Is there a reason for adding salt when making bread other than the flavour?

I have a feeling it is something to do with stopping the yeast from over working, but I am not sure where I got that from. Does anyone know? Thanks.

I think it strenghthens the gluten in normal flour that contins gluten, with regard the other types of flour I'm not sure.

Salt is indeed important for taste but it also affects the yeast quite significantly as the latter is a living organism and thus sensitive to the saline level around it. That translates to the more salt added then the slower the raising process, which will affect the end result in an automated system such as in a bread maker. Too much salt will kill or cripple the yeast so much that the bread will not rise at all, but too little could end up with the dough rising too quickly. Salt affects loaf size, but more importantly, the texture which are both dependent on all those bubbles the yeast makes.

I would suggest that you start by following the carefully worked out recipe in the manual then slowly reducing the salt through subsequent baking until you reach a compromise that is acceptable.

That's really helpful thanks. V

Hi,

Another reason why salt is added to bread is that it stops bread from staling quickly. If you make certain breads such as the saltless Tuscan bread (which is still made today according to the old recipe when the tax on salt was so high that Tuscan bakers decided to make bread without salt) you will find that this bread will stale very quickly, in about a day. If you want your bread fresher for longer you will need to use salt in the recipe.

I've only just started making bread but find brushing a saline solution (salt and water) over the bread before popping in the oven gives a great taste to the finished bread.

As a former baker I did once make a batch (100ish loaves) of bread and forgot the salt it was inedible and had to be thrown away.

It's added for a few reasons! For the taste and to stop the bread tasting stale!
The salt also helps the gluten develop, as the bread is being mixed, hope this helps!

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The booklet that came with my breadmaker says you add salt for 2 reasons:
1/ It strengthens gluten structure and makes the dough more elastic
2/ It inhibits yeast growth to prevent over-rising and stops the dough collapsing
Too much salt prevents the dough rising sufficiently.
We have been trying to reduce our salt intake so I reduced the salt in my 1 kilo granary bread recipe to a quarter i.e. to 0.5 teaspoon from 2 teaspoons. I had to reduce the yeast as a result. Playing around with the recipe I found that 1 teaspoon dried yeast instead of 2 worked perfectly. The bread easily stays very fresh for at least 4 days but rarely remains uneaten for longer than 2 days anyway. It tastes fantastic. How much salt you need for flavour is very much a function of how high a salt intake you have become accustomed to!

Joseph Bell, do you eat out a lot or eat a lot of convenience food, or how do you insure your required daily intake of salt?

I have always cooked using what I considered the healthier ingredients and adjusting recipes accordingly ie. no salt, low fat marg instead of butter, wholemeal flour. However I have recently tried the 'real' ingredients and the results are massively superior, bread rises better, cakes are not just richer but better textured. My new addage is use the right ingredients because the chemistry of baking relies on it, but have smaller portions and enjoy it more.

You're right, using the right amount of salt helps to prevent the yeast from getting carried away.

If you are just looking for a healthier option, use sea salt!

How things taste without salt in them is a matter of how salty you are used to your food being, and these days the amount of salt in foods is scary. For instance there is more salt in a digestive biscuit than there is in some savoury crackers. My Husband has very high blood pressure and has been advised to cut down on salt drastically, so we did some research. 4 slices of commercially baked bread, no spread and enough cheese and pickle to make sandwiches contain between them MORE salt than the recommended max daily intake of 6g. I have slowly reduced the salt in the bread I make to 1/2 teaspoon of reduced sodium salt per 500g flour. Now eating a slice of 'regular' bread is an unpleasant experience. Food is not meant to be that salty, how did bakers survive for thousands of years when salt was a luxury item? We get round the freshness thing by slicing and freezing.

If salt had been a "luxury" item, they could just have left it out! The fact that people would buy salt, no matter how expensive, shows how vital it was/is both for food conservation and a healthy body. I actually add salt to my orange-juice-flavoured water when I exercise (instead of buying sports drinks). I grant you most people eat too much salt for the amount of exercise they (don't!) do, but let us not forget that we couldn't live without it either.

Salt has many essential uses.
Digestion - the chloride becomes part of stomach acid
Thinking - both ions both help the conductivity of your nerves and brain, and in some people will reduce fainting or dizziness spells
Exercise - lack of salt causes cramps
Cooling - without salt you cannot sweat and instead suffer from 'prickly heat'

Fortunately we were all borne with kidneys, which evolved to regulate the salt levels in our bodies, and provided we drink sufficient (but not too much) water then the kidneys can do their job.

The problems with salt arise when we add salt to food, don't drink enough liquids, and don't take enough exercise. All three of these aspects have a bad effect on the heart.

EW is right. I also add a small amount of salt to about a pint of orange and water as a pre-swimming drink. If it tastes salty it's too much, if it merely makes the orange taste sweeter, then it's about right. If I forget to have a drink first I often get a cramp, and have a craving for crisps (ie salt) after the swim as well. With the drink, no cramps and no salt craving - just hungry, and by giving the kidneys liquid it is still healthy.

We have a one year old son and are trying to keep down his salt intake.

I thought it might be a useful addition to this thread to let you know that my mother made him some bread in a bread machine following the standard "half-and-half" white and wholemeal recipe and left all salt out and the results were perfect.

It did include some milk powder which has a very small amount of salt in it, but certainly for this experiment it did not cause the bread to fail to rise, to rise too fast or to fail to bake.

You add salt to bread to balance the flavour of the bread, for the crust colour that develops during baking and to limit the growth of the yeast.

I'm a baker and I add salt at approx 1%-1.5% to the weight of flour. ie 10g-15g of salt to 1kg of flour.
As for yeast lower and slower rising the better the taste, so drop yeast and less salt will be needed as flavour will improve through slower rising.
I use 30g of fresh yeast to make 15 400g loaves, it just takes abit longer.

According to 'Cooking Explained' by Jill Davies, the amount of salt that should be used in bread is not more than 2%. Too much salt would inhibit the action of yeast and therefore the bread would have poor volume and a close texture. If too little or no salt is used, the bread would have a 'moth eaten' appearance and a flattish top.

It's extraordinary what a small amount of salt does for the taste of bread! It's utterly foul without some

I make sourdough bread, with a culture that take 24-48 hours to proof. This has an incredible taste and has enabled me to cut out the salt. It does not rise as well and does stale faster.

N. Mawby, Sourdough bread should stale far slower than bread made with other baking agents - the traditional very crusty, very dense sourdough bread made in my hometown is still perfectly edible and palatable after two weeks (if a little drier). Have you ever considered adding salt, if just to conserve it better? Or are you leaving out the salt for health reasons (in which case you can just freeze the bread like suggested by some)?

Elizabeth David in her book "English bread and yeast cookery" makes the point about the salt inhibiting the yeast - perhaps this is an advantage in taste because the dough then rises a bit more slowly, but I can't say I've ever noticed much difference myself.