Expert: Elyse Grau - 7/14/2009

Question
We make a 10-grain bread and a dried fruit bread for our restaurant. We use a convection oven (which, nonetheless, still has hot spots). The bread will frequently develop a large tunnel in the loaf. This is a fairly recent development (last 2-3 months).
Our recipe for the 10 grain is:
4 c. potato slurry (2 mashed potatoes w/water)
1/2 c. milk powder
2 T. yeast
2 T. sugar
1 1/2 c. 10 grain cereal
Combine and allow to proof
9 c. bread flour
1/2 c. corn oil
1 T. salt
Add rest of ingredients and knead 5 min. (Hobart dough hook)
Rise 1 hour. Form 2 loaves and rise 1 hr.
Bake 350* - ca. 40 min.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Answer
Jack:
It could be that the room where you rise your dough has been warmer in the last couple of months. If it is too warm the dough rises too fast and the air holes get trapped when the bread begins to bake.

Another thing might be in the forming. Make sure that you get all the air bubbles out when forming your loaves. There are a number of methods used, depending on what kind of texture you want the bread to have. For a sandwich loaf, I usually flatten the dough into a rectangle and then fold it over on itself. Then turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat 2 more times. That usually gives a nice "crumb".

Elyse