During one of my recent online bread making classes, a student asked what were the most common mistakes that people make when baking bread at home. And not leaving your dough to rise long enough is certainly one that comes up quite regularly. So how long should your dough take to rise?
Watch the video or read on to find out more:
Why do I need to let my dough rise anyway?
Good question! Once mixed and kneaded, the yeast in your bread dough begins to break down the starch in the flour to form sugars and organic acids. The yeast feed on the sugars and produce gas, carbon dioxide, that rises your dough. Breaking down the flour also produces flavour in your dough. The best thing you can do is to give this process time – but how much?
Two factors that affect how quickly your dough rises
There isn’t an exact time that you should leave your dough to rise. In fact, the time is likely to change a little for each bread that you bake. This is because how quickly your dough rises depends on two things.
Firstly, the amount of yeast that you put in. The more yeast, the more gas is produced and the more quickly your dough rises. You may therefore think it best to add more yeast if you’d like to get your dough to rise as quickly as possible. However, whilst your dough may rise quickly, the dough will likely have less flavour and may even taste slightly of yeast.
Secondly, yeast work more quickly at warmer temperatures up to 37C. On warmer day, or if your kitchen is usually relatively warm, dough will therefore rise faster. However, it’s not necessary to find a warm spot to rise your dough. Yeast will still work at cooler temperatures, they will just take longer to do so.
So how long should my dough take to rise?
You’ll need to bear in mind the factors above when leaving your dough to rise, and adjust the time accordingly.
As a guide, for a kitchen where the temperature is 20C and you added yeast at 1% of the flour weight (eg 5g dried yeast in 500g flour), you should still leave your dough to rise for around an hour and a half to two hours after kneading it.
Leaving your dough to rise for a longer time helps develop flavour in your finished bread too, so there are benefits to giving your dough plenty of time to rise.
Want to learn more about baking great bread at home?
If you’d like to learn more about baking great bread at home, do check out some of my other resources. There are plenty of bread making tips and recipes on my blog. You can also join my free live bakealongs on Facebook each Saturday morning at 10am.
Ready to get baking some new, delicious loaves? Join one of my online bread making classes. Learn step-by-step how to bake a range of breads from ciabatta to brioche, baguettes to cinnamon buns and more. You can find out more here: https://www.theepsombakehouse.co.uk/learn-to-bake-bread/
Simon on July 3, 2023 at 2:38 pm
Hi,
Thanks for the advice.
I’m following the recipe precisely, and on the first proof, it rises very well, then after the second needing to get the air out, it doesn’t rise so well, but still good. I leave the first proof 2 hrs, and the second proof 2 hrs, but after that it seems to deflate bit and start going a bit flat on top, what am I doing wrong?
Thanks for watching and I’m glad you found this useful. You may be leaving the dough too long, especially on the second rise. Try less time, especially on a warm day, and see if that makes a difference.
Reply
jennifer allwood on September 24, 2023 at 7:42 pm
My students at school need to do some experiments with bread making. The ‘prove’ time is an issue due to lesson times. What is the shortest time they can get away with to still have valid results? Will using less flour effect prove time eg 250g & 2,5g of yeast = 30mns or is it always roughly an hour regardless of flour/yeast amount
Reply
The Epsom Bakehouse on September 28, 2023 at 12:03 pm
That sounds like an exciting lesson! Yes, dough takes its time. You’ll see the difference more quickly in smaller pieces though so you could stick to making eg rolls of 50g dough each. And make some ahead of the lesson to compaure?
Most recipes call for the bread to double in size – this can take one to three hours, depending on the temperature, moisture in the dough, the development of the gluten, and the ingredients used. Generally speaking, a warm, humid environment is best for rising bread.
Check on the dough after 30 minutes to see if it's finished. You'll know it's finished rising once it's doubled in size. If it's not done rising, leave the dough in the microwave for another 15 minutes.
A Bowl of Steaming Water is the Key to Quickly Proofing Bread. In the winter, when your house and kitchen are at a crisp temperature and you need a warm spot for your dough to rise, create a makeshift “proof box” by placing a bowl of steaming water inside your oven alongside your bowl of dough.
As a guide, for a kitchen where the temperature is 20C and you added yeast at 1% of the flour weight (eg 5g dried yeast in 500g flour), you should still leave your dough to rise for around an hour and a half to two hours after kneading it.
“If the dough has risen too long, it's going to feel fragile and might even collapse as you poke it,” says Maggie. If this is the case, there's a chance you can save your dough by giving it a quick re-shape. Learn more about this fix in our blog on saving overproofed dough.
If your kitchen and/or counter where you knead the dough is cool, the dough will cool down also (even if you used warm water to make it). If your dough is kept at around 80°F, it should take between 1 and 1½ hours to rise double in volume.
Yes! If a recipe calls for proofing bread dough overnight in the refrigerator, it can be proofed on the counter at a warmer temperature for a shorter period.
Everything's coming together when you discover that your bread dough just isn't rising. Fortunately, this is a problem that's relatively easy to diagnose and solve. If your bread dough doesn't rise, you can still use it and fix it by changing up the temperature or mixing in more yeast.
Pizza dough loves warmth, so if you can find a way to add some extra heat, your dough will rise faster. One way to do this is to preheat your oven to the lowest setting (usually around 200 degrees Fahrenheit) and then turn it off.Place your pizza dough in the warm oven for 10-15 minutes until it begins to rise.
Once you've made your pizza dough, you can place it in the fridge and let it rise overnight for up to 24 hours. Take it out of the fridge 20-30 minutes before you intend on using it to let it come to room temperature. This way, you can make your pizza dough the day before. This is great for entertaining.
The short answer is – cover it to prevent it from drying out. And there is no good reason not to cover. But of course, there are things to consider. We all know to cover our dough so that it does not develop a dry skin on its surface which can give it an unpleasant look and texture.
Factors like the temperature of your kitchen and the freshness of your yeast, along with humidity and water temperature, can all affect the proofing time of your bread dough. In a toasty kitchen, your dough may proof in as little as an hour (or less!).
But almost as good as a proofing box is taking a Mason jar filled halfway up with water, microwaving it for two minutes, then putting your bowl of dough into the microwave with the jar to rise. The other thing you can do is place your lidded container or bowl of dough into a second, larger bowl of warm water.
You can also speed up fermentation with temperature, by allowing your dough or batter to rise in a warmer environment (near the pre-heating oven, for example); the closer the temperature is to 95° F, the more efficiently the yeast is feeding and producing carbon dioxide.
- Uncovered container with dough you need to limit to max 4 hours in room temperature. It is possible to leave bread dough to rise overnight. This needs to be done in the refrigerator to prevent over-fermentation and doughs with an overnight rise will often have a stronger more yeasty flavour which some people prefer.
Yeast is too hot Yeast may have been dissolved in water that was too hot, or the liquid ingredients in the recipe may be too hot, causing the yeast to die. Yeast needs to be warm - not too hot, not too cold. Yeast is too cold If the other ingredients are too cold, it could cause some of the yeast to die.
Gently press your finger into the dough on the top. If the dough springs back quickly, it's underproofed. If it springs back very slowly, it's properly proofed and ready to bake. Finally, if it never springs back, the dough is overproofed.
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