when industrial yeast was cultivated and processed into wet yeast cakes, the effect of salt was seen in a problem in handling wet yeast cakes; when a wet yeast cake is exposed to salt for enough time, the salt (salt is hygroscopic) can suck water molecules from the wet yeast. The yeast cake breaks down and many cells die; the diminished cake is too small to mix and ferment the dough effectively. The traditional view (in the 19th and 20th century sense of tradition) was that:
Dry (active or instant) yeast cells are invisibly tiny living single-celled fungi, dormant after being grown in a factory, processed and dried, A visible “grain” of dry yeast is a clump of dormant cells, mixed with nutrient and coating. The water in dough dissolves the clumps of instant yeast (also active dry yeast. The practice of putting active dry yeast in warm water before adding it to dough is still followed and recommended by many for home baking and bread machines).
The yeast releases enzymes that break down complex sugars in the starch to glucose, a simple sugar, which the yeast consume. The proteins bond to each other in water and form gluten. In anerobic fermentation the yeast produces alcohol and CO₂ (carbon dioxide), a gas. The gas is trapped in gluten,which makes the dough inflate and rise.
salt kills yeast, and
should be kept separate from yeast.
Salt kills yeast when there is an error in storage of ingredients of the timing of the mixing process. When dough is mixed, the salt is distributed and diluted in water.
Emily Buhler in Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021) addressed:
Yeast and Bacteria in sub-chapter 2.2 of the Bread Chemistry Basics chapter;
Fermentation in sub-chapter 2.3 of the Bread Chemistry Basics chapter;
Taste and Colour in sub-chapter 2.4 of the Bread Chemistry Basics chapter; and
What Happens to Bread in the Oven in sub-chapter 7.2 of the Proofing and Baking chapter.
The strains of bakers’ yeast grown by the corporate employees of the companies that make processed dry yeast – active or instant – break down enough of the starch in the flour to a simple sugar that yeast consumes. When yeast consumes simple sugar, it produces CO₂ gas that is trapped in the gluten, causing the dough to rise. The yeast, in anaerobic fermentation, also produces alcohol – the flavour effects of the alcohol produced by industrial bakers’ yeast are minor. Some other microorganisms break down alchohol and produce flavours but this often doesn’t happen within the time dough is kneaded and baked.
Salt inhibits yeast, wet or dry, according to several studies. Emily Buhler addressed Salt and fermentation in sub-chapter 2.9 of the bread science chapter of Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021). Salt dissolved in water releases ions (charged atoms) that affect the movement of water molecules through yeast cellular walls so that the net osmosis is that the cells shrink, crenating the yeast cell walls.
Gluten
When salt is left out, the bread will develop gluten “naturally” from the biochemical actions of the proteins in the flour in water (autolyze). Without salt, the gluten does not stretch as much.
Emily Buhler addressed Salt and Gluten in sub-chapter 2.10 of the bread science chapter of Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021) . She cites:
early 20th century work correlating salt to measured and observed characteristics of gluten,
mid 20th century work on the polarity (electrical charges) of amino acids,
work in the ’60s on proteins in solution, and
a 1977 paper on the effect of salt in proteins in solution.
Emily Buhler did not discuss vinegar, as such, in Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021).
A neutral, as opposed to a low pH (high acidity), or high pH (high basicity) solution affects “conformation” – unfolds or unpacks a twisted string of the molecules – of the gluten proteins. Pure water, pH 7, is neutral. Sea water, pH 7.5, is mildly basic. Salt in solution changes the conformation – a charged solution (with salt ions) shields charged sites on the protein and “tightens” the gluten. The salt affects the way the proteins respond to the mechanics of mixing and kneading.
Vinegar, with pH as low as 2.5, is acidic.
Crust Colour
The heat of the oven affects the production of gas by the yeast, and the escape of gas. In the first 10 minutes, the expansion of the heated gas, before the gas escapes, makes the loaf springs. Then the heat diffuses in the gas inside the loaf and bakes the interior of the loaf – the crumb. The yeast dies when the bread is baked, which does not harm the flavour of bread. Most of the starch in the flour becomes the crumb of the loaf.
The heat of the oven or bread machine dries the crust into the chewier or crisper crust. The colour is created by Maillard reactions which typically proceed rapidly from around 140 to 165 °C (280 to 330 °F). Many recipes call for a temperature high enough to ensure that a Maillard reaction occurs. At the crust, sugars and amino acids also react in the heat of the oven to form flavour molecules. The crust is not airtight. It lets C0₂ escape as the loaf bakes, and eventually lets water vapour escape from a baked loaf.
Reducing Salt
Baking
General
Dough needs to be leavened lift to rise. A zero-salt bread needs as much yeast as a loaf with the normal amount of salt. For instance: Beth Hensperger’s bread machine recipes for Tuscan Peasant Bread (or Pane Toscana) mix and knead a sponge. It seems to be a workable method of baking a rustic no-salt loaf. Her yeast measurement for this loaf is lower than her many conventionally salted bread machine loaves. This should be checked and and tested, depending on the machine used.
AHA & other
Some cookbooks and web sites offer bread recipes for persons with hypertension or health concerns. Some are by survivors or family. Some are sponsored by health care reformers. Some of these recipes are truly zero salt. Some have a pinch or as much as ½ teaspoon ( 2.8 grams) of salt.
The American Heart Association’s Low Salt Cookbook (4th ed.) has a zero salt recipe for a Whole Wheat bread, mixed and baked in a bread machine. It is a multigrain loaf (for a medium loaf, 1½ cups whole wheat flour, 1½ cups bread flour), milk and yeast. For a medium loaf, it prescribes 2½ tsp. (7 grams) active dry yeast. (It may take less yeast. Bread machines and programs very.) The crumb of this loaf is a bit irregular, and the absence of salt affects the taste
Tuscan Bread
Salt is not required in Italian Pane Toscano (Tuscan Bread), a lean bread made with flour, water, and yeast. It is mainly a white flour recipe (bread flour, high protein All-purpose, or All-purpose). There a recipes in different sizes with various methods and loaf sizes. Example: King Arthur Tuscan Bread. Beth Hensperger included a recipe for this bread in her baking cookbooks:
Tuscan Peasant Bread, The Bread Bible (1999) both
mixed with a mixer or by hand, and oven baked, and
a bread machine version;
Pane Toscana, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000).
Beth Hensperger’s recipes have this bread made with a sponge to delay fermentation. She makes it more rustic by using some whole wheat flour, and enriches it slightly with a pinch of sugar.
Vinegar
Vinegar, like salt, inhibits microorganisms – such as yeast! It makes a solution acidic, which affects the “conformation” of the proteins that form the gluten. Vinegar is a mildly acetic aqueous solution of acetic acid. Adding vinegar to pure water dilutes the acid and produce a slightly acidic fluid. I don’t understand what happens when a small amount of mild acid is added to water containing salt. Salt dissolves in water. Salt water is a high pH fluid. It is “basic’.
Vinegar is produced by fermentation of fluids:
produced by crushing the fruits of grape vines, apple trees and other fruiting plants, or by soaking barley malt and other products of the grain of grasses;
wines and ciders that have been produced by fermentation of plants; and
fluids produced with alchohol distilled from fermented plants.
Slow methods are used in traditional vinegars; fermentation proceeds over a few months to a year. Slow fermentation allows for the accumulation of a nontoxic slime composed of acetic acid bacteria and their cellulose biofilm, known as mother of vinegar. Fast methods add mother of vinegar as a bacterial culture to the source liquid before adding air to oxygenate and promote the fastest fermentation. In fast production processes, vinegar may be produced in 1-3 days.
Fruit vinegars are made from fruit wines, usually without any additional flavoring. Apple cider vinegar is made from cider or apple must.
Wine vinegar is made from red or white wine, and is the most commonly used vinegar in Southern and Central Europe
Distilled vinegar (spirit vinegar in the UK, white vinegar in Canada) is produced by fermentation of distilled alcohol. The fermentate is diluted to produce a colorless solution of 5 to 8% acetic acid in water, with a pH of about 2.6. This is known as distilled spirit, “virgin” vinegar, or white vinegar, and is used in cooking, baking, meat preservation, and pickling, as well as for medicinal, laboratory, and cleaning purposes.
