Rise up chewing

October 9, 2009 8:03 PM

My no-knead bread dough isn't rising. Any suggestions?

I'm in the middle of my second attempt at No-Knead Bread. The first time I attempted it, the dough never rose at all and the resulting bread was, not surprisingly, inedible. I think the problem then was that it was the middle of the winter and so the dough was not at room temp for most of its 18-hour rising period.

This time, the first rise worked beautifully. After 18 hours in a saran wrap-covered bowl, the dough was all bubbly and stretchy, with great air pockets. However, it was a tad wet to really fold very well. But I let it sit between two floured towels for an hour and a half for the second rise.

Apparently at the end of two hours, the bread should have risen a lot more and be a lot stiffer. Well, I just peaked at my dough and it hasn't risen at all, and it's still quite soft and sticky. I know there's still a half hour to go, so maybe I'm just being impatient, but is there something else I can do to make my bread "work" at this point? I really want some yummy homemade bread tonight!

Apologies in advance if there's something obvious I'm missing - this recipe is my first-ever attempt at bread-baking...

posted by lunasol to Food & Drink (18 answers total)

I've made that recipe before, and it never really stops being sticky and doesn't rise too much the second time, in my experience. So you're probably doing just fine! Mine always comes out ugly but delicious, and the latter is what really matters.
posted by leesh at 8:05 PM on October 9, 2009

I turn my oven on to the lowest setting and let it warm up for a few minutes, then turn it off and let the bread rise there. Take it out before you preheat the oven; I have totally forgotten that before (because I am an idiot).

I have a Kitchenaid mixer to do my kneading for me, so I admit I don't have any experience with no knead bread.
posted by Juliet Banana at 8:06 PM on October 9, 2009

Response by poster: Oops, in my haste, I forgot to post relevant links. The recipe I'm referring to is Bittman's No Knead Bread.
posted by lunasol at 8:09 PM on October 9, 2009

It's ok. Just go ahead and bake this one.
posted by special-k at 8:12 PM on October 9, 2009

I meant to add, it's likely that it will be somewhat dense but still edible. Worst case you can turn these into croutons.
posted by special-k at 8:19 PM on October 9, 2009

Just bake what you have this time.

I use the Cook's Illustrated variation and have found that this somewhat less sticky dough will rise properly even in my cold kitchen in the middle of the winter.

If you don't have lager for the recipe, I have found that using whey from drained yogurt as part or all of my liquid, instead of lager-plus-water, also gives very good results.
posted by maudlin at 8:30 PM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

The couple of times I made it, it was very sticky even at the point I put it into the hot pan to bake.
posted by leahwrenn at 8:32 PM on October 9, 2009

"... I really want some yummy homemade bread tonight! ..."

Patience and emotional balance are the hallmarks of successful bakers.

Did you proof your yeast, before adding it to your bread mixture? If not, you cut the doubling factor of your yeast by several generations. Take a number, go sit in a comfortable chair for a few more hours, and then bake your bread.

Next time, proof your yeast.
posted by paulsc at 8:38 PM on October 9, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks for all the tips. I did proof the yeast. The bread is now in the oven (put it in before I saw your post, paulsc) so I guess I'll know how it went in about an hour.

Patience and emotional balance are the hallmarks of successful bakers.

Hm, there's my problem. Emotional balance, yes. Patience, not so much.
posted by lunasol at 8:46 PM on October 9, 2009

I started my dough-making with this recipe and always got a sticky mess at the end. I did start doing the last "folding" on a floured/cornmealed piece of parchment paper, and sometimes ended up plopping the whole thing into the bottom of the dutch oven. It was totally delicious and much less messy.

And definitely check out the No-Knead Bread 2.0 -- the little bit of sourness is awesome and for some reason did make a bit less of a sticky dough.

