Make Bread Quicker: How To Make Dough Rise Faster

Bread is a staple of many meals. But the thing about bread is that it can take so long to make! If you’re desperate to cover your homemade dinner rolls with melted butter, I bet you’re wondering, “why can’t dough rise faster?” This article will give you some tips and tricks to make your dough rise faster, so your family can enjoy fresh-baked bread in no time.

Why does it take so long for dough to rise anyway?

To make bread rise, yeast consumes sugars found in the flour to release carbon dioxide gas. Gluten, a protein found in flour, forms networks that trap the produced gas.

As more gas is created, the air pockets expand, which makes the dough rise into a light, fluffy loaf of bread.

Yeast is a living organism that needs food, warmth, and moisture to do its job. Providing more of these to your yeast accelerates its activity and make your dough rise faster. 

How to make dough rise faster

Home bakers can use a few tricks to make the dough rise faster. Try these techniques for fast-rising yeast recipes if you want quick bread:

1-Warm the dough as it rises

Dough rises faster in warmer environments—yeast activity peaks at around 38C (100F). You wouldn’t want to proof your dough any warmer than this, as gas retention and production will decrease (more on this later).

Move your proofing dough to a warm spot in your house or use one of these proofing box suggestions. 

Use a microwave

The microwave can be your best friend.

Place a cup of water in the microwave and set it for about two minutes on high power. The microwave will be warm and steamy now, so place your dough in a proofing basket or bread tin (any proofing device of your choice!) inside and close the door. The environment will help the dough rise faster.

The water will eventually cool down, so you can replace it with water from a kettle or temporarily remove the dough and reheat the water again.

Using the oven

You can use your oven as a proofer by simply turning on the light to warm the chamber. To preheat your oven-proofer, turn the light on 30-45 minutes before your bread proofing baskets are ready to go in.

Use a home proofer

Baking is all about temperature, so being able to control the exact temperature of your proofing environment will lead to you making better bread.

One of the risks of the previous methods is that it can get too hot for your dough.

A proofer provides the ultimate controls and also provides control over humidity.

See the Brod & Taylor website to see the home proofer I recommend.

Make your own proofer

You can also buy a heat mat, thermostat, and a container to make your own proofing box! This proofing alternative is a great way to save money whilst achieving the same control as a Brod & Taylor.

See: how to make a DIY proof box.

2-Make the dough warmer when preparing it

To increase the temperature of your rising dough, you can also increase the temperature of the dough when you make it. The most common method to achieve this is to increase the water’s temperature before adding it to the flour.

Only use this method to add a gentle boast of warmth. Warm dough is harder to knead and often results in under-kneading and, therefore, a weaker gluten structure.

Also, water temperatures above 68C (154F) will kill the yeast and slow the rise.

3-Prevent your dough from drying out

If you want to reduce the time for the dough to rise, cover your dough. Place plastic wrap or a bag over your bowl to trap moisture and warmth into the dough.

If you leave your dough uncovered, it will dry and harden on the surface.

Misting the top of the dough with a water bottle can help, although prevention by covering the dough or adding a cup of warm water to add steam to a closed environment (such as an oven) is necessary.

Make sure not to over-moisturise, as the dough can become too wet and sticky to work with.

4-Add more yeast to your recipe

Adding more yeast to a bread dough will significantly affect how quickly the dough rises.

Don’t think of the amount of yeast as the volume control on a radio. Instead, think of it as a bass control on the equaliser. Bass provides warm tones and enhances the beat of the song but also increases distortion and, therefore, adds murkiness to the sound.

Using more yeast in bread has a similar effect as cranking up the bass. It speeds up the rise but degrades quality.

High yeast levels add a yeasty flavour to the bread, which can become overpowering and unwelcome. As the dough rises so quickly, the taste of the bread will be weak, musky and less pleasant as the dough will be immature.

If using active dried yeast such as Fleischmann’s active dry yeast, use 0.8-1.1% of the weight of the flour.

That’s up to 7.15 grams of yeast for a loaf that uses 650 grams of flour. Any more than this makes bread rise faster, but the yeasty flavour just mentioned is likely to take hold.

Read the baker’s percentages article for more on understanding baking percentages.

5-Add more liquid to your dough

Adding more water or milk to the dough recipe will increase its rising speed. Because the transfer of molecules in and around the dough can occur faster when more water is available to carry the cells.

The result is that yeast cells work more efficiently and produce more carbon dioxide.

6-Knead your dough more

Instead of focusing primarily on producing more gas, how about talking about capturing more of it?

To do this, you’ll want to build a more-robust gluten structure that will stretch and contain more of the gas produced. This will require you to enhance the quality of the gluten in the dough.

The simplest way to do this is to knead the dough more. Knead your dough using an effective hand kneading technique until it passes the windowpane test.

But not only does more kneading produce a better gluten structure to retain more gas, but it also incorporates oxygen into the dough.

When yeast has oxygen available, it can respire, which produces almost double the amount of carbon dioxide that yeast fermentation produces. This ensures your bread rises faster than a lightly kneaded dough.

7-Use high-protein flour

Flour needs time to mature its gluten structure and retain gas effectively. But if you want your bread to rise quickly, the natural maturity that occurs is dramatically reduced.

To mitigate this, use high-protein bread flour with a minimum 12.5% of protein content. This will form a more enhanced gluten network that will capture most of the gas, so your dough rises fast.

