"chembake" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Changing the water to 60% helped a lot. But it's still not making hard
>
> rolls. The rolls were delicious, but they weren't hard rolls. So I
> lowered
> the sugar and fat content:
>
> Water 60.00%
> Instant yeast 1.50%
> Bread flour 100.00%
> Salt 2.25%
> Sugar 1.13%
> Butter 1.13%
> Egg whites 2.25%
> Yield 168.25%
>
>
> I'll report back with the results.
>
>
> Rich
>
> I am not sure how you describe a hard roll in your place. but in mine
> just what I mentioned in my recent post. It should have a crisp crust
> with sort interior and slightly chewy to masticate.
>
> Is that similar to what you are expecting from your bread.?
>
> In my expeience a dough that has lower hydration tends to form a really
> hard roll; hard to bite and to chew (all the way)...but that is not
> considered a quality bread from our standards...

You're right. I'm looking for a soft interior, but when I crunch into the
outer crust with my mouth, I don't want the roll to flatten down like a
hotdog bun. I think it should somewhat keep its shape. I increased the
hydration to 100% and reduced the fat and sugar to 1.125% or 1.13% but I'm
still getting that soft feeling from these DELICIOUS rolls. I raised the
heat to 450 but that didn't help much either. I mixed a little water into
the egg whites that I wash over the outside. Still. My next step will be to
reduce the yeast a little. The original recipe called for fresh yeast but I
don't have any. I got a large quantity of instant dry yeast from the Sam's
Club so I converted the amount and have been using that. Originally it
called for 3 oz of fresh yeast so I used 1 oz of instant. It's rising like
crazy. With more hydration I probably don't need as much yeast. I'll try
it anyway.

*** By the way, I'm doing all this at home. I wonder if it's the oven
itself. At work we use a convection oven. We don't have steam injection
there either but we use the "pan of water trick" just like I do at home.
I'm trying to tweek this formula to get a better product, but I think I
might need to try it at work before I go much further.