Why Multiple Rises? How Important Is It?

Dear Nosey,

Tell me about the risings. I read that it wasn’t as important for the first rising to have the dough be totally double, but it is for the second? What does the first rising accomplish?
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Dear Karen,

To answer your question, let me approach it from the point of view of the bread dough. When we make bread from wheat flour, we are doing something that is ultimately very simple. Wheat, ground into a near microscopic powder is almost pure starch and ’small’ sugars, with a significant small percentage of proteins, called ‘gluten. We are making a paste that will become gummy, and elastic. That gumminess and elasticity is what will trap the gas bubbles that make the bread rise, and will give the bread its airy texture and bite.

Both starch and sugar are long chain molecules that are nothing but carbon and water. Remember high school biology, and the subject of photosynthesis? Green plants take carbon dioxide out of the air, combine it with water and produce sugars and starches. The starches and sugars will be food for the yeasty-beasties and for the lactobacilli that produce the flavor of sourdough, and provide the leavening power — the gas to blow up the little bubbles. The yeast actually takes the starch and sugars, and turns it back into water and carbon dioxide — the gas that makes the dough swell. That is what makes the bread dough rise.

The gluten is a long chain protein that hooks itself together into long strings that form net-like structure inside the dough. Those nets of protein form the walls of the bubbles in the dough, and holds the carbon dioxide gas inside, like miniature balloons. Flours come with various gluten contents. Cake, or pastry flour, which includes tortilla flour has a very low gluten content, about two percent. All purpose flour, often abbreviated ‘AP’ flour on the various bread websites, generally has a three percent gluten content. Bread flour usually has four percent protein,, with some specialty flours with even higher percentages. King Arthur Mills has an entire line of flours, to suit any use.

Back to your question, though. As with the question about sour flavors being best developed the longer the dough is allowed to rise, multiple rises and punchdowns give time for the gluten proteins to get hooked up with each other to make a more and more consistent network within the dough. The first rising inevitably has a lot of voids, bubbles, of various sizes in it. When you punch it down you burst some of the bubbles, and rearrange the gluten ‘net’ in the dough. As the dough regains its gas, or rises again, the bubbles or voids will be smaller, on average, than they were after the first rise. If you are going to make multiple punchdowns and risings, the first one isn’t so important, and you might not want to wait the extra half hour or so to get a true doubling in bulk.

This is a partial answer to another issue, ‘To Knead Or Not To Knead’, which I will address in another article.

I make all of the bread and rolls I consume. the last time I bought bread in a store was simply to get two good sized bread bags! The birds lucked out in my back yard for a couple of days.

For a regular ‘French Bread’ loaf, and I mean a long, irregular batard, or football shaped loaf, I only let the dough rise once, punch it down and shape it into a loaf. That will produce big voids, medium voids, and some small voids, which is exactly what we want from a bakery style loaf of French bread.

For my toast, or sandwiches, I use a three rise method plus the final shaping for the loaf pan. That almost guaranteeds a uniform small void size, and a chewy crumb, with enough substance to stand up to a bread knife for slicing.

For my hard rolls, like kaiser rolls and breakfast rolls, I compromise. I punchdown and let the dough rise a second time before dividing the dough by weight, and shaping the rolls for the final fairly rapid rise before going into the oven.

For bagels and soft pretzels I do the shaping after the first rise and punchdown, and retard the rising un the refrigerator overnight before boiling and baking them.

The bottom line is that you need to decide what textures you like in your breads and rolls, and use these notes to achieve the result that you and your family like best.