Tag: Bread machines

Table of Contents

• Virtuoso
• Dimensions, Manual
• Features
  • Programmed features
  • Regular and Quick
  • Dough, Starter, Other
  • Home Made
  • Other
    • Not included, but …
    • French/European/Lean Bread
    • Rye bread
    • MultiGrain
    • Raisins, Fruits, Seeds
    • No Salt
• Yeast & Salt
  • Medium Loaves
  • Yeast
  • Low and no sodium?

Virtuoso

Zojirushi started production of BB-PAC20 Virtuoso bread machine before 2016. The following reviews describe and illustrate this machine:

• Breadmakers.com
• Kitchenstory.com

Zojirushi, by 2019, was marketing the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus.

I found a refurbished Virtuoso BB-PAC20 in an online store in early 2020.

[Update. I later found the Bread Machine Diva site, which has material on Zojirushi’s BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus, and BB-CEC20 Supreme, as well as recipes. Some recipes are specifically for modern Zojirushi 2 lb. machines. It has resources that may assist users of many machines – e.g. a page of links to manufacturer service sites and manuals.]

Dimensions, Manual

The Virtuoso BB-BAC20 is stable, and quiet. It doesn’t rattle or try to dance off the counter. It has been built to high standards.

It has a horizontal pan with two paddles. The paddles should be pointed in the same direction. A crossbar on the end of the drive shaft fits into an opening in the drive system. The paddles are designed to rotate in equal jumps.

When the machine is loaded, both paddle are in the water or wet ingredients. Both paddles mix the dough. 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. This can be a problem – a small problem if the dough flows together and forms a loaf when the dough has fermented and sprung

In some circumstances the drive system will release one of the paddles. When this happens, the dough ball may stay at one end of the pan or split into two masses. They will eventually reunite if there is a full recipe 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.

The inside measurements  of the pan are 22 cm (9 inches) long by 13 cm (5 inches) wide. It is as long as a large (2 lb.) baking pan for loaves baked in an oven; the pan is 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. Most of the recipes in the manual are for large (2 lb.) loaves.

The base of the pan has a metal rectangle that fits into a rectangle in the base of the pan. There are blade clips at the long ends of the outer rectangle. The pan is pushed into the base to lock the pan in the clips,and tilted slightly to unlock. Locking the pan puts the bars on the drive shafts into the two connecting fittings of the drive system. Seating the pan in the base requires some pressure. I had to learn how to seat and check the pan. The lid is a rectangle 33 cm. x 22 cm. The outer shell is plastic. It has an inner shell that aligns to the top of pan. The lid is substantial, with a long hinge with stops that hold the lid just past vertical when raised. The viewing window in the lid collects a little condensation during the pre-knead rest and in the early minutes of kneading, but clears up. It lets me observe the knead and spot a problem with the dough. Raising the lid turns off the motor, pausing kneading until the lid is lowered into place. This facilitates adding a few grams of flour or water if needed. The pan coating releases the loaf easily at the end of the bake cycle; the paddles stay on the shafts in the pan. It has 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, which saves the user from the calculations involved with a simple timer.

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.

The manual includes a number of recipes. The manual, in English, can be viewed at the manufacturer’s USA web site.

Features

Programmed features

The programs are called “courses”, and are made up of steps or phases. The amount of time devoted to each phase varies, but is fixed for each of the programmed courses.

The heating element is on, heating the space around the pan for:

• 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). 
• at a low temperature to heat the ingredients in the initial “rest” phase, which occurs in most courses,
• 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 turns 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. There is no way to disable or avoid this setting or to pause the machine to delay fermentation.

The phases of the baking (Regular Basic, Quick Basic, Regular Wheat and Quick Wheat) courses:

Name	Action
Initial Rest	The ingredients come to a common temperature
Mix/Knead	1. Mix the ingredients together, hydrates the flour; 2. Knead to work the proteins in the flour into gluten
Rise(s)	Fermentation. The element warms the space around the pan to 91-95 F (33-35 C) The mixer is deployed for knockdowns at the beginning of Rise 2 and Rise 3. A program with 3 Rise phases has sequence of rise-knockdown-rise-knockdown-rise.
Bake	The element heats the space around the pan to 248-302 F (120-150 C) to bake the loaf.

There is no setting to change any phase of any course (program) for loaf size.

The mix/knead phases are longer than in many other machines but not as long as in some Panasonic models.

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, Quick Basic, gluten free and cake courses (programs).