A cup (US volume unit) of vinegar weighs 240 grams. (A cup of pure water weighs 237 grams.) Vinegar is 5% acid and over 90% water. Cider vinegar and distilled (white) vinegar have little sodium according to USDA.
Type
Weight 1 Tbsp.
Water, 1 Tbsp.
Sodium mg.
Distilled
14.9 g.
14.1 g.
.298
Cider
14.9 g.
14 g.
.745
Web sites about baking have comments on vinegar, as of late 2022:
“Vinegar breaks down the proteins in bread dough, causing the gluten to tenderize. .. new – and … stronger – gluten networks form. This results in … a … rise in a shorter amount of time.
“Vinegar cuts down on flour oxidation, resulting in … moist crumb and a lightweight texture. …
“Vinegar is an organic acid … by adding vinegar to your dough, you can create impressive flavors in a shorter amount of time.
Vinegar reduces the pH level in your bread dough. … this fends off mold formation…”
“… it can make the dough more elastic, which can help it rise better and create a more consistent texture. It can also help to retard the growth of yeast, meaning that the bread will take a bit longer to rise but will be less likely to collapse after it’s been baked. Finally, the vinegar can help to create a slightly crisper crust.”
There is no history of hydrating dough with vinegar (using vinegar instead of water or other fluids). Some web material, published to pages, or posted to forums, attributes some effects, actions and results to the addition of a small amount of vinegar to the other ingredients of bread.
Someone started using vinegar to make the water acidic, and leaving out salt. I have not found material on the web to explain when this started or whether it was tested at scale in industrial bakeries.
The bread machine maker Zojirushi started to sell a bread machine with a “no-salt” program in 2018. Zojirushi uses cider vinegar in a recipe for a white sandwich bread for use in a “No Salt” program on its current Virtuoso Plus (a large loaf (2 lb. pan) model and its BB-SSC10 (small, 1 lb.) model.
A tablespoon (14.7 ml.) of cider vinegar has the same effect as 2 tsp. of salt in white sandwich bread on gluten, crumb and crust, in my Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20. 2¼ tsp. (11.1 ml.) of cider vinegar has the same effect as 1½ tsp. salt.
A tablespoon of vinegar adds only 1 Tbsp of water to a dough, and only adds tiny amount of acetic acid and biochemically significant elements, but it affects gluten and fermentation. It is powerful.
It is possible to measure with enough accuracy with measuring spoons. It is possible to measure vinegar by weight. Scales may go to the nearest gram; some go to the nearest .1 gram. Conversions:
Vinegar, Volume
1 cup
1 Tbsp.
2¼ tsp.
1 tsp.
Vinegar, Weight
239 g.
14.9 g.
11.2 g.
5 g.
Cider vinegar does not impart a bitter taste to bread. Vinegar lacks the flavour impact of salt.
Adjustments
Salt
A leading blog for home bakers observes:
… If you’re still looking to reduce the salt in your bread, however, it’s possible to do so successfully (to an extent).
Generally, you can reduce the salt by half without having any very noticeable changes to texture and browning.
If your bread tastes a bit bland, you can use herbs or spices to increase the flavor. Fresh chopped rosemary or caraway seeds are both very traditional ways to add flavor, but the options are really endless! Try experimenting with blends like Herbes De Provence or even Pizza Seasoning to jazz things up.
King Arthur Flour, Blog, Tips & Techniques, July 2020, Why is salt important in yeast bread?
A 50% reduction of salt works when the recipe, following the conventions of home baking, specifies 2 tsp. of salt for a large loaf or 1½ tsp. for a medium loaf. A medium loaf, baked with 1½ tsp. of salt, has at least 3,360 mg. of sodium. Reducing the salt by 50% reduces the sodium in a loaf to about 1,680 mg. of sodium. This is tolerable in terms of the gluten and the taste of the bread. If the recipe said 8.6 g. (1½ tsp.), I will reduce salt by 50% by weight. I aim to reduce salt to 4.3 grams.(¾ tsp.) for a medium loaf, or less. 4.3 grams.(¾ tsp.) gets good gluten development to bake a medium loaf in a Zojirushi bread machine. It should be enough salt for a medium loaf under any other baking method if the dough is mixed and kneaded
It is necessary to consider how much sodium is being avoided when salt is taken out of a recipe. Where a recipe uses 1 tsp. (5.7 g.) of salt for 3 cups of flour, I can reduce use 75% of the recipe amount of salt to get the same amount of sodium per loaf/slice/serving as by reducing 1½ tsp. of salt by 50%. If a recipe required less salt than 1½ tsp. for a medium loaf, I may reduce salt by a low amount. I have tried reduction from 1 tsp. (5.7 g.) to ¾ tsp. (4.3 g.) or ⅝ tsp. (3.6 g.). Many medium loaves made with ⅝ tsp. (3.6 g.) salt and a suitable adjusted amount of instant yeast knead and bake well in a Zojirushi Virtuoso using the Basic Bake and Bake whole wheat programs, and in the Home made program for European bread
Yeast
Salt slows fermentation in dough. Salt also makes gluten strands longer and assists a dough to rise. The reduction in gas production is outweighed by more extensible gluten. Reductions of yeast affect the production of the gas which stretches the dough. Yeast is required to leaven any yeasted bread. Yeast can be reduced in from the levels stated in recipes when salt is reduced. The right amount of yeast varies according to the recipe and other factors:
The machine;
The program;
The salt and other sodium in the dough.
Dough needs to be hydrated and leavened to rise and flow.
Bread Machines
Machines
While many bread machine recipes seem to be for “any” bread machine, there are no generic recipes. Machines have significant differences in
pan size,
pan shape, mixing action,
programs, and
features.
Features, such as heating the baking chamber and pan while a mixed dough is rising (i.e. fermenting), are not found in all machines, and affect the amount of yeast a user should use.
Bread machines run in fixed time intervals set in the programs written by the manufacturer’s engineers. A closed device is not subject to interventions when the program is running. Techniques used in conventional baking are not easily used with bread machines. Bread machines are convenience appliances. They make palatable bread. A machine user can make some kinds of changes in attempting to make a recipe again: setting the device to use a different program, or adjust the recipe.
Beth Hensperger’s book The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook said:
… In the presence of salt the dough rises at a slower rate and the salt strengthens the gluten. Loaves with no salt collapse easily.
If you are on a salt-restricted diet and wish to reduce the salt in a recipe, be sure to reduce the yeast proportionately, or use the recipe amount of lite salt. Without the right amount of salt, the dough will rise too fast. This is especially true in the environment of the bread machine …
Beth Hensperger, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, 2000, p. 15, p. 290
The suggestion of using “lite” is unclear. She may be referring to the branded product by that names made by Morton, a blend of table salt and potassium chloride. There are salt substitutes made with calcium chloride or potassium chloride sold as “NoSalt” or “Salt-Free” that can be added to some foods. These can to leave soups or stews tasting ok to human senses. There is no basis for saying that salt substitutes affect the activity of yeast or gluten formation in bread dough, or the taste of baked bread. I have not located published test results or evidence.
The suggestion of reducing salt and yeast proportionately (by weight) is a rule of thumb that works, to a point. This rule seems to be reflected by some product offerings. Morton’s lite salt product has 290 mg of sodium per ¼ teaspoon serving while its regular table salt has 590 mg of sodium per ¼ teaspoon serving
Beth Hensperger introduced the topic of “What Can Go Wrong, and How to Fix It” at pp. 38-40 of The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. Many things can go wrong; the answers are not obvious.
Salt & Yeast
Salt
Salt can be reduced in bread machine recipes for 1½ lb. loaves that specify 1½ tsp. of salt to 4.3 g. (¾ tsp.), 3.6 g. (⅝ tsp.) or as little as 2.8 g. (½ tsp). This reduction has an effect on gluten which affects the texture of the crumb. It affects taste. The change is less noticeable in multigrain loaves, and loaves flavoured in some way. Salt in recipes with 3 cups of flour (for 1½ lb. loaves) can be reduced with little or no effect on gluten and the final baked crumb and crust.
