Breadmaking machines

[Andyvon]

Hello everyone - you helped me a lot with my question about keeping fruit a couple a days ago so I have another one.

We bought a Kenwood breadmaking machine in the summer. We are quite happy with it - nice bread etc - and we haven't had any real disasters.
However, we do have many loaves that seem to collapse after they have risen impressively. The breadmaker has a window and the bread rises almost to the lid of the machine. However, as soon as the heating element switches on to start baking, the top of the loaf collapses in front of our eyes. It only takes about a minute and the loaf loses about 20% of its volume. The bread is still OK but it seems that the bottom of each slice is denser than the top which is quite light and crumbly.

The problem-shooting section says there is too much water but we measure meticulously and it doesn't make much difference. We have even put less water in the mix but that makes a very dense loaf that still collapses to some extent. The bread is still perfectly edible though so it's no real problem.

Any ideas good people? Thanks in anticipation.

[BBWCHATT]

The Fleischmann's Yeast website has the following information on bread machine problems - hope this helps:

Collapsed loaf
Adjust dough consistency
Use room temperature water

[jennyp]

Thats a very interesting site BBWCHATT. I hope you don't mind I've posted the link for the faqs. I struggled at first to find it, so maybe others would also. http://www.breadworld.com/tipsterms/faq.asp

[BBWCHATT]

I don't mind at all Jenny - I wish I had thought of giving people the link myself :) I should have known other people might have other bread machine questions that they haven't asked yet and they could find the answers there! Thanks for the help!