TigerTiger, To follow up on the 'Wheat Dietary Fibre' flour bread flour, I found that there is a high content of sugar in the flour when I sprinkled it on my wooden cutting board. Fyi!

Barbara
I wish I lived closer. But alas I am too far out of the way.

I've been making my own bread for several years now here. I started out using a bread machine for making the dough only, then baking it in a bread loaf. Turns out excellent.

But now I have retired the bread machine and use a planetary mixer for dough making. It is great! No kneading, and dough is ready for rising in 10 minutes. Plus I can make 4 loaves at a time. The bread machine can make 1. I freeze them and use them as I need it.

Anybody need a bread machine???

I personally vomit on machine-bred bread. Usually quite dull. Nothing beats kneading and baking it yourself. When my mom started baking her own bread at home, we even stopped going to bakeries because there was just nothing that could beat hers.

good tip bucko!

my white bread comes out fine by i can't get the whole wheat loaf to rise properly and end up with a crater. i'm guessing that i need to add something? gluten? mantou improver? any ideas? do you know the names for these ingredients in chinese? is there anywhere around the centre of town or the north that stocks this stuff (and i'd like to get a loaf tin).

by the way,the variety of flours on Taobao is far greater than any of the local shops i've been to and it also works out cheaper usually.

@debasser
For most whole wheat recipes I have seen, only use about 1/3 whole wheat flower and 2/3 bread flour.
The missing thing to help rising, for whole wheat, is ascorbic acid (vitamin c) I read somewhere. I saw one tip to grind up and add a Vitamin C tablet. However Mantou improver has ascorbic acid in it.
They sell Mantou improver with the other bread stuff in Metro. Angel brand, 300g, yellow and white bag, bilingual label. I use 1-2 teaspoons in a loaf.

thanks tigertiger. i was using the flour 50-50 so that might be a problem too i guess :)

Should be OK with added C, according to what I read.

Crater would suggest over rising is a possible cause.
If so you will see bread rise a lot part way through cooking.

Usual causes for over rising. Too much water or too much yeast.

I used to have the same problem until I cut back on yeast, but that was with all my bread.

You definitely have to cut back the yeast here. It's an altitude thing. My recipe calls for 6 grams, I use 4 and get a perfect result. Also as tigertiger says, let the bread rise while baking, so bake it before it rises all the way.

I bake at 150c for 1 hour. Actually my oven is actually between 160-170c as I use a laser to measure the actual temp. But the oven dials are not accurate. Take out of the pan immediately after baking and let it cool in the warm oven just sitting on the rack or you will end up with soggy bread.

For wheat flour use 25% wheat and 75% white to make wheat bread. Then you do not need to change any other things in your recipe.

We've been using a bread machine for some time now and it's OK. Recently we got an oven! I'd like to make bread the old fashioned way, but every recipe I look at says to let the dough rise in a warm place. That would work great back in Canada where our homes had heat, but my wife objects to me turning the heat on here. Do I need to wait till spring before I can attempt to make real bread?