Found out why my bread kept collapsing after 3 years of trying

I was at a baking class in Austin last month and the instructor pointed out I was adding the salt when I mixed the flour and water. Apparently salt kills yeast activity if it touches directly, so my dough never rose right. Anyone else make that mistake for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

wren2171d ago

Oh wow, I heard a baker on a podcast talk about this same thing! She said she treated salt like it was a separate ingredient that needed to be mixed into the flour before adding any water. Have to wonder how many loaves got ruined before people figured that out.

robertb301d ago

Yeah but mixing salt into flour before water is just asking for trouble. I mean sure it works if you're doing some kind of no knead thing but for a basic dough you really want the salt to dissolve in the water first. Otherwise you get those weird little pockets of undissolved salt that just bite you out of nowhere. Had a loaf once where one spot was like a salt lick and the rest was bland. Not doing that again.