Everyone knows what a good bread contains right? but let’s take an example here:
Our white sourdough’s ingredients are:
White wheat flour + water + salt + yeast + leaven (flour and water).
Keep these in mind we’re going to use them later!
To know where these holes come from, we will take a brief look at the whole process.
Bread making process!
Simply put the major steps are:
1.Mixing the ingredients.
2.First fermentation ~25minutes.
The yeast already ate the sugar present in the flour, divided to create more cells and produces CO2 and other products.
3.Shaping to get the desired form.
4.Long fermentation ~12hours.
The fermentation continues producing more CO2 gas.
5.Baking.
The fermentation is at its highest, and since all the yeast dies because of the heat, it stops.
Because of the heat the CO2 gas expands, and water evaporates which stretches the gluten matrix.
(We talked about the gluten matrix in the blog about coeliac diseases)
Maillard Reactions happens and your bread gets his golden color and is now ready.
Now can you guess which step does the bread holes come to exist? Easy right?
As soon the gas is released, the dough has holes, and as we have seen, they grow when due to the heat, the CO2 tries to escape from the matrix.
That’s it!
What influences the formation of the holes?
The texture of course! It’s going to be dependant on the type of flour and the quantities of water or hydration.
As an example, whole wheat flour is always going to absorb more water, contain less gluten and have a tighter matrix or crumb. In contrast with that, white wheat flour which has more gluten and absorbs less water, will leave more water in the matrix thus creating a softer crumb or matrix.
A softer and stretchier crumb means allowing the gas to expand more and creating bigger holes.
