[WeavingGryphon]

Picture.
How does it look? How much room for improvement is there? As in yay, that's barely passable but your on the correct track or is it still dire?

Well how is it besides buttery in the first picture, picture 2 is both loaves (MoS's and Wellington's wholemeal in the next thread down because if I'm putting the oven on it's not for one loaf).

I baked 2 loaves, Wellington's one got it's tootsies scaled because I forgot the silicon mould had a hole so while it was warming in the slowcooker water bath there was some seepage. But above that level it rose and had bubbles! I'd like them to be lighter and have more bubbles so while I'm thrilled with the fact for once I got bubbles, I'd like a lot more and it to be fluffy, I'm thinking more like the videos on You Tube and in books.
Modify for clarity.
Picture 1 is the first slice covered in butter and hot from the oven. MIL ate it.
Picture 2 is both loaves after we ate a bit more, MOS's recipe is the top right, Wellington's is left and what MOS's is propped up on.
Picture 3 is my last dire effort

Will anyone show me a picture of their bread?

[mumofstig]

I still think it is either low gluten flour or yeast that that's not very active.
If your temps are low for rising you need a good active yeast. Your loaves shouldn't have needed that long to rise in a temperature you can live with.
Even in the fridge mine double overnight.... if we weren't in lockdown I'd send you some easy-bake yeast to try, to see if that's what would make the difference 

[WeavingGryphon]

I still think it is either low gluten flour or yeast that that's not very active.
If your temps are low for rising you need a good active yeast. Your loaves shouldn't have needed that long to rise in a temperature you can live with.
Even in the fridge mine double overnight.... if we weren't in lockdown I'd send you some easy-bake yeast to try, to see if that's what would make the difference 

Temperatures were low at times but overnight were in the warmest room in the house. They weren't fridge cold at any time. It's not low gluten as far as I know, as in it wasn't bought to be low gluten.
What Really? I got some free bakers yeast from a bakery, would that work okay?

[mumofstig]

The fresh yeast should work once it's thawed out
I know you didn't buy low gluten flour, but not all flours have a high gluten content. Unless they say 'strong or high gluten flour' they aren't.
Even Marriage's slow rise bread recipe specifies their 'strong white flour'
https://flour.co.uk/blog/slow-rise-bread,    if you see  what I mean.

[WeavingGryphon]

The fresh yeast should work once it's thawed out
I know you didn't buy low gluten flour, but not all flours have a high gluten content. Unless they say 'strong or high gluten flour' they aren't.
Even Marriage's slow rise bread recipe specifies their 'strong white flour'
https://flour.co.uk/blog/slow-rise-bread,    if you see  what I mean.

I said something stupie there didn't I? Onwards to my other stupidity, specifically the bread one because I do want to be better.

Marriages is what I'm baking with actually. Both the Wholemeal and strong bread flours used recently is from Marriages. Gluten can be affected by local conditions, do you think that the two Marriages flours which I got at the same time, with the same life expectancy naturally have low gluten?

The rye, spelt, Cotswold crunch and self raising flours I've recommended recently is from Matthews Cotswold mill. So only a small part (1/4) of the really rubbish loaf (picture 3) was from them. I've ordered strong bread flour from them recently so once that arrives we'll see if what I make still fails to rise. if I could get some completely random bread flour i could also try with that but they are out.

Could it be my salt since salt helps gluten strands to form? Should I swap onto normal table salt from rock salt?  I use 1/2 or 2/3 of the salt a recipe calls for with the rock salt.

Were do I go from here? Try doing two breads in sourdough style or my rubbish yeast side by side for comparison. One from each supplier?

[Growster...]

Aw, thank you all! That's very helpful, I suppose I could have Googled it more, but when I tried, there was so much waffle, I gave up, and thought of asking normal chums, like here!

Now, had it been a 48Hour Turbo Yeast for strong wine, I could have bored everyone for ages..;0)

(We'll chuck what we have - it is clearly not in good nick)!

I was reading yesterday, people do, you can and the Ancient Egyptians added beer to the flour to make bread. Do you want me to look out the web pages I was reading?

