This is How Salt Affects Bread Dough | The Effects of Salt Explained

how's it going everyone i hope you're having an awesome day welcome to the channel i'm the chain baker and in today's video i'll show you how salt affects bread dough so let's go to the kitchen and have a closer look salt makes up a tiny part of any bread though which has a huge effect on it and most bread is made with salt nowadays i have read that salt has only been used in bread making for the last couple of hundred years which i can't believe surely someone would have thought to add salt to bread though earlier bread has been around for thousands of years but regardless of what the truth is salt is an essential ingredient in bread making there's various kinds of salt you get flaky sea salt sea salt crystals fancy himalayan pink salt or regular table salt i find it funny when people praise the pink salt for its nutritional value to get any benefit from those nutrients you'd have to eat so much of it you turn into a piece of jerky right here's what we're going to do today we're going to make three breads one without salt so just flour yeast and water the second one made with a standard two percent salt and the final one will be made with way too much salt at 10 percent these are of course extreme examples and only the tubes and dough is the correct one but it'll be quite interesting to see what happens i will also show you how to use salt to help with slowing down sourdough starter or yeasted pre-ferment this is especially useful in hot kitchens and hot climates and finally i'll show you how to use salt in ahsoka ahsoka is a method of adding seeds and grains to your bread though and i will make a whole separate video covering this topic in detail right so we'll start with the three breads and as ever this is not a recipe video so i'm not going to talk you through the steps here i'm making 3 breads they contain all the same amount of ingredients except the salt i will knead them for the same amount of time i will ferment them for the same amount of time and i'll bake them the same way so instead of talking about these breads i'll talk about salt at only 1.5 to 2.5 percent it makes up a tiny part of any bread though this small percentage has a great effect on flavor texture and fermentation salt has a tightening effect on the gluten it strengthens the dough and makes it more cohesive as yeast consumes the sugars in the dough it expels carbon dioxide it is the carbon dioxide gas that makes our dough rise and it is the gluten network that holds that carbon dioxide bread made without salt is weak and it's not able to hold that gas very effectively besides just improving dough structure it also greatly enhances flavor bread made without salt is bland and has no character salt doesn't just make bread salty it accentuates the flavor of the flour and any other ingredients contained in the dough salt helps with controlling fermentation it draws moisture through the cell walls of yeast in a process called osmosis yeast needs water to work effectively and the more dehydrated it gets the slower it will work and this is by no means a bad thing breads made without salt can ferment uncontrollably and generally we want slow controlled fermentation longer fermentation equals better flavor this slowing down property of salt can also be used with preference salt can help with preserving the color and flavor of flour unbleached flour has carotenoid pigments which give the crumb of our bread the creamy color and a wheaty aroma salt helps with preserving these carotenoids as it delays oxidation while mixing that is why it's always advisable to add the salt at the beginning of the mix when using a mixer it's not that big of a deal when mixing by hand i check out the 10 salt dough it is so loose it tastes super easily and so sticky although a little bit of salt can help with gluten development too much salt is obviously detrimental to it normally the total amount of salt in recipe is calculated as a percentage in relation to the total amount of flour in the recipe but if you're making a dough which contains a large amount of grains and seeds then the total amount of salt should be calculated against total amount of flour plus the grains and seeds this will ensure that there's a correct balance of flavor two percent of salt is pretty much the standard across the board you can of course lower the amount to reduce your sodium intake but i wouldn't go lower than one percent on the other hand two point five percent is the most that you should ever had and this would normally be for extremely rich though like brioche which can contain up to 50 butter extra salt is necessary in this case for correct balance of flavor and that kind of recipe would also generally use more yeast since the salt and sugar in the dough will slow down fermentation let's get back to our three breads for a minute clearly the one without salt is fermenting most rapidly and the one with too much salt hasn't fermented at all and the dough with no salt is a lot stickier than the other two and it feels a lot looser this is actually the first time i'm making a dough without salt do you know any salt less recipes let us know down in the comments i'm quite curious to find out i almost never stray away from the two percent it keeps my calculations simple and it works i get enough flavor out of it slows down the fermentation just enough and personally i don't think it adds too much salt to my diet but you can certainly use less and there are some salt alternatives out there they may not help with controlling fermentation or give the bread a certain texture but at least