It will also help give that golden brown colour to your yeast rolls (or any type of bread you are baking!)

If you can’t find bread flour, add vital gluten powder to your existing flour.

8-Use natural dough improvers

If you can’t get bread flour or want to boost the properties of your dough network further, you can add extra enhancements to the recipe. Eggs, ascorbic acid (often found in easy-bake yeast), vinegar and vegetable oil can provide further gas-trapping benefits to make your dough rise faster.

9-Add sugar to your dough recipe

If your recipe doesn’t already contain sugar, you can add a little sugar or honey to the dough.

Sugar provides the yeast with extra sugars to feed on. This can frantically speed up the rate of gas production, so be careful not to over-proof!

Another solution is to add malt flour to your recipe.

Malt flour adds the enzyme amylase, which breaks down starch into simpler sugars. Use with caution, as it’s easy to add too much and end up with a gummy crumb.

10-Use fresh yeast – old yeast won’t work as well

If your dough is rising particularly slowly, you should consider the quality of your yeast. If it’s approaching or has past its expiry date, it may be sensible to ditch it and replace it with new.

Why you might not want to speed up your doughs rise

Gas production and gas retention are two core elements in bread making. Getting this wrong leads to hard, dry or dense bread that lacks flavour. Long rising times unlock flavour in the dough. This extra flavour comes from more sugars unlocked by the breakdown of starch, and the yeast has more time to ferment.

Yeast fermentation occurs when the oxygen levels are depleted in the dough.

It takes the same sugars used in yeast respiration to produce organic acids, ethanol, as well as carbon dioxide. These extra products create bread with more appealing textures and enhanced flavours when compared to quickly risen bread.

There are ways to mitigate the features of quickly made bread using dough improvers, but it’s an advanced topic!

Organic acids produced through fermentation also enhance the gluten structure.

The gluten structure will be less mature if the dough has a short rise. This means your dough won’t be able to trap gas effectively, and the bread is denser and less fluffy.

Should I warm up my dough in the middle of proofing?

As dough rises, it grows slowly at first, then roughly doubles each hour on the hour before. During a 2-hour rise, 33% of growth occurs during the first hour of proofing and 66% in the second.

This element of baking science is always worth considering when wondering if you should adjust the proofing temperature of your dough in the middle of proofing, as the rise will speed up without any intervention.

If you are proofing your dough above 25C (77F), it’s warm enough to proof dough. Even temperatures a few degrees below are warm enough too.

Patience is probably all you need, but if your dough doesn’t rise at all, see my why doesn’t my bread rise article.

Has my dough risen too quickly?

If you split proofing into a first (bulk fermentation) and a second (final) rise once divided, shaped and placed in proofing baskets. It’s common for your dough to run out of steam and stop rising in the second rise. This is often because too much gas was created during the first rise, and the dough is damaged or exhausted its sugar supply.

Similar issues can occur when rising bread once, though.

If the dough is proofed too warm in any situation, the following issues can occur:

• The gluten structure will be too immature to retain the gas, so much of carbon dioxide produced disappears into the environment
• Easily accessible sugars in the flour are consumed, slowing the rate of later gas production
• As temperatures pass 40C (104F), enzymes that break down starch into sugars will operate slower, slowing the pace of the rise

The result of all of these is essentially a dense, dull and horrible loaf of bread

How to make my dough rise faster in the oven?

Once the bread is proofed, it is tipped out of its banneton basket (if using), scored and baked, often with steam. Bread rises in the oven as the warmth increases the rate of yeast activity. Gas is produced at a rapid pace, making the dough spring up.

Oven spring, as it’s known, occurs during the first 12-15 minutes of baking. The oven spring ends when either the crust sets or the dough temperature passes 68C (154F), killing the yeast.

So, if you make the dough rise faster during the early stages of baking before the oven spring must end, you’ll get a bigger oven rise and a more aerated bread!

To increase the amount of the oven spring, you can:

• Increase the temperature of your oven to 220-230C (430-450F)
• Use a preheated baking stone or inverted flat tray for baking your bread on
• Spray water into the oven as the bread goes in to create steam
• Instead of spraying water to create steam, a Dutch oven can be used. See my favourite Dutch oven.
• Mature your dough by letting it bulk ferment for a longer time or by including a preferment, such as my authentic baguette with poolish recipe

On the oven spring page, you can learn more about the science of oven rise and tips to increase it.

How to make frozen bread dough rise faster?

Frozen dough takes some time until it is proofed and ready to bake. It’s best to freeze the dough in preweighed balls. The frozen dough balls are left to defrost overnight in the fridge, then shaped and proofed the next day. To speed up the process, you can defrost the dough at a warmer temperature and regularly fold it until it is defrosted.

Small dough sizes defrost faster, so if speed is your priority, divide your dough into smaller dough sizes and make the best ever yeast rolls!

What is the fastest bread to make?

Homemade yeast rolls are probably the fastest risen bread you can make. The best yeast rolls are only proofed once and rise up in about an hour (if it’s warm).

If you want to learn how to make yeast rolls, try my easy yeast rolls recipe, they bake in around 15 minutes too!

So, how to make dough rise faster?

So, there you have it! A few tips on how to make your dough rise faster and my homemade yeast roll recipe! By following these simple tips, you can ensure that your dough rises quickly and how to avoid it rising too quickly. Let me know in the comments if it helps. Enjoy!