That's very kind of you, Weavers!

I think we'll stick to basics here for the time being - we can get bread easily, and freeze 4-slice packs when we need to!

It was just that a local pub was closing down for the duration, and were selling off all their ingredients which they wouldn't be able to use! 'The Queens Inn' here, will get a huge visit when they reopen I can tell you! The yeast was the type they use in their own bread, and we also had two of their loaves which were just fabulous!

(My other bread making caused a disaster when I tried to shred up the crumbs for the birds, and it was so hard it broke the blade..:0(

[Blackpool rocket]

I was just making bread and browsing here, as we do.
Thought I'd add my twopenny worth.
I normally use the dough setting on my bread machine which does the rise it takes an hour and half (is that the correct term for the first stage?)
I then remove it, kneed it by hand for a few minutes to knock it back (?)
Put it in the bread tin, leave it to prove(?) for an hour or so & chuck it in a hot oven 220 ( seems hotter than others?)
For the purposes of this thread I've just used the machine to Kneed the ingredients, that takes 20 mins.
I have taken it out of the machine, the oven was turned on to it's lowest setting 40 and turned off. The bowl has been covered with cling & I've put it in the oven.............

I've no idea how this will turn out.....I've never done it this way before!

Watch this space!

[Blackpool rocket]

My ingredients list;

450g strong white bread flour (for wholemeal I use 300 white, 150 wholemeal)
1 tspn salt
1 tbspn oil
1 tspn sugar
1 1/2 tspn dried yeast
260g warm water (270g for wholemeal loaf)

This is only my second time using the warm water method for yeast. I usually use the dried specifically for bread machines, it gets chucked in with the rest of the ingredients, but there wasn't any in the shop.
Added yeast to the warm water, gave it about 20mins.....didn't photo that, it was added before I came across this thread!

I reckon if you chuck it all into your mixer with the dough hook and give it 20 mins, you should come out at the same point. Although the "paddle" in the bread maker is much smaller than a dough hook so you might not need as much time?

[Blackpool rocket]

Update!
Encouraging, I'll give it another 30 mins.

[Blackpool rocket]

I've had some sort of problem with my phone, haven't been able to download the next pictures to my PC. I'll try direct from my phone. Dough knocked back & put into the tin. It's now in the oven for proving. 40° then turned off.

[WeavingGryphon]

Mine did none of that. It got that smooth look of the second picture quite quickly. But then it sat there looking boring.

[Blackpool rocket]

I think, as others have said, the problem is probably with your yeast?
This is after about an hour proving, (if that's the right term for the second rise?) needs more time though.

[WeavingGryphon]

I think, as others have said, the problem is probably with your yeast?
This is after about an hour proving, (if that's the right term for the second rise?) needs more time though.

Yeast or rock salt killing it. But loaves with no salt did sweet sod all as well.
Maybe I have a dud batch again. I added a sprinkling of rye flour at the end of the first 8 hours of no movement other than becoming smooth and mixed the rye in. I was hoping to try and colonise it with wild yeast in the rye. Did I mention that? I was worried I'd get a verbal hand smacking. Well the loaves started rising a tiny amount the next day late on.

[Blackpool rocket]

Perhaps try the oven trick, my main oven has a digital readout which won't go below 40 so I let it heat up & turn it off.
My top oven has a dial thermostat but I have found in the past that just by turning the function button on, the internal light gives off enough heat to make a difference!
I'm also happy to send you dried yeast if you can't get any.

It's out now & the oven is heating up..

[Blackpool rocket]

Yeast or rock salt killing it. But loaves with no salt did sweet sod all as well.
Maybe I have a dud batch again. I added a sprinkling of rye flour at the end of the first 8 hours of no movement other than becoming smooth and mixed the rye in. I was hoping to try and colonise it with wild yeast in the rye. Did I mention that? I was worried I'd get a verbal hand smacking. Well the loaves started rising a tiny amount the next day late on.

I use coarse sea salt. If the yeast froths in the warm water it should be OK...but I'm no baker!
Verbal hand smacking, why, you've lost me on that one!