Third - you're going to have to experiment to find a bit of a warmer place to rise. If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, I bet your ambient temperature isn't that high anymore. The inside of the oven does work well and some people even turn on the oven light for a tiny bit of warmth.
posted by barnone at 8:48 PM on October 9, 2009

in my experience with no-knead you really don't have to follow the recipe down to the kilogram. Depending on the time of year and the kind of flour that you use the hydration of your dough can vary. I usually start with 3 cups of flour, 2 tspns of salt and .4 teaspoon of instant yeast (you might have better results with this yeast because it doesn't need to be proofed so you can add it directly to the flour). Then I will add in the water in small increments until I get the mass to coalesce but still be as dry as possible, this ensures that when I have to go to the folding and shaping stage the next day I don't have an overly sticky dough to work with. Once you are done with the first stage (12-18 hrs) take it out of the bowl and fold it 4-6 times like an envelope (this I think is an important step to getting it to rise because it helps trap air in the dough). Then let it rest for 15 minutes then place in a towel for the 2 hour final rise (the suggestion upthread about putting it in a warm oven is a good one). I normally don't see just a vertical rise but more a combo vertical/horizontal. Again, depending on the time of year and temp it could take longer or shorter than 2 hrs so use your eyes and see that it has doubled its mass - either up or out. Then when you can press on it and the indent doesn't fix itself right away you are ready for the oven. This is a very forgiving recipe so even when the bread doesn't rise well it still tastes great - just keep experimenting.
posted by any major dude at 9:27 PM on October 9, 2009

I use this basic recipe a lot and it works fine. It is supposed to be a sticky dough and I use enough flour to get it off my hands and into the hot pyrex dish. I think the dry dough on the outside adds to the firm crust.

I have been using this recipe but deviating a bit skimping on the water, splitting it into two ciabata loaves on a hot flat pan with a bowl of ice cubes to steam it, and then finishing by painting the top with butter and sprinkling salt on it before putting it back in the oven for five minutes.

Happy baking.
posted by mearls at 10:10 PM on October 9, 2009

Response by poster: Well, the bread is done now and it ended up just fine. It wasn't super-tall, but it was tall enough, and both the crust and the inside are damn good. I just enjoyed some with butter and my roommate's mom's homemade jam.

I'll use some of these suggestions to perfect it on further tries.
posted by lunasol at 10:37 PM on October 9, 2009

Something to keep in mind is that, as with anything, you get better at baking with experience. The second thing that I would suggest in a situation where the bread isn't visibly rising on the 2nd rise is to give it another fold after an hour or so and let it rise for another 40-60 min at room temp. The purpose of the fold is to "redistribute" the yeast so it can "work" on more substrate (i.e. sugars & starches in the flour). In some wet doughs (> 60% hydration), the initial mixing/kneeding is the folding process.

So, bottom line, give it another fold and check on it after an hour. If things still are sluggish, bake it and see.

Baking is like science--when things aren't working the way you they should, you have to experiment, be creative, and tinker/troubleshoot to get to the process/recipe that works for you.
posted by scalespace at 12:14 AM on October 10, 2009

I've done very little with no-knead recipies but I've made a lot of bread, often without consulting a recipe at all. Rising times and amounts of various ingredients can be all over the place and still produce a tasty product. Soft and sticky dough is fine -- no need to obsess over whether it's stiff enough unless you need it to hold a particular shape.

The only elements that are more-or-less inflexible are to be sure you don't kill the yeast by using liquids that are too hot, and to provide a reasonably warm place for the dough to rise. Besides the warm oven option, good rising spots might include the top of a water heater, the top of some refrigerators, or even on top of a busy PC tower. I have also set the dough bowl inside of a larger bowl of warm tap water to speed things up when I'm in a hurry, albeit at some cost in terms of flavor development.
posted by jon1270 at 4:06 AM on October 10, 2009

I've made this about 5 times now in the same number of weeks, and didn't use instant yeast but portions of active dry yeast that you buy in packets, which you have to proof -- although I did read about someone who was semi-successful just throwing in the dry grains. I found that it was better to use a very small portion of those packets, maybe a 1/4 tablespoon at the most; a little yeast goes a long way. The first batch I made I put in an entire packet and got a huge rising pile of dough, but it was very hard to work with -- I cut it back a lot a few weeks later and got something that didn't rise as much but was a cinch to work with.