Regular and Quick

Zojirushi, like other manufacturers, has Quick progams, variations of the Regular Basic, Bake Whole Wheat and Dough programs. Quick programs are shorter than the so-called regular programs.

One difference between Regular and Quick program are the times (in minutes) that the phases are run:

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
Bake Wheat	31-41	22	27-37	30	20-30	60-70
Quick Wheat	15	27	13	30	0	60
Dough	23	20	45	22	0	x
Quick Dough	10	20	10	10	0	x

The quick programs use more yeast with same amounts of flour, water, salt, and other ingredients. I compared manufacturer recipes for medium (1.5 lb.) loaves, from the manual. The differences between active dry yeast and instant yeast are minor. A user can use instant yeast, if the amount is converted. There are no functional differences between instant yeast and Fast or Quick rise yeast products.

Recipe	Salt	Reg. course Active dry yeast	Reg. course Instant yeast	Quick course Instant yeast
Basic White Bread	1½ tsp.	Basic 4.2 g. (1½ tsp.)	Basic 2.8 g.	4.5 g.
100% Whole Wheat	1 tsp.	Wheat 4.2 g. (1½ tsp.)	Wheat 2.8 g.	4.5 g.

Zojirushi explains 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” for the Quick versions. The brand of yeast is not important. Comparing instant, “Fast-Rise”, Quick, or “Bread Machine” yeast, the yeast strains are equivalent and the amounts and types of coating are the same.

Dough, Starter, Other

This machine will mix and knead dough and rest the dough to rise in the regular and quick dough courses. In these courses, the user should turn the dough out immediately at the end course and shape and bake the loaf.

The Sourdough starter course has a short Mix phase and a single 120 minute Rise (not 3 Rises; i.e. no knockdowns). It will mix any preferment whether called a starter, sponge, poolish, biga. The fermentation time can be extended by leaving the preferment in the pan longer. It is a useful feature for users who want to use a bread machine to assist with more complex recipes.

It has:

• cake course for cake mixes, soda bread, corn bread and non-yeasted mixes;
• gluten-free bake course for yeasted 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

It provides 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 cannot be set; these are preset.

Other

Not included, but …

The Virtuoso does not have

• a French or European bread course,
• a rye bread course,
• a multigrain course,
• a raisin or fruit bread couse or
• a No Salt course

but can manage these breads.

French/European/Lean Bread

The Virtuoso does not have a European course which is a feature of the Virtuoso Plus.

The Virtuoso manual provides recipes for French bread styles, and a useful suggestion on programming a “homemade” course to bake a lean bread – it is almost identical to the European bread course in the Virtuoso Plus. It follows the sequence of the Quick Bake course in the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso, but gives the dough more rising time:

Course (Program)	Rest	Mix/Knead	Rise 1	Rise 2	Rise 3	Bake
(Suggested) Home made	22	18	35	50	Off	70
Quick Basic	18	22	20	35	0	50

Rye bread

The Virtuoso can make a “light” rye bread with a mixture of wheat flour and rye flour. Zojirushi addressed this with recipes using the whole wheat program, in its manuals.

MultiGrain

Most loaves which involve mixtures of whole wheat flour, bread flour and most of the no protein (i.e. no gluten formation) flours can be mixed and baked in regular bake and Bake (Whole) Wheat courses.

Raisins, Fruits, Seeds

A bake program, 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.

No Salt

The Virtuoso does not have the No Salt course which is a feature of the Virtuoso Plus, but can manage to bake the Zojirushi No salt sandwich loaf (no salt but made with vinegar) in the regular basic bake course.

Yeast & Salt

Medium Loaves

The pan is short and narrow enough that a medium recipe can be mixed, kneaded, proofed and baked in the pan. This machine can bake a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf, which is 75% of a large loaf recipe, on the factory settings for the regular bake and whole wheat bake programs.

If the dough can relax, flow in the pan and rise. It will bake a medium loaf on the default (i.e. large loaf) settings. The height of  a medium loaf 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. Medium loaves may slope, but generally will flow and fill the bottom of the pan.

A few recipes in the manual are for medium (1.5 lb.) versions of large loaf recipes.

I tested the 1.5 lb. (medium) recipes in the manual. I tested the recipes as written – no attempts to reduce salt or yeast, and with adaptations. 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. Weight in grams of main ingredients for medium loaves:

Name	Manual p.	Course	Bread flour	WW flour	Water	Salt	Instant Yeast
Basic 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 doughs flowed to fill the pan, rose, sprung and baked. 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 can be adapted to work with less salt than the recipes in manuals say.