Yeast
Yeast choice and measurement are important in bread machines. The yeast specified in any given generic recipe may be too much for some bread machines. A dough or loaf that balloons is messy, and can endanger the machine, the kitchen and the cook. Bread machine recipes are also determined by whether they can produce acceptable bread in a time frame that consumers/machine buyers will tolerate. If a recipe requires active dry yeast and a user wants to substitute an instant yeast, the yeast measurement should be converted for instant yeast.
If a recipe for a medium loaf says 8.6 g. (1½ tsp.) salt, and if the proportionate reduction rule was an exact rule, I would expect to reduce yeast by 50% by weight, but it isn’t that simple. Yeast can be reduced with low salt loaves. The rule of proportional reduction leads to bad results if the amount of yeast is not calculated correctly and measured correctly. That leaves a problem – how much more should yeast be reduced if salt it reduced.
Yeast measurement has to be adjusted for a machine’s mix/knead and rise phases. These vary. Some machines have a proofing box function – the pan is heated during rise phases. The length of the rise phases varies between machines and programs.
Recipes should have enough yeast to leaven the dough and rise in a specific machine without ballooning or overflowing a bread pan. For some machines or programs more than 1 tsp. of instant yeast for a 1½ lb. loaf is too much, regardless of salt and regardless of other ingredients that may inhibit fermentation. For any machine, set to a “Quick-Rise” program, more yeast is required that for a Regular or Basic Program. Too much yeast for a machine and a program will result in the dough or loaf ballooning or collapsing. Those problems can be fixed by adjusting yeast in a recipe leaving flour, water, salt and other ingredients unchanged.
The relevant features affecting hydration, gluten formation, yeast activity, fermentation, and rise are:
the protein in wheat flour,
the protein in other flour, such as rye flour,
the amount of high protein wheat flour and any vital wheat gluten,
the length of the mix/knead phase,
the mix/knead action,
the length of the Rise phases, and
warmed pan proofing box action in the Rise phases.
Vinegar
Zojirushi’s recipe for No-Salt bread (large loaf and small loaf), is nearly identical to Zojirushi’s Basic White Bread (large loaf or small loaf). It has no salt, and has some cider vinegar – ½ to 1 tablespoon, depending on the recipe size. Zojirushi’s recipe for No-Salt bread works in a basic or regular baking program – the program used for enriched sandwich bread, made with bread flour, sugar, milk or milk powder and butter. In 2021, Marsha Perry, writing as the Bread Machine Diva said that the large (2 lb.) loaf version turned out well in a Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20 machine using the Basic Program (the BB-PAC20 does not have a No Salt program). The photos at the Bread Machine Diva site suggest the crumb is slightly different when the recipe is baked in two different Zojirushi machines.
I tried the recipe, scaled for a medium loaf; the medium loaf works in a Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20. This recipe should work in any Zojirushi model with a large pan – Supreme, Virtuoso, etc. The recipe will work in other machines in a regular or basic baking program, but may require a little less or more yeast than a Zojirushi machine. The recipe is sensitive to measurement of the ingredients, including the vinegar.
Zojirushi Bread Machines
General
In working out a recipe that will not balloon or collapse pay attention to : the type of flour, the amount of salt, the bread machine course (program) and the amount of yeast.
It is often necessary to try out some variations, changing some quantities by small measured amounts to see if a change makes the bread better by some parameter.
Many recipes for medium loaves baked in bread machines may require 1½ tsp. of salt for 3 cups of wheat flour, but recipes vary. Some of Zojirushi’s recipes for medium loaves baked in the BB-PAC20, in its machine manual and on the web accept that ratio. Generic recipes for similar breads may use 2 tsp. (6.2 grams) of instant yeast for a medium loaf. Other Zojirushi recipes use less salt – noted in the table below. The yeast in recipes in the manual for the salt stated in the recipe. (The web links lead to large loaves. I am using the medium loaf recipe in the printed manual.) I am converting yeast from Active Dry, used by Zojirushi in it recipes for the BB-PAC20 to instant yeast:
*The “home made” course, given in the recipe in the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 Virtuoso manual, is identical to the European course (i.e. program) of the Zojirushi BB-CDC20 Viruoso Plus. It has 2 rise phases, like a Quick course but the rises are long – 35 minutes and 50 minutes. The Crusty French recipe involves programming a “Home-made” program in a BB-PAC-20 Virtuoso or a BB-CEC20 Home Bakery.
Zojirushi also publishes recipes for 2 lb. “large” loaves with 1½ tsp of salt. These scale to 1⅛ tsp. (6.4 g.) salt for 1.5 lb. loaves.
In working out a recipe that will not balloon or collapse pay attention to:
the type of flour,
the amount of salt,
the bread machine course (program) and
the amount of yeast.
It is often necessary to try out some variations, changing some quantities by small measured amounts to see if a change makes the bread better by some parameter.
Yeast
Initial General Rule
The Zojirushi BB-PAC20 requires less yeast for a recipe that uses a regular yeasted baking program, (i.e. the Regular Basic course or the Regular Wheat course) than is used in a recipe from Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, or most generic bread machine recipes. These courses have a Rise period (programmed as 3 consecutive periods) in a heated pan. A Zojirushi BB-PAC20 needs about 65% of the instant yeast in a generic recipe used in these courses. This is a target for the amount of yeast to raise a fully salted loaf. I make this initial adjustment for all recipes in those categories except recipes from Zojirushi for my Zojirushi BB-PAC20.
Zero Salt and/or Vinegar
For the Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20:
3.8 grams of instant yeast, used to make a sponge for Tuscan Bread, will raise a zero salt dough for a 1.5 lb. medium loaf;
4.0 grams of instant yeast will raise a no-salt dough for a 1.5 lb. medium loaf, in the American Heart Association whole wheat recipe.
The Zojirushi “No Salt” bread, made with vinegar, sugar and milk powder is a soft sweet sandwich bread. The crumb is fluffy. It is similiar to other sandwich breads – a bit softer.
The yeast requirement for this sandwich loaf, made with vinegar instead of salt, is about 3.1 grams of instant yeast (1 tsp.)
The recipe is sensitive to measurement of the ingredients, including the vinegar.
I will try to bake other recipes with vinegar instead of salt. I will check this method with other enriched sandwich breads, experimenting with changing the enrichments – sugar, milk powder etc. It will take time.
Lean Breads – 50% Salt
A Zojirushi BB-PAC20 will bake a crusty French style white loaf – a lean bread – a “home made” (custom) program for that style of bread. A medium loaf requires 3 cups of bread flour.
Ingredient
Factory
My test 1
Salt
5.7 g. (1 tsp)
4.3 g. (¾ tsp)
Instant Yeast
3.1 g (4.2 g. (1½ tsp) active dry)
2.2 g.
I have used the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 to bake medium loaves of Beth Hensperger’s (of the BLBMC) recipe for Chuck Williams Country French Bread, a lean bread. The BLBMC recipe (full salt) uses 8.6 g. I make it with 3.6 g. of salt in the Regular Bake program. Yeast depends on what course/program I use:
Regular Basic course, with 2.0 g. of instant yeast;
Home made course for crusty lean bread. This bread, in the shorter Home made program, needs about 3.1 g. or 3.2 g. of instant yeast for a loaf with 50% salt (4.3 g.). It develops a dimple (which might be called a crater) with 3.6 g. of instant yeast, but not with 3.2 g. of instant yeast.
50% Salt – Regular Basic and Regular Wheat
I will reduce yeast below the Zojirushi target when I make a salt reduction for a generic recipe. It may be 50% of the yeast that remains after the initial adjustment (not the yeast in the recipe), but it depends on the amount of salt.
Where a recipe recipes only ½ tsp. of salt for a medium loaf (e.g. the AHA low salt recipe for a medium size light rye loaf) I use the recipe amount of salt and 2.7 or 2.8 g. of instant yeast.
