There's usually not just one thing that causes a problem in bread making. Some possibilities... 1. Did you do a good job punching down the dough and removing air-holes before shaping? 2. Did you allow it to rise too long after it was panned? This would be what I would guess is the problem. Never allow dough to rise to the clock - a certain amount of time. Time is only a poor guess. Dough rises based on ambient temperature, yeast activity, and humidity - NEVER a clock. Rule of thumb, the dough log is 1/3 the size of the finished loaf. Allow it to rise to double (just under is actually better because our flour is no longer bromated and doesn't have the extensibility it once did), so that accounts for 2/3 of the finished size of the loaf. The oven-spring (the amount the loaf rises once it's in the oven) accounts for the last 1/3 of the loaf size. If you are allowing the dough to rise to the size you'd like the finished loaf, you are over-proofing. If you are putting the wrong amount of dough in the pan, that can be another way dough can over-proof. A 9x5-inch loaf pan is designed for quick breads and is often used for yeast breads as well. They hold 2-pounds + of dough (you may want to scale your dough so that you use the correct amount of dough in the correct pan). If your recipe makes 1.5-pounds, then use a standard 8-1/2x4-1/2-inch loaf pan. A couple lesser causes: 3. Too much yeast can also cause large holes. 4. Under-kneading is yet one more cause. Check out the troubleshooting information at the link below. You can also find troubleshooting information at most of the yeast brands web sites. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Baking 911- bread problems

Thanks for the tips! It did double in bulk during the first rise in the machine. It looked great, much better than it looked for the second rise. Then the machine "punched it down" and I took it out (I was using the whole wheat bread cycle). I did the "lift and fold" type kneading a couple of times with just a wee bit of flour and tried to pinch it, but it was definately slack. I put it in the casserole for the second rise--it kinda rose but not very much. I put a wet paper towel over it that kind of stuck to the sticky dough, and when I removed it, it sort of "degassed" the bread and it went "blat." I tried to get it to raise a little more for a while, but by pressing in on the dough I could tell it was starting to get "over proofed" even though it wasn't rising, so I finally just said what the heck and baked it. I may try it again adding the cereal at the beep time. I just couldn't figure it out, because it looked so wonderful during the first rise. I hardly did a thing to it for the second rise and it just pooped out! The bread wasn't streaked, it just looks that way due to my poor camera/lighting, etc. You know back in the day I learned to knead bread until it has the consistency of an earlobe. With these artisan breads it seems more like the consistency of paper mache!

