I don't know how this might help, but here goes, [I've had several bread
machines.]

Do you have instant yeast that you could try instead of active yeast?
In my bread machine, I use only instant yeast. I never proof my yeast.

I always put my ingredients in, in this order:

1)All wet ingredients,
(I never heat my water. I use room temperature regardless of my kitchen's
temperature.
{I don't use water from a tap, but if I did, I would let it become room
temperature in the winter}
2)then dry ingredients [I always used bread machine flour.]
3) then I make a indent in the flour or dry ingredients [on top]
4) then I put the instant yeast in this indent.

My opinion:
Perhaps the cold water was too cold for your active dry yeast. But since
you said that it was successful previously, perhaps the Hitachi's
temperature controls are off.

I have no knowledge of "rapid rise," but it suggests to me using extra
yeast. Maybe that's not so.

Wish you luck,
Dee









"Donna Kossy" > wrote in message
...
> I'm an old hat at bread machine baking. I've had two different machines
> that worked great (Panasonic & Breadman). My Breadman machine pan has been
> wearing out, so when I saw a nearly unused Hitachi for $15 at a thrift
> store, I grabbed it. It's an HB-D102.
>
> I've made two loaves so far, just white bread, neither rose much at all.
> For the first loaf, I tried the rapid setting on an old recipe that had
> worked well in the Breadman. I used lukewarm water. The second loaf, I
> stuck to the white bread recipe in the manual (which recommended using
> COLD water), & used the regular (not rapid) setting, and that one didn't
> rise either. In fact it was even worse than the first loaf.
>
> So my first question is what temperature should the water be?
>
> Also, I've used unbleached white flour with success in the Breadman. Does
> the Hitachi require actual bread flour?
>
> Anyone have similar problems with this model? Any advice would be much
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks much,
> Donna
>
> --
> -------------------
> Donna Kossy
>