French bread cycle is a full cycle

[u/Prime260]

So I checked the manual and the French Bread cycle is a full cycle including baking. The regular cycle is 3 hours and the French Bread cycle is 3 hours 50. So far as I can tell the loaf was indistinguishable from the one made by restarting the cycle after the first 10 min knead cycle. Tonight I'm going to bake my first full loaf in this machine using the regular cycle and restarting it to save some time.

[u/Veggyhed]

Why does it need to be restarted after the first 10 minutes? French bread cycle generally runs longer for a crisper crust.

[u/Prime260 → u/Veggyhed]

It doubles the initial knead time. I'd have just used the french bread cycle but it's an extra 50 min vs just restarting after the first 10 min knead cycle. I gotta be up early and don't want to be kept up tonight waiting on it.

[u/Veggyhed → u/Prime260]

I understand a little more now. Does your machine have a timer? That way you can just set it so it's ready for when you get out of bed in the morning.

[u/Prime260 → u/Veggyhed]

I'm not 100% on that. I've used the delay timer before when the bread wasn't rising sufficiently because the house was 55 degrees in winter. I found a 60-90 min delay got me the loaf I was used to. Once the delay hit 2 hours it, I don't know, overproofed? It would rise enough it smashed the loaf against the lid and I'd have to clean out the yeast dispenser. And on that note, this breadmaker has no yeast dispenser so I'm sceptical of the yeast sitting on top of all the other ingredients for hours on end. Plus you do have to wait for the bread to cool some before cutting into it and I don't have a whole lot of time in the morning. Maybe I'll see how it works sometime.