they'll add some flavor to it there's one more thing that salt will do it will help with caramelizing the crust of your bread because it slows the yeast down it prevents it from eating up all the sugars in the dough that residual sugar is what caramelizes the crust and we'll clearly see the effect of this later on in the video right so we have shaped up all the loaves they gone entertains ready for the final proof now unlike all my previous comparison videos like in the sugar video or the egg video where i always give you some kind of work around some way of achieving good results regardless of how much of the ingredient which of the ingredients you're using with salt there is no workaround you must stick to the right percentages like there's nothing i could do to fix the dough with 10 salt it is way too much it would never rise the yeast is probably dead the bread without salt even though it's almost over fermented it will taste totally bland but let's just pop these in the oven they'll all bake at the same temperature for the same amount of time see what we get 30 minutes later here's all we have salt really slows down the enzymatic activity it prevents amylase from breaking down starch into maltose that's why the loaf on the right is completely white there is no sugar in it and whilst too much salt prevents the enzymes from making the sugar not enough salt will make the yeast eat through all the sugar that will also not leave much to caramelize the crust so the bread in the middle with right amount of salt has the right amount of caramelization we can also see that the bread with no salt it has gained less volume than one wood salt and instead of rising vertically it has spread out more sideways this is due to the weakness of the gluten it prevents the bread from keeping in good shape but that sorry looking little thing on the right had no chance let's cut these open see what's inside and do the taste test there should be some clear differences in the crumb of course i'm not talking about the bread made with too much salt it has no crumb it's just a piece of dough it is dense rubbery and totally inedible and i'm definitely not tasting it let's move on to the other two clearly the bread without salt has a more open crumb but at the same time at a smaller volume now this time an open crumb doesn't mean that it's better the texture is quite dry and spongy and it's a little bit rough it almost feels like a dishwashing sponge and taste wise it's pretty bland it's not offensive but it doesn't have any character to it of course the sander loaf is nice and soft it is exactly what you would expect from a regular white bread and that concludes the three dough experiment but we're not finished yet i've got a couple more things to show you let's continue on with the soaker soakers are a great way of adding seeds and grains to your bread often these seeds and grains are quite hard you don't want to bite down on a piece of barley and break a tooth and that's why quite often ahsoka would be made with hot or boiling water leaving it to soak at room temperature and keeping it warm for a long time would run the risk of it going off and spoiling salt inhibits enzymatic activity it can prevent the soaker developing off flavors so adding just two percent of salt to your soaker will ensure that it doesn't get any funky flavors and as i mentioned earlier you should account for the amount of seeds and grains and for the flour in the recipe when you're calculating the total amount of salt because the soaker will absorb a good portion of it and if you don't add enough salt you'll end up with a bland tasting loaf and be sure to check out the principles of baking playlist because i will soon post a dedicated soca episode and of course there are many other useful videos you can watch there right finally let's talk about brief events they work in the same way as your bread though be it made with a sourdough starter or yeast you would mix your flour water yeast or starter and then leave to ferment for several hours ahead of time before making the final dough pre-ferments add a great deal of flavor improve the texture and the keeping quality of your bread and normally brief mints don't contain any salt that's why in hot kitchens or hot climates they can ferment too rapidly there are ways of controlling this you can lower the temperature of the briefment you can place it in a cooler area or even lower the hydration of it by adding salt is also a great way of controlling fermentation rates as we have seen so far and the exact same percentages apply here just remember to deduct the amount of salt used in the briefment from the amount of salt in the final dough otherwise you'll end up with too much salt in your recipe both of these leavens contain the same amount of water and flour and they have the same temperature and both of them are being fermented for 16 hours the only difference is that the one on the right has tubes and salt and as we can clearly see it's rising more slowly whilst the one on the left is already collapsing the one on the right still pushing on so what did you think of this experiment did you learn something new let me know down in the comments see more videos like this one click right here that's all i have for you today thank you for watching i'll see you in the next one

Channel: ChainBaker

Views: 1,136,626

Keywords: bread, baking, artisan, sourdough, leavened, handmade, home baker, amateur baker, bread making, masterclass, master baker, naturally leavened, yeast, baking lessons, how to, chainbaker

Id: MAM77hq8cPQ

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 20 2022