Storyclover
Storyclover
At 4:10 on a sunny afternoon, Jun pressed one finger into the dough in his kitchen. The dough pushed back, round and soft, as if it had filled itself with air. Jun wanted to know why.
Why Does Bread Rise Like It Is Breathing?Yeast eats sugars in dough and releases carbon dioxide gas, which gets trapped in stretchy gluten bubbles.
1. At 4:10 on a sunny afternoon, Jun pressed one finger into the dough in his kitchen. The dough pushed back, round and soft, as if it had filled itself with air. Jun wanted to know why.
2. The recipe had said to let the dough rest. Jun had waited, but resting did not explain the swelling. He fetched a notebook and wrote one question: What is happening inside?
3. Jun checked the ingredients: flour, water, salt, sugar, and yeast. Yeast was not a powder that simply vanished into the dough. It was made of living microbes, far too small to see without a microscope.
4. With warmth and moisture, the yeast began to feed. It ate sugars in the dough and released a gas called carbon dioxide. Jun pictured the tiny cells working without making a sound.
5. But gas alone could have slipped away. Jun pulled the dough gently and saw it stretch instead of tearing. Flour proteins and water had formed gluten, a stretchy network that could hold little pockets.
6. As the yeast made more carbon dioxide, the gas collected in the gluten's stretchy spaces. The tiny pockets pressed outward together, and the whole lump grew larger. The dough was not breathing, but it had a very good imitation.
7. Jun pressed the dough down, and it sighed into a smaller shape. The trapped gas had escaped. Yet after he shaped the loaf and waited again, the dough rose once more, because the yeast was still eating and releasing more carbon dioxide.
8. Now Jun knew what had filled the loaf. Yeast eats sugars in dough and releases carbon dioxide gas, which gets trapped in stretchy gluten bubbles. That is why bread rises like it is breathing.
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