When salt has been reduced to 4.3 grams (¾ tsp.) for a medium loaf, 2.1 to 2.4 grams of instant yeast will leaven the dough to get good rise and flow without collapse or “crater” in the Regular Basic and Basic Wheat programs. Using less yeast can produce collapse or “crater”, or issues of size and shape. Using more yeast may produce a loaf that ruptures.
A Zojirushi BB-PAC20 (or another modern Zojirushi model with a 2 lb. pan) can make an acceptable medium loaf of bread with 4.3 g. of salt and 30-35% of the instant yeast in a generic recipe with bread flour and with bread flour and whole wheat flour.
100% whole wheat flour bread is close, but not exactly the same.
Putting rye flour in the mix changes the yeast requirements.
Other Adjustments
Some generic (e.g. BLBMC) bread machine recipes have problems that show up with a Zojirushi machine. It may be as little as a few tablespoons of water. These problems can be fixed by comparing a problem recipe with successful recipes.
Baking Ingredients
I find it convenient to have baking ingredients in a spreadsheet saved on a device in my possession – a desktop in a room near the kitchen. I have access when the device is on, without relying on Internet connections and the cloud.
Most bread is made of grain that has been harvested and milled, to be hydrated, kneaded, and baked. Agricultural, industrial and culinary art have extended the usefulness of grain, but have not created a product to compare to the lembas bread of the elves in The Lord of the Rings. Bread is edible and palatable for a few days.
Bread is … an intermediate-moisture food product that is prone to mould spoilage. Normally bread is eaten fresh or preserved using additives or modified atmosphere packaging.
There are some breads that are baked hard and last longer – crackers and hardtack. Commercial bakers use additives and packaging – plastic – to extend the period of time that ordinary soft bread remains safe and palatable; there are some uses for stale bread.
Bread is porous and moist; it is vulnerable to mould (mold in the American spelling). Moulds reproduce by releasing microscopic spores. There are hundreds or thousands of spores in every cubic meter of household air. Most household filtration devices do not trap or control these spores. Mould spores will get on bread. Not all moulds thrive on bread, but several do. A mould, like a mushroom, has a mycelium of thread-like “roots”. Mould has health effects. Many moulds produce toxins. The antibiotic penicillin was derived from a common mould, that is popularly said to have been a bread mould. That is not a reason to eat mouldy bread.
Breadboxes are a convenient way of storing bread, and largely effective at protecting bread from most household animal and insect pests. Most people have a storage system for bread. Some kitchens have bread drawers in counters and cabinets. Modern breadboxes are often vented or have loose doors and lids or some mechanism to allow air flow that lets bread dry a bit – which delays mould, although it exposes the bread to some risks. Packaging can keep loaves from drying out for a few days. A consumer can combine a ventilated bread box with paper or bread bags or other wrapping. Many modern breadboxes use plastic or silicon seals to maintain the bread in an airtight chamber. This retains moisure and creates a humid storage space for bread. This delays bread drying out, and protects against some pests. This kind of box needs to be washed and disinfected regularly.
Refrigeration does not delay drying and staling. Some moulds grow in/on refrigerated foods. Some people use the refrigerator to store sandwich breads. Bread can be frozen and thawed. There is the practice, said to popular among the Dutch, of freezing and thawing bread.
Home bakers, bread machine bakers and internet advice sites have suggestions on inhibiting mould:
An article published at thespruceeats.com makes some sensible suggestions, unfortunately tending toward making over the kitchen.
I have tried storage options:
Vented breadboxes;
A Tupperware 23 cup (5.5 liter) plastic box with a hinged sealed lid. It is large enough to hold large (2 lb.) bread machine loaves. It seems to be airtight. Bread picks up mould spores which grow into mould on anything in the box, even crumbs. After a week or so it starts to become a petrie dish;
Metal tins with lids. Old cookie tins are too small, I have a manufacturer’s container for potato chips as sold in the 1950s and early 1960s. My mother had a few, used to store flour, rolled oats and sugar. This can hold a loaf or two. It may not do well with humid contents – I don’t want to see if the interior metal rusts, or find out what rust does for bread.
There are plastic food storage boxes on the market that will hold a loaf of bread. These keep a loaf from drying out, but are humid. These. like my Tupperware, have to be regularly washed to remove crumbs and prevent mould. I don’t want a new ceramic bread storage container, an accessory suggested on some sites, or another airtight container.
My answer is a ventilated bread box, with some packaging, in a clean kitchen. Housework, more housework.
100% whole wheat loaves may be made with a bread machine in the whole wheat program. High WW flour formulas that aim for sandwich loaves with an moderately open crumb use a dough with enhanced visco-elastic properties; the dough is enhanced with vital wheat gluten or bread flour and enriched with fats – oil or butter – and sugar in the form of molasses, honey, milk, brown sugar or refined sugar.
Much “whole wheat” bread multigrain bread. Multigrain covers many blends made with 50-90% flour being high protein white flour and some whole wheat flour. Loaves with high white flour content may use, and carmelized sugar products (e.g. molasses) for sweet flavour and brown colour. These loaves deliver the energy part of nutrition – starch – like sandwich bread and other processed carbohydrates. A multigrain loaf high in white flour can be baked in a bread machine with the basic bake program.
Bread machine recipes have to be customized; each machine needs a different amount of yeast to ferment to produce enough carbon dioxide to inflate the dough and make the dough rise within the time limits of the program. The best way to find the right amount of yeast for a bread machine recipe is to understand the manufacturer’s recipe for basic bread. The amount of yeast depends on the type of yeast and amount of salt in the recipe. I use instant yeast, and I write recipes in tables.
The manufacturer’s recipe for the whole wheat program is a suggestion of how produce a goof loaf with whole wheat flour, water, salt, added gluten, sugar, fats, and dry yeast in 4 hour program. Zojirushi’s recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread provides medium (1.5 lb.) and large (2 lb.) loaf formulas for the Zojirushi machines with large pans such as the BB-PAC20. I used those recipes to find out how to leaven 100% whole wheat for that device, a precaution to avoid overflowing or collapsing loaves.
The Zojirushi medium (1.5 lb.) recipe says to use 3.5 cups/420 g. of whole wheat flour recipe. The manual recommends measuring by scooping flour into a measuring cup – i.e. lightly scooped and less dense. This is a 3 cup recipe by weight. The manual says 4.2 g. [1.5 tsp] active dry yeast. 3 cups of whole wheat flour can be leavened with 3.6 g. of any instant yeast [a little more than 1 ¼ teaspoons]. It used a teaspoon of salt which is much healthier than many whole wheat recipes, but can be reduced using the usual calculations. Because I try to use 33% or 50% of the sodium (salt), than a recipe prescribes, I have to make a corresponding adjustment to yeast. The rule of reducing salt and yeast in the same proportion by weight works with whole wheat.
The dough made with the Z. recipe is enhanced with vital wheat gluten at a ratio of 1 tbsp. to 1 cup flour (8 g. to 139 g.). This exceeds the often generous prescriptions of Beth Hensperger for a 100% whole wheat loaf in the Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook. The Z. dough is enriched with sugar, >43 g. for 417 g. of flour in a medium loaf (35 g. refined sugar, 7.5 g sugar in 10 g. molasses, lactose in milk powder) i.e. about 9% of dry ingredient weight. The recipe bakes into a denser bread than I like, which is fixed by reducing the water by a few teaspoons to get a loaf that rises, crowns and holds a loaf shape. Bakers hydrate whole wheat flour more intensely that bread flour to get suitable dough. Some of the water comes out in the baking. Whole wheat loaves have to be left to cool and dry out a bit. I find that in a machine, I can just leave out a little water. I can happily bake and eat this bread. I haven’t tried to toast it.
I have baked Beth Henspergers “Tecate Ranch Whole Wheat”, BLBMC (p. 126), a 100% whole wheat flour loaf enriched with canola oil, honey, and molasses a few times. It gets sugar from honey, molasses and milk powder (lactose is milk and dry milk is a sugar) . It may have as much or more sugar than the Zojirushi formula. BLBMC named it for a spa in Baja California that served “Zarathustra” bread; the spa used Zoroastrianism as one its themes. Exotic naming was a staple of marketing several times, in different decades of the 19th and 20th centuries. For an SF reading of the name, consider watching 2001: a Space Odessey, listening to the fanfare of Thus Spake Zarathustra. This could inspire a vision of black monolith. With gluten and adequate yeast the loaf rises and crowns nicely. I adapted the BLBMC source – it uses too much yeast (and is not low sodium). I get a loaf that rises, crowns and holds a loaf shape with just a little less water.
