Bread Machine Sleuths Required...

[Corgito]

For literally years my standard set of ingredients and trusty Panasonic have turned out consistently tall, fluffy loaves. The last two.... housebricks! (OK maybe not that bad but certainly shorter and denser than normal.) The flour is the same quality as normal and 50/50 white/wholemeal. The other ingredients haven't changed. Only slight difference has been Tesco easy-blend yeast sachets rather than a different brand... but they are well in the date-code.

So is it inferior yeast? Some other problem? Is the Panasonic dying?

could be yeast could be flour

I had some in date wholemeal flour from sainsbury that turned out a brick - used white on the next loaf and it was fine - went back and used wholemeal and it was naff. Sainsbury gave me a refund when I told them what had happened. Unfortunatley the flour from supermarkets can be quite old and I now get flour in bulk from local mill, which is actually half the price of supermarket flour.

It could be your yeast - again even though it is in date it may be old.

Do you keep your yeast in the fridge?

I doubt it is the machine

Try another loaf with different flour and yeast

funny you should say this, cos my lasst few loaves have turned out shit, and i think its because i bought cheap bread flour instead of the extra strong canadian flour i bought before

I always use the extra strong Allinsons flour which usually turns out well. The yeast is the fast acting stuff in sachets and I use the whole thing rather than keeping it for another day. I've got some Hovis yeast sachets in the cupboard so I'll try another loaf with that instead. Will report back

I like the doves yeast in a packet, I find the sachets have over twice as much yeast in them than actually needed for a pound loaf so will carefully turn over sachet and peg shut and pop in fridge and use the next day - never had any problems with yeast in either form

Hovis yeast variable in now..... Everything else the same.

(Namechanged)

Back to the tall, fluffy creations. I think I'll save the Tesco yeast for pizza. :)