Yeast

Medium loaf recipes from the BLBMC recommend 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 this machine, I need 50-70% of the instant yeast in a BLBMC recipe. This is a little more than the amount that I would use in a Panasonic.

Low and no sodium?

This machine supports low sodium baking, as any bread machine does. But low sodium baking is not discussed in the machine manual.

Table of Contents

• Bread Machine Recipes
  • Note
  • Wet and Dry
  • Weight
• Structure
  • Basic
  • Rows
  • Yeast

Bread Machine Recipes

Note

I began to chart bread machine recipes when I realized that each manufacturer designs its programs for its machines. “Standard” recipes (e.g. Bread Lovers Bread Machine Cookbook) fail in some devices. I experimented with putting recipe information in tables in the TablePress plugin and storing and publishing the table on this site, but have wound down those efforts. A spreadsheet worksheet is a more suitable tool, and allows for formulas to calculate some information. and more formatting practices. I keep some recipes in spreadsheets on a device I can read and alter at home, without going online.

Wet and Dry

Bread machines are either dry (flour) first or wet (water or milk) first, according to manufacturer’s recommendation.

• dry first – the yeast goes into the dry bottom of the pan and is covered by flour and dry ingredients; salt is the last dry ingredient. Fluids and water are on top, loaded last.
• wet first – water and wet ingredients first, then salt, milk powder, sugar and soluble things, flours; the yeast is last.

Either way, load the machine and let the machine mix the ingredients. Don’t stir or mix. Yeast should stay dry and should not come into contact with salt or salted water until the dough is mixed and kneaded. Loading a dry first machine (e.g. Panasonic) put yeast first, then flour, and go down the table. For a wet first machine (e.g. Zojirushi) I go up the table, and put yeast in last, on top of the flour.

Raisins and fruit are loaded as dry ingredients. They can be loaded in the dispenser if the machine has one, or during the mix phase of a program, at the signal (if the machine has one), or according to a timer, as a recipe will say.

Weight

Weight is important for some ingredients:

• Flour determines how large a loaf can be. A medium loaf can be baked in a machine with a medium pan, a large pan or even an extra large pan. A medium loaf will have 3 cups of wheat flour.
• Water has to be proportionate to flour to get a dough that kneads, flows, rises and bakes. It varies with flour; some ingredients can add water. Milk is mainly water, but not quite.
• Yeast is the principal variable that determine how high the loaf rises. Yeast is necessary to turn flour into dough that can be baked to make bread.
• Salt assists the development and structure of the compound protein called gluten. However, most recipes require more salt than necessary. If salt is reducted from what a recipe says, yeast must be reduced or the loaf will rise too much.

Structure

Basic

A worksheet or table is basically a list of ingredients and quantities that I refer to in loading a machine. It list ingredients according to the source, and alternatives and substitutions. It will listt he source recipe amounts, usually by volume. An ingredient without data in this column is not in the source recipe!

I use the top rows in worksheet or tableas the headings for columns. I note loaf size. It is almost always a medium bread machine loaf. I have experimented with scaling to bake smaller loaves but have found that is too complicated. A medium bread machine loaf recipe works in a horizontal pan machine with a large “2 pound” like a Zojirushi BB-PAC20. In some recipes a refer to a large loaf source and scale it down to medium

Other columns can convert a medium loaf recipe to lower salt medium loaves, Columns can be added to calculate chemical elements in bread, such as sodium.

A baker’s percentage column can arrange cells or entries to calculate the Flour weight (flour, sugar dry milk etc., but not salt yeast or herbs seeds, dry fruit, nuts), soluble water weight (water, and water in milk, butter, sweet syrup but not oils) and hydration.

Rows

Rows:

• One row can identify the loaf and the recipe source;
• A row identified loaf sizes for the ingredients in column. Large is a 2 lb. loaf. Medium is a 1.5 lb. loaf;
• A row a row identifies the salt level adaptation
• A row can notes the recommended program. Manufacturers’ program names vary. Every manufacturer has basic bake, whole wheat bake, dough (mix and knead but no bake) and cake (bake a batter without mixing and kneading dough) programs;
• A row can note what kind of measurements are used in that column – volume, weight or both;
• Most rows are ingredients and amounts. I refer to weight for flour, water, salt and yeast. For some other ingredients, measurement by volume is close enough.

Yeast

I record the active dry yeast in the source recipe, if the source calls for active dry yeast. If the amount is by volume, I put that in the table. If the source calls for instant by volume, I put that in the table.