Adding gluten offsets the tendency of whole wheat to produce dense loaves by providing enough additional elasticity to use the CO2 produced by fermentation to provide some crumb and lift. The sugar weakens the gluten slightly, which enhances pan flow.
Organic stone ground flour doesn’t require changes to recipes. It seems to lead to slightly more open and rustic crumb. I am not able to find a flavour difference.
I have a Flax seed multigrain loaf recipe with 2 cups of bread flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour for a medium loaf. I am adapting my sister’s Flax Seed Whole Wheat bread with 2.5 cups of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of white flour, oatmeal, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, poppy seeds, flax meal, and 1.75 cups milk. It works in her machine, producing a loaf with an open crumb. I have adapted it for the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 for low sodium – this is a work in progress.
It is vulnerable to animal pests and microorganisms including mould. Animal pests may contaminate the bread with body parts, eggs, larva, bodily fluids and micro-organisms. Mould is a colony of microorganisms that chemically alters the bread – it can effectively poison the bread.
Constraints
Pan Size
Bread machines identity the size (volume) of the pans by reference to the capacity of the pan to hold a baked loave. 1.5 lb. machines were common. Large is a common size; XL machines are 2.5 or 3 lb. The size of the pan is an upper limit on the size of the loaf. Pans are expected to hold the dough and allow the dough to expand outward and upward as the dough flows and rises and to expand upward when the loaf “springs” when the dough is heated. Dough can be cut and shaped for a normal baking pan, but differently for a longer narrow pan to bake a Pullman loaf. Oven pans walls may be lower than the top of the loaf. Pan size sets a limit on baking – a minimum amount of dough is required to fill the pan and expand. The pan influences the loaf – some shapes are hard to handle, store and slice.
There are 1 lb. bread machines, including Zojirushi and Panasonic models. These not necessarily available in USA or Canada, or reasonably priced. They are not really practical, in my opinion.
Bread machine loaves, comparing to the baking pans manufactured and marketed to home bakers for baking loaves in ovens:
Flour
Bread Machine Size
e.g.
Area, space/ volume
Oven Pan
Oven Pan Area, space US (Imperial)/Metric Volume (Metric)
The size of the bread machine pan, in the sense of capacity, does not necessarily determine the shape of the loaf:
A large horizontal bread machine pan is nearly as long as large oven pan, and slightly wider. It can bake a loaf that closely resembles a loaf baked in a large pan in an oven. Large loaves in other machines will shape up differently.
Some large and extra large machines have control settings (programs or “courses”) and/or recipes for medium loaves.
A medium loaf baked in a horizontal pan resembles a loaf baked in a 2 pound oven pan- but not as “tall”. In another bread machine pan that loaf will be shorter, wider and higher.
Dough Ball
The ingredients, mixed and kneaded, form a ball. Dough has to be elastic to hold up as the dough ferments and rises. Bread machine bake programs can’t produce the shapes and crust of country/artisan loaves. The dough for a loaf is shaped into a dough ball shorter and narrower than the pan. In a bread machine, the dough ball must remain in contact with the paddle or paddles, and the bottom and sides of the pan to be kneaded, in the same way that the dough in a stand mixer contacts the kneading hook or arm and the mixing bowl.
A bread machine needs a minimum amount of flour, and the proportionate amount of water to mix and form a dough ball that will be kneaded in that machine. The dough ball kneaded by a bread machine is usuallyattached to the paddle (a paddle if the machine has two) at the end of kneading.
The dough flows as it rises; the dough ball slumps horizontally. The dough for medium and small loaves will reach the side walls, but not necessarily the ends by the end of the rise. The loaf will flow and rise or spring for the first 20 – 30 minutes of baking. Workable bread machine recipes should make the dough viscous and extensible enough to flow in the bottom of the pan and rise and spring reasonably uniformly. The size and weight of the dough ball is a factor. A medium dough ball weights over 650 grams, about 75% of the size and weight of a “large” (800 gram) ball usually can flow and rise in a large pan and bake into a reasonable medium loaf. The surface area of the bottom of the dough ball will adhere to the bottom of the pan; the side of the ball will touch and adhere to the sides most of the time. The kneading motion stretches the dough. The machine applies force to the paddle. The force on the paddle stretchs the dough ball adhering to the pan. The motion develops gluten, which will trap carbon dioxide when the yeast ferment starch or the leavening agent reacts to the wet dough, and inflate or “rise” the dough.
The dough for a medium loaf will only overflow a large pan by expanding upward too much. This happens if dough ball is too large or the dough is overleavened. (Too much yeast for the dough, which depends on the machine, salt, and the amounts of flour and water, or too much chemical leavening agent.)
When a dough ball at one end of the pan fails to flow enough, the loaf rises more at that end and bakes into a sloping loaf in a bake program in a bread machine. It leads to loaves that slope along the top in a medium loaf. This effect occurs in machines with rectangular and horizontal pans.
Medium loaves
Baking
A large or 2.5 lb. XL machine will mix, knead, and bake a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf in the normal baking programs.
A medium loaf baked in a machine with a large pan may slope when the dough ball was located at one end of the pan after the kneading phases, or the knockdowns during the rise/fermentation phase. A long horizontal pan with two paddles (e.g. Zojirushi) may bake a medium loaf that slopes or has one regular end and one end with with irregular corners. But, a small dough may not flow into all corners of a large or extra-large pan
Scaling
Adjusting a recipe for a large loaf to a medium loaf is mathematically simple. Use ¾ of each ingredient. There are some qualifications. This works if the source recipe lists the ingredients needed for bread machine loaf and is clear about ingredient amounts, kneading and time. A recipe for a hand kneaded loaf or a stand mixer loaf may need some extra water or flour, and will be affected by how fast the flour has been hydrated and how long the dough is kneaded.
Flour, water, yeast and salt have to be reduced in same proportion; other ingredients should be reduced proportionately too. There is rule of thumb to balance salt and yeast. It is necessary also to adjust yeast for the brand and model of bread machine.
A simple way is to scale by reference to total flour; by recipe size (volume). The ingredients for a 1.5 lb. loaf produce 75% of the dough in a 2 lb. recipe. A large (2 lb.) loaf recipe can be scaled to medium (1.5 lb.) and baked in 2 lb. machine. I have done this with two machines with large pans:
Doughs that flow across the bottom of the pan and rise will bake into loaves as long and wide as the pan – a large pan is made to bake shapely large loaves. The medium doughs that flowed best were hydrated at over 65%, enriched with sugar and fat, and had gluten. Bread flour has enough gluten, but a lean loaf will be compact. Adding vital wheat gluten to whole wheat flour helps to give the loaf structure, but makes the dough elastic. In a multigrain loaf, moderate amounts of gluten are effective.
Some doughs produce symmetrical but short loaves that do reach one or both ends of the pan. These doughs are too small or dry to flow the length of the pan, or the dough ball settles but will not flow into all corners of the pan.
Where a medium recipe produces funny loaves in a large pan, it is possible to alter the medium recipe to get a dough that will flow to fill the pan. I considered increasing flour, but concentrated on adding tiny amounts of yeast, water and sugar to relax the dough and increase fermentation.
My Machines
This are my large machines:
Panasonic SD-YD250:
owned and used 2016-2020
2.5 lb. “extra” large pan
tall vertical rectangle pan, single paddle dead centre, bottom of pan;
550 watt motor that runs for 50-60% of the time in a 25 minute +/- mixing phase on a medium loaf setting;
550 watt element, about 1 cm below the bottom of the pan. A small loaf develops hot spots around the base of the pan but is not burned;
266 square cm. pan: 19 cm (7.5 inches) by 14 cm (5.5 inches);
1 paddle, central:
6 cm long, radially;
2.6 cm high, rising to a fin 5 cm tall;
The paddle is deep in the loaf, but a small loaf rises and springs to a height of 7.5 cm or more, and clears the paddle;
Control settings (programs), and recipes for medium, large and extra-large
No custom programs;
No Pause button; Power interrupt by unplugging – 10 minutes to resume cycle.
