I wanted to finally get back to y'all on my experience with the PJ Clone dough using the Zojirushi BBCEC-20 Bread Machine.
My first attempt at the PJ Clone (BTW, I am using the formulation and fermentation as set forth at the beginning of the thread) was somewhat of a failure. The dough did not rise at all in the fridge over the 5 days.
My problem, I realize(d) is that the dough temperature upon completion of mixing was just not high enough. I had not achieved the minimum 75 degrees.
Basically after a couple more tries using the Zojirushi to mix the dough, I have determined that the machine adds very little heat to the dough. I had actually read this before, so not surprising. However there does seem to be some variation: in my first attempt, the dough gained about 10 degrees from the initial water temperature. In my most recent attempt, it seemed to gain almost no heat.
In both of my subsequent attempts, I have just added the water, oil, sugar (in my case I am using Molasses, as I am actually trying to mimic my favorite crust, Mellow Mushroom. More on that later, perhaps), and salt together from the outset. I pour the mixture into the bread machine and then add all the flour (flour/VWG blend in my case).
My model of Zojirushi has a "Homemade" Course, which allows you to turn off or on each individual cycle (preheat, knead, rise, bake) and input a time for each cycle. Therefore, it is possible (and preferable) to have no preheating, just pure kneading.
So for my experiments, I have just programmed Kneading, and set a 15 minute timer. That way I can watch the timer count down and thus knead the dough for as long as I want.
Trying to follow the mixing instructions from the initial post in this thread, I allowed the machine to knead for 3 minutes, then popped it open and sprinkled the IDY onto the dough mass (while it was still kneading, of course). I then allowed it to knead for additional time (only 3 minutes in my second attempt, and 6 additional minutes in my third attempt).
The consistency of the dough in both attempts was quite good. The ball was cohesive and uniform in texture.
In my first attempt, I used a water temp of about 60 degrees. The finished dough was only about 71 degrees. Clearly using the Zojirushi requires a much warmer water temperature than the 55 degrees mentioned in Pete's initial recipe. My second attempt I used about 77 degree water, but the finished dough after 9 total minutes of kneading was really about the same. So not sure if my initial measurement was wrong, or if the water cooled a bit when I added the flour into the machine's pan, or it simply didn't gain much heat from the kneading.
But finally on this most recent attempt, my dough finally started rising somewhere between day 3 and 4 in the fridge. SUCCESS!
So the lesson learned for using the Zojirushi appears to be that the initial water temp needs to be very near to the target finished dough temperature.
As mentioned above, I admit that I am really trying to clone the Mellow Mushroom crust (very surprised no one here has tried! Pete - you should give it a go! LOL). It has one very unique flavor that some have attributed to Molasses. This agrees with the fact that their dough is a golden brown color, even in the crumb.
Anyway, despite the initial weirdness in my first 2 PJ/Mellow Shroom Clone attempts, the flavor has indeed been very close to the 'Shroom, and the results not too shabby.
Feeling as though I have solved the mystery of getting well-behaving doughs using the Zojirushi, I have now decided to try to conquer another issue: the fact that I do not have a kitchen scale.
In my most recent attempt, I used the Expanded Dough Calculator to come up with a formulation that results in nice, neat volume measurements for all ingredients (or very close to it). I also decided that the PJ/Mellow Shroom clone doughs I've done so far have been a little on the oily side (could have something to do with the fermentation issues I've had though). So the dough I currently have in the fridge has the following formulation:
Flour (100%): 451.71 g | 15.93 oz | 1 lbs
Water (58%): 261.99 g | 9.24 oz | 0.58 lbs
IDY (.165%): 0.75 g | 0.03 oz | 0 lbs | 0.25 tsp | 0.08 tbsp
Salt (1.85%): 8.36 g | 0.29 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.5 tsp | 0.5 tbsp
Oil (4.49%): 20.28 g | 0.72 oz | 0.04 lbs | 4.51 tsp | 1.5 tbsp
Sugar (4.85%): 21.91 g | 0.77 oz | 0.05 lbs | 5.5 tsp | 1.83 tbsp
total 764.99 g | 26.98 oz | 1.69 lbs | TF = 0.1385 (I used a diameter of greater than 14 inches even though that is the size I am making. I did this as a layman's way of hopefully achieving a thicker overall crust than my prior attempts, which came out too thin in the middle).
I will let you know how it goes. I am now obsessed with coming up with a good formula that has all even volume measurements!