I always convert to instant yeast by weight. I put instant yeast in several rows, as options and aids to calculation:

• A row for the highest amount of instant yeast for a medium (1.5 lb.) loaf for information. Using this value for a medium loaf in a 2 lb. pan in a Zojirushi BB-PAC20 is not optimal for that machine, and many other machines. This value is not suitable for the Panasonic SD-YD250 or for the Zojirushi BB-PAC20.
• There is a row for Zojirushi BB-PAC20.
• Rows for Instant Yeast, Low at 50% of the source or highest level. This figure work for the Panasonic SD-YD250, and some other machines. I refer to it as a benchmark to estimate yeast conversions.

Reasons a bread machine cannot be used, in the baking programs, to bake artisan bread:

1. Gluten. The autolyze (a rest after mixing before kneading) and other rests during kneading allows gluten to form in a less structured way that produces the more open crumb of French bread and artisan loaves.
2. Fermentation. Artisan loaves involve pre-ferments, delayed or cool fermentation, or bacterial fermentation for flavour. A pre-ferment or started (sponge, biga, poolish, pre-ferment, pate fermentee, sourdough, mother, chef, levain) introduces yeast or bacteria and enhances flavour.This also contributes to the irregular crumb.
3. Shapes. A bread machine bakes in a pan. Rustic, country hearth loaves are shaped as round boules or oval batards (or torpedos), and baked on a deck, without a pan.
4. Heat. Artisan loaves tend to have firm or even crisp/crunchy crusts. There is no direct temperature control or temperature reading on a bread machine.  A bread machine creates enough heat to bake a dark crust but cannot reach the temperature that bakes crunchy crusts

A bread machine can become a mixer (and a proofing box) on a dough cycle. A dough cycle will have an initial rest or preheat phase many machines (e.g. my Panasonic SD-YD250 had it on all dough cycles except pizza dough). Every machine will reliably mix the ingredients at a slow speed and move up to higher speed to work the dough.  There is some control of time.  For instance to avoid the more intensive mixing – just stop it when it is mixed.  And a pause after slow mixing can be made (to autolyse before more intensive mixing, or to add something), until the end of the phase. A few machines have a pause function, controlled by a button.  Most machines have a power interrupt that restarts the machine at the point in the cycle it stopped after short power outage.  This allows a pause of several minutes by unplugging the machine. The machine must be plugged back in, within the time limit or it goes back to the start of the cycle. There are no options to slow down the mixing or change the time – just stop when you want to stop mixing, and rest or work the the dough.

Dough cycles have a rest phase and a rise phase allowing the dough to ferment in machine, and stop.  The user has options after on when to remove the dough after mixing, and other options:

• the end of mixing
• the end of the rise
• after the end of the cycle for added bulk fermentation time
• put the dough in the fridge to slow down fermentation
• knock it down, knead by hand;
• additional fermentation – a second rise before shaping the loaf
  

The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (pp. 196-297) offers advice and several recipes/formulas for artisan loaves, using the dough cycle to mix.  At some points, the machine must be paused to prolong the ferment. Many machines can’t be paused, or only paused for short periods. A user may have to stop a machine after mixing and some kneading and set aside the dough and continue kneading after a long delay. A bread machine does not have a continue kneading program. A user will need to deal with additional kneading. shaping, benching and baking in an oven.

Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook has a recipe for French whole wheat artisan loaf using a dough program at p. 206. I used {Whole Wheat} Dough program. BLBMC advises a knock down, additional fermentation/rise after the dough cycle.  The steps after the dough is out of the machi3ne are shaping a torpedo loaf, final proof, scoring the loaf and baking at 400 F for 32-48 minutes:

• 347 g. (2.5 cups) whole wheat flour
• .5 cup spelt flour
• {4.3 g. (.75 tsp)} salt [BLBMC 1.5 tsp]
• {3.1 g. (1 tsp)} instant yeast [BLBMC 4 tsp]
• 1 5/16 cups (1.25 + 1 tbsp) buttermilk
• .5 cup water

The loaf looks like a loaf of rye bread – it has a dark crust.  The crust is soft, as might be expected with whole wheat.  It has a sticky crumb that leaves a residue on the bread knife, like an artisan OEM product sold in the local Thifty’s over the last two years before fall 2018.  The crumb is not as darkly coloured as 100%  whole wheat recipes which use dark brown sugar or molasses and oil – and not as dense.