Zojirushi BB-PAC20 Virtuoso:
Owned and used 2020>
2 lb. large pan (similar to other Zojirushi 2 lb. machines – Virtuoso Plus, Home Bakery Supreme)
horizontal pan, dual paddles on the long axis,
100 watt motor;
286 square cm. pan: 22 cm (9 inches) by 13 cm (5 inches);
2 paddles 11 cm apart. Each is 5.5 cm off centre along the long axis, down the centre. Each paddle is:
6 cm. long,
1.2 cm high – 2.9 cm high at a fin;
Two elements:
600 watt main element, about 1 cm below the bottom of the pan;
40 watt lid heater;
No control settings (programs) for medium or small loaves. The manuals have a few recipes for medium loaves to be baked using the programs for large loaves;
No Pause button. Pause knead by raising lid.
In both machines, it was better to try for a medium recipe. The medium loaf baked in the Panasonic could not be stored in a 10″ x 14″ plastic storage bag. It was too fat. The longer Zojirushi loaf fits into such a bag without jamming and tearing the bag.
Smaller Loaves
For the large (i.e. 2 pound loaf) horizontal pan in the Zojirushi, I find that a medium (1.5 lb.) recipe produces a loaf that fills the pan from side to side. In that machine with the horizontal pan, the simple goal is a medium loaf. Scaling to smaller loaves involves some calculation and experiments with salt, yeast and water.
Conversion
Almost all home baking recipes list all ingredients by volume. Many bread machine recipes do too.
The most precise way to scale is by weight. I weigh flour and water in a bowl or measuring cup; I reset the scale to zero after putting the empty measuring vessel on the scale. A scale that goes to 1 gram is precise enough for flour and water. The volume measurements of salt and yeast for small loaves are fractions of a teaspoon. I use a scale that reliably goes to 0.1 grams. Converting a recipe from volume to weight and scaling from volume is possible, with careful calculation.
For yeast, I refer to my own conversion chart, which compares the volume of active dry yeast and instant yeast and converts either to weight in grams:
Some medium loaves begin to look funny. These problems increase when a user attempts to make loaves smaller than medium in large or extra large pan machines. Scaling down to a 1 lb. does not work well with large pan machines. A 1 lb. dough ball is too small to fill the base of a large or extra large pan. A true “small” loaf recipe (half of a 4 cup/2 lb./large loaf recipe or 2/3 of a 3 cup/1.5 lb. medium recipe) baked in large pan will be edible and palatable, but it will bake in odd shapes.
I have been writing recipes with 50%. Salt affects the strength, rise and flow of the dough, the texture of the bread, and flavour. A 50% reduction is noticeable but the bread is still bread; it is workable and palatable.
Recipes almost always refer to ordinary table salt, which is 5.7 grams per teaspoon. I refer to my own conversions or use a calculator.
Seeds and herbs should be adjusted in proportion to the flour. I don’t measured down to the gram. Oils, sugar and and sweet fluids should be adjusted too, without trying to weigh them. It is worth being aware of water in milk, eggs, honey, maple syrup, molasses, and other syrup of sugar and other ingredients dissolved or suspended in water. Conversion factors are not always easy to find; and sources may disagree or only apply to some varieties of an ingredient, or to a brand of a commodity. I have a list, as discussed in the post Measuring & Conversion.
Bread was made with rye flour in parts of Eurasia where rye grew and wheat did not, including the parts of Northern Europe, including the lands around the Baltic Sea. Rye has some protein, but does not produce enough gluten to rise like a leavened wheat bread.
Pumpernickel may refer to bread made from 100% rye flour, according to medieval recipes. These loaves are a specialty product. Many grocery stores sell commercially baked pumpernickel. It is flat, compact, usually brown or black. American rye bread recipes usually involve a blend of rye flour with wheat flour. Some recipes that are made with a blend of rye and wheat flour, (i.e. light rye bread), will make the crumb dark by including cocoa or coffee. This style may be called pumpernickel in any given recipe
There are some American recipes for a rustic style made with a large amount of rye flour, e.g. King Arthur Classic Pumpernickel baked in an oven. 100% rye flour bread is not made with bread machines Some recipes made with a large amount of rye flour may suggest that dough can be mixed and kneaded in a bread machine.
There are industrial formulas and home recipes for light rye bread, baked in an oven. Most commercial and home made rye bread is made with wheat flour with rye flour or rye meal. Light rye breads are soft breads, with fairly close crumb and a distinct dark crust – chewy but not crunchy. There are rustic rye and rye sourdough styles. There are deli styles and reconstructions of local bakery styles. Light rye recipes often produce torpedo shaped loaves rather than pan loaves. There is a Winnipeg style, a bread flour loaf with a small amount of rye flour and/or rye meal or chopped rye berries. The Winnipeg Free Press had recipes based on the rye bread baked by Winnipeg’s City Bread. There is a bread machine version that I have not tried.
Rye Flour
Rye flour has:
less of the proteins that build gluten than wheat flour, and
has pentosans.
Peter Reinhart notes in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice at p. 185 that rye flour has different protein profile than wheat flour, and forms gluten differently, it uses glutelin to form gluten, unlike wheat flour which has glutenin. Reinhart also notes that rye flour has pentosans, which absorb water differently and make the dough gummy. According to Daniel DiMuzio’s Bread Baking, An Arisan’s Perspective:
(p. 51) pentosans absorb water with very little mixing and are fragile, breaking down and releasing water after as little as 3-4 minutes of intensive mixing;
(p. 51) bakers using mixing machines use a short period of slow mixing for dough with significant amounts of rye flour, and little intensive mixing;
(p. 216) dough for deli-style light rye (70% white/30% rye) would be hydrated at 68% and mixed slowly: in a stand mixer, 3 minutes slow to blend ingredients and 3 minutes on second speed.
Measurement and Ingredients
Some recipes call for light or medium rye flour which is produced from rye endorsperm (i.e. not whole grain rye) with more screenings. Dark Rye flour uses more whole grain. Some bread machine recipes specifically call for it or treat it as an alternative.
There is a range of conversion weights, for different kinds of rye flour; there are variations of methodology of measuring a cup to weigh:
Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter – 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g.
Bakery Network conversion chart – 1 cup “rye flour” = 4 oz. = 113 g.
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?
Anita’s Organic Mill Organic Rye Flour is available in 1 kg. bags in some local stores and online. This may be a better quantity to buy for flour used in 1 to 1.5 cup quantities than Rogers Dark Rye Flour, in 2.5 kg. bags. For both of those rye flours, the Canadian Nutrition Facts label indicates 1 cup = 120 grams = 4.2 oz. Nutrition Facts labels use values based on food data bases based on the measurement standards of their methology. Anita’s is about 120 grams a cup if settled and scooped to pack the cup. Rogers Foods Dark Rye Flour is available locally in 2.5 kg. bags, and priced as a staple. Its Nutrition Facts label says ¼ cup weighs 30 g. Online Conversion’s converter and Aqua-Calc converter dark rye flour said 1 cup of dark rye flour = 4.5 oz. = 128 g. This is the mean or average for dark rye flour surveyed in USDA data base. Rogers Dark Rye may be about 124 grams a cup, settled and scooped.
Rye bread often contains caraway seeds; consumers associate the flavour with rye bread. Caraway is related to cumin, fennel, anise, carrots, celery and parsley. Some varieties are known as Persian cumin. Caraway has been used as a cooking herb or spice since the time of the Roman Empire. It is a major spice in Central European cooking and in the nations beside the Baltic. It was adopted in Germany, the Nordic countries, the “Low” countries and England. Caraway seeds were/are used to make flavoured breads with white flour in Central European recipes. Cumin and caraway are the spices in spiced Dutch Kamijnekaas 1literally “Cumin cheese” – Leiden Kaas and spiced Gouda. Other flavoring agents in baking light rye breads: fennel and anise seeds, chopped onion, dried orange peel, orange zest and orange oil. There are dark or sour light rye styles with bread flour, rye flour and:
an agent (molasses, cocoa or ground coffee for home bakers) for dark colour,
vinegar or sour cream for acidity, and
corn meal, oatmeal or sunflower seeds for texture.
