Tangzhong & Yudane: Explained | Which One is Best?

Tangzhong & yudane are dough improvers. Made with slightly different methods, they produce very similar results. In this video we will have a look at how they are made and used in breadmaking.

Tangzhong is a Chinese roux (liquid & flour paste) that is cooked in a pan, left to cool down and added to bread dough. Generally, made at a flour/liquid ratio of around 1:5 (sometimes made at a 1:4 ratio).

Yudane originates in Japan. It is a 1:1 mix of flour and liquid. Instead of being cooked the flour is simply mixed with boiling liquid and then left to cool down before being used. In both cases the purpose of cooking and mixing with a hot liquid is to gelatinize the starch of the flour.

Starch in flour gelatinizes at a temperature above 65C (150F). During this process liquid is absorbed by the starch which makes it swell up. It is a similar process to how the outside of a bagel is gelatinized when boiling.
Tangzhong turns into a sticky paste while yudane stays more like a piece of glutenous bread dough.

Both improvers will make your bread more tender with a more open interior and they will make it stay softer for longer. This is because the starches swell up and retain the water better preventing the dough from drying out.

Although commonly used alongside eggs, butter, sugar and other enrichments, these improvers can achieve great results all by themselves. So, they are great alternatives (especially for vegetarian/vegan diets) to those traditional ingredients. As with other methods, a few minutes of preparation can make a world of difference in the final loaf.

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[ChainBaker]

📖 Read more in the link below the video ⤴️

🌾 If you would like to support my work click here ⤵️

🔪 Find all the things I use here ⤵️

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[rb-ex]

interesting experiment, beautifully executed and documented. i couldnt explain the results and decided to research it. the principles of tangzhong and yudane seem to be distinct even if they overlap a bit. tangzhong works predominantly by developing starches into a paste, which functions as an emulsifier, similar to how egg yolks or lecithin work when included in dough. also, the starch emulsion retains moisture and slows the migration of moisture from inside the finished bread toward the crust, extending shelf life. a tangzhong is usually not heated above 65C, as this temp is sufficient to develop a paste and higher temps will harden the paste and render it useless. in yundane, the predominant principle is using heat to activate amylase naturally present in the flour and causing it to rapidly alter the chemistry of starches to produce sugars and other smaller chains of carbohydrate. whereas typically bread starches begin to crystallize after baking and even attach to the gluten, the smaller chains produced by yudane resist crystallization and attachment, slowing hardening and 'staling' of the bread.

to summarize: tangzhong relies mainly on emulsion, and yudane relies mainly on enzymes. i'll list my main sources at the end of this comment

thanks for all your work. your channel is full of great ideas for experiments and you have this charming way of always pushing and questioning what we think we know about baking. i'll probably use yudane next time, though i might experiment with combining yudane and tangzhong, because, since they work a little differently, why not?. i also wonder if high gluten flour is necessary for a rich bread that rises quickly and how lower gluten flours might affect the result. finally, i note indo-pak roti is often made with 100% yudane, like your recent flour tortilla recipe

primary sources for my research:
-The Staling and Texture of Bread Made Using the Yudane Dough Method, Food Science and Technology Research, September 2014
-Influence of Amylase Addition on Bread Quality and Bread Staling, ACS Food Sci. Technol, July 2021

[agentfifteen]

These videos are of excellent quality! The fact that you took the time to do a stop motion animation with the bowls shows how much thought and effort you put into each video! Thanks!

[..]

Tangzhong is in fact the same word as Yudane (Japanese Kanji, one of their three alphabets and the biggest one, are just Chinese characters read differently), it was seemingly popularized by a Chinese author in a book called "65ºC Tangzhong Bread" which is where the west took it from, but that author was just using the Chinese reading of Yudane. From what I gather, Hokkaido milk bread uses Tangzhong but they will read it as Yudane locally.

[damoncz]

Great experiment!

I can tell you why Yudane produces a better result. Tangzhong kills all the amylase enzymes in the floor with heat while Yudane preserves them.

The heat activated enzymes in Yudane produces more complex sugars and improved though.