FLsandytoes- Proofing the yeast was an interesting "new" twist to making fluffy bread in a bread machine, and one I've never come across. I think there are probably much better methods, but one just never knows..... I had a friend who used fresh yeast in his bread machine and it had to be proofed, so there are some applications for this process in a bread machine. I have a recipe for white sandwich bread that uses 1 cup of white cake mix, as another interesting example for making "fluffy" white bread, due to the soft wheat flour in the cake mix. FYI -- Two tablespoons of non-fat powdered milk, reconstituted, equals 1/2 c. of milk - which is a reasonable amount of milk in a bread recipe without causing crumb and crust problems. Much more than that and you will need to scald the milk first to avoid the textural problems caused by too much milk (from the milk whey protein). Heating the milk denatures the problematic protein. Try the recipe with 1/2 c. of milk and the remaining liquid water and see if you get different results. You will STILL need to adjust the dough for correct hydration (soft sticky ball) while it's starting to knead. --To improve 100% whole wheat bread, add an acidic ingredient, such as ascorbic acid. Some yeast products add ascorbic acid to the yeast. Yeast works better and longer in a slightly acidic atmosphere. There is a substance in wheat germ called Glutathione which breaks down the gluten - and is why we have trouble getting high-rising, fluffy, loaves of whole wheat bread without lightening the loaf by adding bleached/unbleached flour. By adding ascorbic acid it will help counteract the negative effects of Glutathione and will help repair broken gluten bonds (which is the cause of short, compact, squatty loaves). Add 1/8 t. of ascorbic acid (Fruit Fresh will work - it's a mix of ascorbic and citric acid) per 3-cups of flour. You may also find some recipes for 100% whole wheat bread that add lemon juice or vinegar for the same acidic effect, but it takes a lot more lemon juice or vinegar than it does ascorbic acid. You would have to use 6-times as much lemon juice to be as effective as ascorbic acid. -- Another way to lighten 100% whole wheat bread is to do a sponge with a portion of the flour for at least 1-1/2 hours, and as long as overnight. When I incorporated this method I got high-rising loaves of 100% whole wheat bread that were equal to any light-wheat and white breads I made. Soaking whole wheat flour helps lighten the loaf by softening the bran (bran cuts the gluten) and it gives the gluten time to absorb moisture, which creates strong gluten bonds without manipulation (kneading). I always use a sponge method for 100% whole wheat bread made in the bread machine. -- When adding 10-Grain Cereal Mixture, add it towards the end of kneading at the add-in beep. This goes for anything that may have a sharp edge, like nuts, dried fruit, etc. Adding dried fruit (raisins) early in the process and the kneading will pulverize them. If you add this coarse grind of grains/seeds/beans early in the dough making process it will cut the gluten strands as the dough kneads and you'll end up with a short squatty loaf because of the cut gluten. I prefer adding a dry mixture at the add-in beep because I like the "toothy" nuggets from the cereal mixture. If you don't want that much texture, you may want to soak the mixture first, but still wait to add it at the add-in beep towards the end of kneading. -- Another way to improve 100% whole wheat bread is to wait to add the salt and fat after the dough is kneading and the gluten is well developed. Once you add salt, the gluten tightens and kneading is more difficult - with a bread machine or by hand. Adding the fat early in the mixing/kneading "shortens" the gluten strands and development for a finer textured loaf. You can make the exact same recipe, and by adding the fat early or adding the fat late, it will alter the crumb and size of the loaf. Adding fat early for a close crumb (bread used for sandwiches), add it late for a more open crumb (bread used for toasting). These options are neither right or wrong - but are options to help control the crumb of the bread. --The same bread making rules and techniques that apply to making bread without the bread machine also apply to making bread IN a bread machine - such as when to add salt and fat. Bread machines are designed to make bread quick and easy and doesn't always take into considerations these rules and techniques. -- Check the dough for proper hydration while it's kneading, not after it's rising, while you still have time for the ingredients to be mixed into the dough. -- I only use the bread machine for mixing and kneading dough. As soon as it has completed the kneading I stop the bread machine and remove the dough and place it in a dough-rising bucket. I don't want a machine with a timed rise to determine when the dough has "doubled", which is actually determined by the strength of the yeast, moisture and ambient temperature, not a clock. If I have 1-quart of dough patted into the bottom of the dough-rising bucket, I know it has doubled when it gets to the 2-quart line -- whether it takes 25-minutes or 1-hour. In fact, it's better to only allow dough to rise to just UNDER double because our flour no longer has the extensibility it did as when it was bromated, and whole wheat flour was never bromated. The reasons not to use milk for proofing: 1. Water is more reliable than milk. 2. When proofing yeast in milk use 4-times the amount of milk as yeast. Yeast also tends to clump in milk and not proof as well. If you have to stir the milk/yeast mixture, you will end up killing some of the yeast. 3. Yeast works best with sucrose (table sugar) over lactose (milk sugar). 4. Yeast granules can become coated with milk fat (much like fat coats flour when making pastry) which can restrict water from entering and dissolving the yeast. -Grainlady

FYI - From a Kansas gal living in the middle of wheat country....and literally lived surrounded by wheat fields growing up. Technically, there is no commercially grown wheat that is genetically modified, nor is GM wheat sold for seed wheat. Modern wheat has been hybridized, which is different than genetically modified, although it amounts to nearly the same thing. But other ingredients in commercial bread can be from GM foods. We're really left out-in-the-dark with that one without better labeling. Case-in-point -- I can occasionally eat the ancient variety of wheat - EINKORN - without any of the same symptoms I experience eating wheat. I also have tested myself with spelt (another ancient form of wheat), but had the same problems with it as I did wheat; even though spelt has gluten at 5,000 parts per million compared to wheat which begins at 50,000 parts per million (for soft wheat varieties) and go up. Modern hard wheat varieties have been modified over the years to have higher percentages of gluten (what bread manufacturers like to hear), as well as shorter stalks (semi-dwarf varieties) which mean less straw to have to deal with after harvest (no-till - aka zero tillage - practices), and the wheat doesn't lay down as easily from storm damage as it did 50-years ago when it was taller, and heads that yield more grains per head, now that the stalks can hold the heavy heads. So there were modifications that made for higher yields, and to save the farmer with the number of times they had to work the ground (saving fuel costs). There are, however, GM wheat being grown in test conditions. They recently scrapped the development of Round-up Ready wheat because so many countries that buy U.S. wheat are GM-free. BTW - without hybridized wheat, you would be paying even more for your bread than what you are now. -Grainlady