Bread Machine Recipes
Published
Many formulas and recipes for oven baked light rye are based on north European (German and Scandinavian) light rye bread recipes, with white flour and some rye flour or meal. Russians, Ukrainians and East Europeans also made light rye bread with a blend of white flour, whole wheat flour and rye flour.
Making a pumpernickel loaf with rye flour in a bread machine does not seem to be possible. Is light rye loaf possible
No bread machine manufacturers have programmed for it. Some bread machine manufacturers explicitly discourage baking with rye flour. Panasonic’s manual says rye flour leads to dense bread when used to replace other (wheat) flour in their recipes and warns that using rye flour might overload the motor. This does not explain the warning.
Modern machines have almost dropped rye from the manuals.
Baking with rye flour is different. Unless the mixing time is kept short, the rye flour will absorb and then release water and mix a dough that will not bake without issues. Modern bread machines don’t really work with rye flour, perhaps because of kneading action and the length of the mix/knead programs in modern machines.
The bread machine recipes for light rye bread in Beth Hensperger’s ambitious baking books, Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (at pp. 133-143, 313), and the Bread Bible use the basic bake or bake whole wheat programs for light rye. I have tried Swedish Rye Bread, a limpa style, from BLBMC, Scandinavian Light Rye, and Narsai’s Rye Bread. The latter is a bread machine recipes in Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible. It gets a brown colour from molasses.
Those recipes use 1 cup or more rye flour and 1¼ cups of water in medium recipes with 2 cups of bread flour. The rye flour is over 30% of the total flour and the hydration is 70%. Those recipes worked in older machines.
When I baked light rye with BLBMC recipes in the Panasonic and Zojirushi, the machine mixed a dough that looked reasonable in the first 10 minutes of kneading, but was wet by the end of knead time. It rises; when it falls at the knockdowns, it leaves a wet dough residue clinging to the pan which bakes as cracker or flat bread against the edge of pan. This result is produced by a combination of kneading, and over-generous hydration.
The BLBMC recipes do not work in many machines. Modern machines designed to attract buyers work with bread flour and often with “gluten-free” recipes which many users hope to bake,
Preset and Custom
There are recipes, with modest amounts of rye flour, among the recipes included in manuals for machines I have used:
Bread with Caraway and Onions in the Panasonic SD-YD250 manual for a medium loaf (1.5 lb.) – 1/8 cup of rye flour, 3 cups of bread flour, and caraway seeds, with nearly identical to Panasonic’s Basic White Bread.
Zorjirushi has a recipe in the BB-PAC20 manual with 2/3 cup of rye flour and 4 cups of bread flour to make a large loaf.
Hydration is tricky because of the way the pentosans in rye flour release water. A dough with too much water may throw off some wet dough sheets that bake as crackers or as a thick crunchy crust.
The basic bake and whole wheat programs for bread machine baking are not adjustable. Modern machine programs mix and knead dough for about 20 minute, to work the dough and build gluten for yeasted bread made with wheat flour. The dough progam will be close to 20 minutes. The gluten-free program and the “cake” program (for unyeasted baking) also mix for about 20 minutes. The kneading action in all programs for the Zojirushi machine seems to be equally intense and fast.
Some bread machines can be programmed with custom cycles. I have tried to use the Zojirushi BB-PAC20, in a custom program with a short “knead” phase. A short mix does not lead to success. The Zojirushi custom (“home-made”) programs cannot be set to knead for less than 5 minutes. This will mix a light rye that is well less than 30% rye flour by weight. The homemade programs allow adding to the rise time, which allows more fermentation and rise. It is difficult to bake a light rye loaf smaller than a bread machine “medium” loaf in a Zojirishi horizontal pan machine.
Multigrain means a blend of bread flour and whole wheat, or another flour. These recipes involve 15% -50 % whole wheat flour by weight.
The basic bake program works in most machines for these recipes. When bread flour is less than 50% of total flour, recipes may suggest a whole wheat program, or a machine’s multigrain program.
Recipes
Adaptions – records, methods, tables
I adapted recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”). I wrote the recipes as tables using the WordPress TablePress plugin. I made the tables available online by putting the tables into posts. This was not a good way to record information that was mainly of interest to me, and subject to many internet connections. I changed my use of tables. I kept recipe tables for my own use as worksheets in a few spreadsheets that I use when I load my bread machine. I use the worksheets to calculate adjustments of recipes. I focussed on salt measurement and yeast measurement, and reformulated recipes to reduce my consumption of sodium. I considered how much yeast is necessary to ferment a few cups of a multigrain flour blend, to get a loaf that rises and bakes into a palatable bread. I had to find the correct amount of instant yeast, by weight, for recipes for medium (1½ lb.) loaves in a Zojirushi machine with a horizontal pan that is capable of baking a large (2 lb.) loaf.
Notes
I started with the BLBMC numbers for the ratio of flour. Increasing the whole wheat flour in these recipes would require adjustments to hydration and fermentation. I use some vital wheat gluten, but often less than BLBMC suggests. These loaves get gluten from blending high protein bread flour with whole wheat flour. Some added vital wheat gluten helps to enhance elasticity but too much affects pan flow and rise.
Some regular baking, with some observations
Buttermilk Whole Wheat. BLBMC p. 108. A sandwich loaf; 50% Whole Wheat with buttermilk and maple syrup;
33% Whole Wheat. BLBMC p. 105. The source recipe uses skim milk. I did the math and found an equivalent amount of dry milk powder and water;
3 Seed Bread 50% Whole Wheat, Brown Sugar, Seeds. BLBMC p. 116;
Pembina Bread. Flavour and texture in a white bread. Half a cup of whole wheat, bulgur and seeds, based in BLBMC Dakota Bread (p. 119). Named for Pembina, North Dakota, the gateway to Fargo and Grand Forks; the site of KCND, the first American TV network affiliate transmitter that reached antennas in Winnipeg (later purchased by Canadian owners and moved north of the border to the southern edge of Winnipeg as CKND).
Cornell Bread. A brown bread. 50% whole wheat. A touch less than 50% bread flour Slightly sweet, and rich. BLBMC recipe p. 161, based on Cornell bread. The BLBMC bread machine version has been emulated and published on the Web e.g. here.
The recipe for Cornell bread was first published in 1955 in The Cornell Bread Book by Clive McCay of Cornell University. This bread uses an egg, milk powder, and soy flour for protein, and wheat germ for fiber. Dr. McCay is reported to have believed that this bread, with butter, was a sufficient healthy and nutrious diet. A nearly vegetarian scientific health food, 30 years before the vegetarian prescriptions of Diet for a Small Planet. Dr. McCay, a scientist in animal nutrition, experimented on mice to prove that bread made with bleached white flour was not as healthy as bread made with unbleached flour. The 1980 edition of the Cornell Bread Book is still available.
The recipe is presented in recipes and articles on prepper and counterculture sites. The recipe was developed during the Great Depression. Food security was recognized as an issue in America more clearly then than now. Eleanor Roosevelt’s Kitchen, a 2010 article in the New Yorker, looked back at the campaigns by home economists at Cornell to promote economical recipes for American kitchens in hard times. Americans were persuaded that hard times ended by 1945, and food writers began to treat the austerity diet (e.g. recipes for Bulldog Gravy or Depression Cake in M.F.K. Fisher‘s How to Cook a Wolf) as as a memory.
A lesson about hydration. On my first attempt at the medium loaf. I missed a digit in entering the water in the calculator. I used 1.25 cups x 237 g. = 297 g. The correct amount was 1.125 cups x 237 g. = 267 g. The dough was sloppy. I shook some white flour in (not measured, 3 or 3 tbsp) with about 10 minute of mixing time left to get a dough that held up. Too late and too little. The loaf had an open crumb and cratered.