Another trick I use with Yudane is i make it a couple of days in advance. The additional time makes it very sweet.

[kjdude]

Couple tricks that I use for Tangzhong. I mix the flour and milk in a small bowl and microwave it until its thick with a few stirs along the way. Then to cool it quickly I add it to my mixing bowl with the cold liquid. That equalizes the temperature perfectly. Great work on this video.

[juliaroberts]

Great video, my friend. So educational.

I've watched this video several times, the first time, I couldn't follow, this time, the information came in so clearly and it just makes me realize how much I've learned over time and that you are just as interesting then as you are now to me.

The science of baking will continue to interest me forever🥰

Keep doing what you're doing!! Much love from Canada 🇨🇦

[dietrevich]

The thing to know about tangzhong is that u don't simply want to use the hydration for a given recipe. It allows you to increase hydration while keeping the consistency the same as a lower hydration recipe. So for example if you have a recipe with a hydration of say 70%, using tangzhong you are able to increase it to say 75% without the dough slacking and keeping a consistency of that of the original 70%. The dough is easier to work with and the bread even moister and softer

[SkepticallySound]

I've never heard of the Yudane, but that looks a lot easier than the Tangzhong that I have used with similar or even better results. Definitely going to give this one a shot!

[raveG]

I tried a double recipe of your yudane and took a beautifully shiny, very flavorful, and very fluffy loaf out of the oven. Out of the three tanghzongs I recently made and this, the yudane is the clear winner. What I noticed, however, is that in comparison to other recipes, you add an extra round of bulk fermentation (90 min). I first thought that was a mistake but was surprised by how well the the bread rose in the pan. That means that in total the dough fermented for about 5 hours at 25C, being deflated twice in the process. That adds a lot of flavor and structure.

[ExterminatorElite]

The evaporation problem with cooking tangzhong was exactly what I ran into for my dinner rolls on Easter. My gas stovetop heats aggressively, while the paste looked good, it had lost a lot of liquid. The dough ended up just a little too dry and tough, and as a result, there was less of a rise when proofing, there was less gluten development, and less oven spring from the steam- the end texture was way off. I was kicking myself, too, because I had weighed the tangzhong and probably could've added back the lost liquid. But now I know I can just do the yudane method and have a more reliable result with less fuss. Thank you for explaining!

[jorats]

Wow! I made garlic knots using yudane. Everyone commented on how fluffy they turned out. I used 20%. Thank you for explaining it so well!

[水水-ly]

Love your explanation💕
They used to be really confusing to me. Because tangzhong and yudane actually share the same characters (Kanji) in both Mandarin and Japanese. This video really helps to clarify the difference 💕

[dbrance]

Charlie, YOU are my favorite dough improver. My baking has changed dramatically in the two weeks since I started watching your videos.

[Hailey.slays.]

Thank-you for showing your face. Your are beautiful on top of having that soothing voice! I became sober 11 months ago after 2 decades of struggling with alcoholism. Baking bread helped saved my life, and though cookery has been my passion since forever, you introduced baking bread to me. Bread is my favorite food. My daughters laugh at me bc I'm obsessed. Gluten-free dieting is a joke! Thank-you for being you! =)

[juliehope]

Thanks so much Charlie! Great experiments and explanations for them. I’ve tried the Tangzhong in my sourdough with good results. I’ve not yet tried the Yudane in my bread but I’m going to!
Blessings 💕🙏

[abenajones]

I love your voice its so encouraging it make me wanna see more Just to listen more...great video, very informative

[TheEzemikedirnt]

I made the recipe with the yudane method.
After so much struggling to make a bread I got it. I always had fermentation problems.
Thanks for the recipes, techniques and secrets to make these incredible breads.
The result is incredible!
Greetings

[clQss]

I clicked on this video by accident but then you just jumped right into the content instead of blablabla in the beginning so I kept watching and I really liked your approach on this. so thank you for the good informations!

[danwalter]

I have seen a few videos about these, but then I thought "let's see what Charlie has to say about this." And you didn't disappoint! Thanks!