I've pretty much gotten it down for white flour, and it makes great sandwich bread now, but I tried one where I put in 1/3 rye flour rather than all white flour and the dough was much stickier and harder to work with, and it didn't rise nearly as much, so I'd say it's really a matter of making this bread consistently several times over a few weeks and experimenting, rather than expecting it to be perfect the first few times.
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 6:40 AM on October 10, 2009

I've baked hundreds and hundreds of (great) loaves of bread, and never proofed my yeast unless I (very rarely) thought that it might not be viable.
posted by OmieWise at 11:56 AM on October 10, 2009

I've done the no-knead bread a few times, and I've tweaked it a bit based on things I have read on the net and my own personal experience. This recipe is based on the original recipe, not the quicker version which uses an entire packed of yeast and cuts the original rising time to 4-6 hours.

3 cups of flour (use bread flour, it makes a different)
1.5-1.75 tsp of salt (I use kosher, and the quantity varies based on how it sits in the spoon and how I feel that day, but it has never affected the rise too much for me)
.5 tsp of instant yeast
1.5 cups of lukewarm water

The extra salt offsets the extra yeast a bit and adds more flavor. I added the extra yeast based on recommendations, and I think it helps with the rise and to develop gluten. It also tends to offset some bad yeast that might throw off a bread if you used a smaller quantity.

Be sure to whisk your dry ingredients before added the water so that the salt and yeast is distributed. Make sure the water is not too warm, though if your dough is rising in the first place, you probably know what you are doing on that score. Add a bit more water if you need to bring the dough together or if there is some dry flour left in the bowl. A lot of it depends on the humidity in the air, etc. Once done, cover with saran wrap and leave in a warm enough place to rise. I've tried the oven trick mentioned upthread, and never had any luck, it usually ended up being too warm and killing my yeast.

Once it's risen (12 hours a minimum, 18 is better), put it out on a floured surface, and fold it over a few times. While you're folding it over, stretch it a bit. This is important. Not only are you working in a bit of flour and making it more like dough, but the stretching will develop and activate the gluten strands. Also, if I remember my Alton Brown, yeast reproduces by budding, so by folding a bit, you are breaking up and redistributing those yeast buds so that the yeast on the inside doesn't die and can live a bit on their own (and thus produce lift). Don't punch the dough too much, you want those bubbles. And don't fold too much, this is after all no-knead bread, and it's mostly unnecessary. Just a couple of folds and stretching as you fold. There are some videos around the internet. Let sit for 15 minutes before shaping and covering in cornmeal. Again, that 15 minute wait let's the dough rest and do it's thing. Let rise again in a warmish place for 2 hours. At an hour and a half, put your heavy pot with a well fitting lid in the oven and preheat at 450.

When the pot has preheated for 30 minutes, pull it out (with gloves), and roll the dough in. Don't worry about extra cornmeal or flour that goes in there, it will work itself out. Bake at 450 in a heavy covered pot, 30 minutes covered, 20-30 uncovered (I usually go 20-25, but I am getting used to a new oven right now). The temperature and making method is important for developing the crust and type of bread you want from this recipe. The wetness of the dough will make a lot of steam that contributes to the crumb.

I tried proofing the yeast with this recipe once, and felt it was not needed. You do not need to proof the yeast if you are using the instant stuff (as you should). Sometimes you just get a bad batch of yeast, or it dies, though instant is a bit protected from that (as Alton Brown says, it's like sea monkeys). Still, I keep my packets of yeast in the fridge as some insurance against this. Remember not to use too hot water, or store in a place that is too hot (seriously watch that oven), and you should be fine.
posted by X-Himy at 8:39 AM on October 12, 2009