This is for Susan Barron, who is having extremely happy yeast merrily
multiplying in her bread machine loaves.
When the dough threatens to push against the inside of the lid, there can
be several things that need tweaking, and your questions show that you are
on the right track. Bread flour will typically give a better rise than
all-purpose, due to the additional gluten, but I would not necessarily
change to all-purpose flour in the bread machine.
It depends on the type of bread that you are adding additional gluten to -
- - whether or not to omit the gluten. (Gluten is generally added to breads
with lots of whole grains, such as whole wheat, which have less gluten than
white flours, and by having the bran included, tends to "cut" the gluten
structure, which results in more dense loaves compared to loaves made
with more processed flours.)
You may need to reduce the yeast a little. Also the yeast may be a little
more exuberant due to the warmth of summertime, if your house is not
air-conditioned. (This can change according to the time of the year.)
Reducing the water (or increasing the flour) to make a slightly less slack
dough will also temper the size of the finished loaf. Be sure to keep
within the measurement capacity of your machine. (Generally, 4 cups flour
for a 2-pound loaf.) Do you look at the dough during its kneading cycle to
ascertain if it looks "right" for the kind of bread it will become?
Reducing the water at the onset is probably the best tack, for if the dough
is still too wet, if you add too much more flour to compensate, you will
still end up with too much volume of dough for the capacity of your
machine, which would also cause the loaf to be too large, even if the
finished dough is the right consistency.
Within the confines of a bread machine, (unless you can adjust the cycle
for a longer rise, if needed), you probably cannot eliminate the commercial
yeast in a sourdough loaf. You could eliminate it for a hand-made bread,
since you can extend the rising time as necessary if the starter is not
rising the dough quickly enough on its own, and give it the time it needs
to rise as much as needed. (We've had discussions on sourdough before, and
for the most part, since it is the time that gives sourdough its character,
true sourdough bread really is not suited for bread machines.)
If worse comes to worse, and you see that the dough is going to squish up
against the window, open the lid and deflate the dough a bit. It won't be
a picture-perfect loaf, but it will help a bit for damage control in the
cleanup department. For clean-up, the lids of most bread machines do come
off, and it helps to lay a damp dishcloth on the lid, or around the handle
(if it does not come off) to help loosen the dough debris. Hope these
suggestions are helpful to you, for they come from the experience of 945
loaves of electric bread to date!
Happy baking,
Carolyn