Flax Seed Multigrain. The BLBMC (p. 118) calls this Flax Seed Whole Wheat and makes it a multigrain with 33% whole wheat flour. Also see a formula on the web, also called Flax Seed Whole Wheat Bread.
I used the web version, with a shift to a little whole wheat flour.
The BLBMC said 1.125 (1 ⅛) cups water. This is slightly high for a dough with 2 cups of bread flour. The dough finds a couple of teaspoons of water in 3 tablespoons of honey. It is a tad low for 2 cups of WW and 1 cup of bread flour. It has a firm crust and a dense crumb that holds up for firm sandwich slices.
A lean bread is flour, water, yeast and salt. Technically, a lean bread is made with flour, water, salt and yeast, without fat: butter, oil, or vegetable shortening. Fat mixed and kneaded shortens gluten strands, making the bread softer.
Salt interacts with amino acids in the flour as the protein bind to make up the gluten proteins. Salt affects the elasticity of dough. Less salt means a less elastic and tenacious dough. Salt also inhibits the yeast and the fermentation. The latter effect is addressed by the rule of thumb1A rule of thumb that may have to be adjusted. of proportional reduction by weight.
French Bread made with white bread flour is lean – even when made with some recipes with 1 or 2 Tbsp. butter for a bit of butterfat. There are wet doughs (hydration over 70%) for some loaves e.g. baguettes; and drier doughs (under 60% hydration).
Some baking recipe books are aimed at readers who want to make a specific type of bread, or have sections of recipes for artisinal baking, rustic bread, hearth or country bread. Many “country”, “rustic” or “hearth” loaves are lean. Most “country”, “rustic” or “hearth” loaves are attempts to create a historical style with modern ingredients. Pure wheat white flour started to be milled when agricultural and technical innovations during the industrialization of Europe made it possible. One change – rye or other grain growing with wheat was not harvested or sorted out and not milled.
Sandwich bread is not lean. It is enriched with fat or milk, and sugar. Milk has fats and sugars, in solution. Sugar makes the dough more extensible, which helps the dough to flow and rise. Sugar or milk change the crust and crumb.
Industrial Baking
Industrial scale baking does not dedicate time to rise dough and shape individual loaves. Industrial baking was challenged to mass produce rustic breads. Storebought “rustic” bread is available, but usually inferior to an artisan baked loaf or a home baked loaf.
Bread Machines
Bread machine manufacturers’ writers and recipe writers have tried to overcome the challenges of making lean and rustic bread:
shaped distinctively,
baked on a deck (hot surface) rather than in pans, or
scored to control the way the crust ruptures as the loaf continues to spring in the oven;
using the bread machine in a dough program to make dough, or starters or sponges;
enriched recipes for a basic baking program or a “French” or “European” program. Panasonic had sugar in its recipe for French Bread in the Panasonic manual. The BLBMC has sugar in the Peasant Bread recipe;
recipes for custom programs
Scoring a loaf is not a bread machine practice. It is a manual operation at a specific time at the end of “bench rest” before baking. It is possible but less common with loavea baked in baking pans. In a bread machine bake programs some rupture of the crust may be expected unless the user has intervened.
Bread machine recipes have to be customized for machines. I adapt “standard” recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC“) and from the bread machine chapter of Beth Hensperger’s Bread Bible. I worked out my approach to yeast and low sodium in baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250 for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves June, July and August, 2018.
I adjusted yeast for BLBMC recipes baked in a Panasonic SD-YD250 machine when I realized that BLBMC recipes did not work in that machine. The BLBMC recipes worked in the Panasonic with the salt proportional change, and an additional the adaptation to yeast quantity for the Panasonic. When I started to bake in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20, I changed my method of writing recipes in tables or worksheets.
I use a Zojirushi custom program for lean white bread. The differences between basic bake, French/European, and the custom program. Times in minutes. Baking temperature is not tested or published by machine manufacturers, because bread machines have one fixed temperature (and options to let a use choose a darker crust in some programs).
Machine
Program
Initial Rest
Mix/ knead
Rise (total)
Rise 1
Rise 2
Rise 3
Bake
Panasonic SD-YD250
Basic
30
15
110
50
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20
Regular Basic
31
19
95
35
20
40
60
Panasonic SD-YD250
French
40
10
175
55
Zorjirushi BB-PAC20
Custom French/Euro
22
18
85
35
50
70
Lean breads that work in a bread machine:
Zojirushi’s recipe for Crusty French Bread, baked with a custom program works as medium loaf in a large pan and as a small loaf.
BLBMC Peasant Bread is mildly enriched country/rustic white bread.
BLBMC Chuck Williams’s Country French has 33% whole wheat. Beth Hensperger adapted a recipe by Chuck Williams (of Williams-Sonoma) for the La Cloche device. It is similar to a hearth bread she calls Pain de Campagne in her Bread Bible (2000), which is made with a starter and sponge made with whole wheat flour. It is in the style of Pain de campagne, but with whole wheat (not rye) flour. The whole wheat version loaf has a firm crust and a reasonably open crumb. It flows enough to work as a medium loaf in a large pan. (but getting the yeast right took some experiments.)
One main difference between using the basic bake program and a special French/Euro/lean program is yeast. My experience with low salt (3.6 g., instead of 8.6 g. salt) medium lean loaves in a Zojirushi is that these loaves work in Regular basic with 2.1-2.3 g. instant yeast, and in the Home-made (custom) Euro program works with 3.1 g. instant yeast.
I am sceptical of the idea that a recipe for bread works in all bread machines. I think bread machine recipes have to be customized for machines. I adapt recipes, mainly from the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”).
I worked out my approach to yeast and low sodium in baking in a Panasonic SD-YD250 for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves June, July and August, 2018. BLBMC recipes did not work in that machine. I adjusted yeast for BLBMC recipes baked in Panasonic SD-YD250 machine. The BLBMC recipes for white bread loaves worked in the Panasonic with the adaptation.
When I started to bake in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20, I changed my method of writing recipes, and changed my recipes for that machine.
Zojirushi Regular Basic recipes
The Zojirushi manual provides recipes for sandwich breads, to be made using the Regular Basic baking course (program), including a loaf called Basic White Bread. The Regular Basic course and the Regular White course are similiar, varying in Mix/Knead phase by a few minutes and varying somewhat in the length of 3 “Rise” phases. I have not tried to identify other differences in Mix/Knead phases of these courses.
I used the Basic White Bread recipe to learn how the Zojirushi machine performed with the ingredients in that recipe for a sandwich bread.
I use the Regular Basic course for several sandwich loaves made with:
100% bread flour, enriched with dry milk (milk powder), sugar and other ingredients such as instant mashed potatoes;
bread flour and up to 50% whole wheat flour;
bread flour and small amounts of specialty 1I mix and bake loaves with rye flour differently flour (e.g. buckwheat) and/or seeds.
Zojirushi’s approach to measuring flour by volume, stated in the manual, is to scoop flour and fill a measuring cup. This means a less dense or lighter cup than a meauring cup dragged through the flour. I use the amount of flour in the Zojirushi recipe by weight. Zojirushi’s recipes refer to Fleischmann’s active dry yeast and rapid-rise yeast. I prefer instant yeast – which means adjustment.
Yeast
Active dry yeast is less dense than instant yeast. I use instant yeast. I weight it and use 6/7 of the weight of the amount of active dry yeast the recipe requires. This seems to work with loaves made with bread flour and multigrain loaves.
I have touched on yeast in bread machine recipes, standard recipes, and salt in posts published since 2018. I will write more about then later.
Sandwich Bread
Sandwich bread is made with bread flour – in some instances all-purpose flour. It is not lean bread, and will have some fat, usually butter or shortening or vegetable oil. It may be made with milk or milk powder, sugar and other ingredients. Milk with the sugar lactose, and other sugars relax gluten and produce a less chewy loaf. Sugars, unless present in liquids like milk, honey, molasses or maple syrup, are hygroscopic and affect hydration.
