I would like to experiment with making a thin crust sandwich bread for
day to day lunches. I know normaly a covered (Pullman) pan is used.
Does anyone know of a way to experiment with soft thin crusts without
investing $30-50 in a pan?
I was wondering if maybe flipping a normal loaf pan of on a metal sheet
pan might do the trick?

If ventilation is needed I could always drill a few holes (Std loaf
pans are cheap). Has anyone done this with any success?

Also do I need a specific recipe for thin soft crust breads or will a
normal white / wheat bread recipe work?

Yes , occasionally in smaller retail bakery if it runs out of pullman
tins and loaf tins of the same dimension are available; they use a
heavy baking pan to cover the loaf tins so that the loaves will come
out as desired. In other cases they just turn the set up upside down or
(invert )the loaf tin on the bakiing pan and put inside the oven.
A soft crust bread should contain some fat(2-4% shortening /butter
based on flour weight) and that is applicable to both white and whole
wheat loaves
Roy

I think my fat content should be ok. I used 1oz butter for total dough
of about 3#'s so I think I am slightly higher than 4%.

I think my liquid ratio might be high.

water/milk = 24oz
Bread Flour =24 oz
salt 1tsp
butter 1 oz

However the dough feels just right. I'm thinking my scale (Spring type
and 4 years old) may be out of whack and the total flour is higher

Are you sure that you are using 24 oz water per 24 oz flour?
I think your scales is not accurate.And spring type scales are
notorious for such things.
Looking at your flour salt ratio is 0.7% a low level of loaf bread and
you butter is 4% which will supply approximately 0.7 grams additional
salt, plus the 5 grams of salt per teaspoon the resulting salt level
will be 5.7 grams or in bakers percentage ratio =about 0.8% still low
and your loaf bread may taste insipid. Normally a loaf bread and
pullman loaf ( at your flour weight of 24 oz( 680 grams)has a salt
level range of a minimum of 10 grams( a third of an ounce) or roughly
2 teaspoons and maximum of 14 grams( half and ounce) or nearly three
teaspoons


Roy

Roy,

That's what I get for replying at 11:00pm when I'm half asleep.
The Recipe is as follows

4 tsp of yeast
1 1/4 Cup h20
1 cup milk (I used 1%)
1oz Butter
2 Tbs Sugar
1 Tbs Salt
5-6 Cups of flower

This would be 18 OZ liquid by weight
and I used between 22-24 Oz of flour by weight accounting for potential
scale innacuracies (sp).

If I'm understanding Bakers calculations at 24 Oz that would give me
about 75% liquid wich is recomended for thin crust.

The recipe is from "The Joy of Cooking" and I have had good luck with
other breads from that book.

Hopefully this makes more sense now

Roy wrote:
Are you sure that you are using 24 oz water per 24 oz flour?
I think your scales is not accurate.And spring type scales are
notorious for such things.
Looking at your flour salt ratio is 0.7% a low level of loaf bread
and
you butter is 4% which will supply approximately 0.7 grams
additional
salt, plus the 5 grams of salt per teaspoon the resulting salt level
will be 5.7 grams or in bakers percentage ratio =about 0.8% still low
and your loaf bread may taste insipid. Normally a loaf bread and
pullman loaf ( at your flour weight of 24 oz( 680 grams)has a salt
level range of a minimum of 10 grams( a third of an ounce) or
roughly
2 teaspoons and maximum of 14 grams( half and ounce) or nearly three
teaspoons


Roy

The recipe( as listed) looks sensible now,
But the total liquid weight according to your calculation is 75% or 18
oz/24 oz x 100 which looks a bit wet for a loaf bread. I am not sure if
your flour is really strong or very dry.

Or, I assume that your flour weighs more than 24 oz . Say you are
dusting more flour during kneading so that the total flour weight will
be more than 26 oz making you actual absorption to be in the vicinity
of 65-68% which is the upper limit for tin bread using strong flour.
There can be also errors introduced during volumetric measurement of
ingredients as well as the expected inaccuracies that an old spring
type scale can introduce..That will help compensate for discrepancies
and will make your recipe sensible.

Roy

I have been using King Arthur Bread machine flour which is very strong.
Also as we have discussed my scale is prob. off by a few oz's. The
first 2 love came out pretty good. The crumb was a little to fine and I
think the bread was slightly more dense than what I was looking for. I
think I under kneaded the dough a bit. I'm still getting a feel for
machined dough.