For some odd reason I’m getting a fault line in my loaves, when baked in a Pullman and always in the same place - at a slight angle, running the width of the loaf and halfway way down. It’s cutting the loaf in half width ways. I’ve had the Pullman for a few months now and it’s always come out perfect. All of a sudden, with no change in my technique, this starts happening. It’s odd that’s it’s just started happening and in the same place.
Excuse the photo through a sandwich bag.
I know this is no help, but that is the coolest, weirdest bread problem I’ve ever seen! Good luck figuring it out, I hope you’ll share the solution when you find it.
I have a feeling it’s because I didn’t dock the loaves. The first loaf this happened to was a rye and the second one was a blend which had bean and pea flour in it in a high enough proportion to make the dough behave like a rye.
While I have never docked my loaves and avoided this issue I think on these occasions i wasn’t so lucky. If one doesn’t dock a rye loaf one can run into a problem of a cavern inside the bread where the dough can sink. I believe this is a fault line, the beginnings of a cavern.
That’s my theory!
Here’s another theory: I wonder if there was just a little bit more dough than the pullman could accommodate so that when the bread hit the top of the pan as it rose and had nowhere else to go, the expanding pressure was directly downward and caused the fracture?
You are spot on Wendy. There was too much dough in the pan however I actually had to bake it with the lid off. Could it have still contributed to the issue?
I’m afraid baking it with the lid off shoots my theory. The mystery lives on!
I’ve never docked my rye, but maybe with higher hydration that isn’t as necessary? For the rugbrod and einkorn recipes on this site, one of the signs of the final proof being done is air holes on the surface of the crust…and you wet the crust at the start of the final proof, which maybe allows air to escape easier? I’m rambling random ideas here… How about something with the nonstick surface of the pan? Could the fault line be happening when you remove the loaf from the pan?
Thanks for your thoughts Melissa. Some things to consider for when I try another rye or similar bake. I’ll try one of the recipes on this site, will follow the recommendations and see if it happens again. Any recipe you recommend?
This rugbrød recipe is involved but rewarding
This whole spelt recipe can be made with rye instead of spelt. I did that and wrote about it in the comments a long time ago.
I regularly do a 75% whole grain rye 25% bread flour in the breadtopia oblong cloche…a little more supportive than a dutch oven but not quite a loaf pan. 82% hydration
I make Rugbrød regularly (but prefer the no seed types) and bake it in a Pullman. I never use the lid. I’ve never docked Rugbrød as its not necessary due to its high hydration. But after pouring the dough into the Pullman, I pick up the pan and slam it into a few times into a wooden chopping box so as to push out any potential air pockets. 
After hundreds of loaves, I had a loaf of sourdough white bread that I baked in an open pan do the exact same thing for no apparent reason. In fact, it looked exactly like yours. I was baking several batches of Rye bread and one batch of white sandwich bread the other day.The white over-proofed while a batch of Rye was baking. I thought that might have been the cause.
Looks like the issue is over proofing. Thank you for that Mike. I’ll be carefyul next time and see if there is a difference.
Thank you Melissa. Lovely recipes to choose from. Very ornate! This coming weekend will be a yeast water recipe by Jeffrey Hamelman from his book “Bread”. Over on thefreshloaf.com we have a community bake every so often and the current one is Hamelman’s “Swiss Farmhouse Bread”. Not sure if you are familiar with it. It is very tasty indeed and highly recommended. After that i’ll come back to a rye or something similar.
I’ll check it out! I have that book
I think it’s on page 320 of the second edition only. If you have the first edition then I can give you the recipe or you can find it on thefreshloaf.com where Dan has posted it in the forum section.
I’m out of town but will make a note to myself to check it out when I’m home. Thanks for the details
Yep page 320! I really wish Hamelman’s and Reinhart’s books were in grams not ounces lol, but I can convert.
How did your Swiss Farmhouse yeast water bread turn out? I learned to make yeast water bread from @titanpilot2004 in this thread.
He taught me to do what I later gleaned to be an uncommon (and efficient) technique of no intermediate build. Just flour, water, yeast water and salt. It works every time! And it always has a lovely pronounced Maillard effect compared to sourdough 
Hi Melissa,
It turned out just perfect thanks. I really do love this bread, it’s one of my favourites. Toasted it’s just amazing. I’ve actually converted this recipe to sourdough too and it also turns out just as well although with a different falvour profile. I love this bread toasted and topped with cheese - something like a cheddar or emmental.
I know exactly what you mean. Hamleman’s recipes need quite some converting before I begin.
I have heard of people doing it that way but I do prefer the preferment way. If you follow Hamelman’s way then you see with each build it strengthens the preferment and gets the yeasts really raring to go. I think it builds flavour too.
Lovely loaf. I really do like that crumb.
It does look like a great recipe. Interesting that Hamelman also notes the risk of excess darkening of the crust. Strange that he talks about mold on the top of the soaking raisins. Did that happen with your raisins or others on thefreshloaf?
(I like cream cheese on my cranberry walnut bread, so I can definitely see a good stronger cheese on a raisin walnut.)
