I've been making this for many years. We love this bread! The recipe and instructions have always gone perfectly for me, from watching the second rise until it's crowned about an inch higher than the pan, getting great oven spring with the gluten stretch marks, right down to tenting it at 20 minutes and having a perfectly browned loaf at the end. I baked this today and it just came out of the oven.. but it didn't get that oven spring (where you can see the gluten stretch as PJ says). I'm wondering what the issue could be? The other thing I noticed today is that it wasn't even slightly browned at the 20 minute mark, so I just kept an eye on that and didn't end up having to tent the loaf at all.

My yeast is a new-ish package of SAF Instant and kept in the freezer in a tightly closed jar. The dough was ever so slightly slacker than I'm used to... but it has been about a year since I've made this, so perhaps I'm not remembering precisely. The first rise went well with the dough nearly doubling in an hour and twenty minutes. Shaped it like I always do and am baking it in the same 9 x 5 pan. My oven temp is verified by two separate thermometers and I preheated for about an hour. Seriously, I think I've been making this recipe for about 10 years, and from the very first time, I got that amazing oven spring with the gluten stretch marks. I'm worried that this didn't occur today and I can't figure out why that may be. I fear our loaf will be slightly dense, not a bad thing with old-fashioned rye... but not what we've come to expect from this excellent sandwich rye. Help, please. :)

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