I'm indexing the bread recipes in all my books (quite a task) and I'm getting a chance to see what all recipes I have.  In one book, "Making Bread at Home" by Tom Jaine, I found this 100% whole grain recipe: German Sourdough Rye Bread.

Your starter uses 60g wholegrain rye flour, 1/4 cup water at 110 degrees, and a pinch of caraway seeds.  You leave that at about 80 degrees for two days, stirring twice a day.  As always, I used my oven with the light on.

Then you make the leaven using 2 tablespoons fo the starter, 1 1/4 cups water at 110 degrees, and 300g more of the rye flour, leaving that for eight hours at about 85 degrees.  Again, I used the oven with the light on.  80 degrees, 85 degrees, I take what I can get.

Finally you take 500g wholewheat flour, 300g rye, 15g fresh yeast (I used 8g active dry), 1 3/4 cup water at 110 degrees, 2 teaspoons salt, and the ripe leaven.  You mix the dry ingredients and make a depression to add the wet.  I was surprised that there was no more mention of caraway seeds, so I just added 1 tablespoon - maybe it should have been 2 (I like caraway).  I also added 1/2 (I think) cup gluten for two reasons:  I really wanted this to succeed, and I have it in my arsenal so I may as well use it.  After you get it all mixed together, you let it rest for ten minutes in a warm spot, then you knead for at least ten minutes.

Next it rises at about 85 degrees for 1 1/2 hours until "nearly doubled".  I was so surprised at how well my concoction rose!

Finally you shape.  He has you dividing into two loaves and baking them either together in an 8.5x4.5x2.5 inch pan or separately in two 7.5x3.5x2.25 pans.  I divided them into eight mini-loaves.  The shaped loaves rise for 30-45 minutes, and the oven heats to 450 degrees.

You place them on an upper rack and bake for 20 minutes (15 for the two smaller pans) at each of 450, 400, 350, spraying three times in the first five minutes.  I just realized that I misread these instructions and didn't bake as long as the recipe called for, but they turned out fine (200+ internal temp) because they were mini loaves.

I simplified the directions, believing all you artisans can fill in between the lines.

Anyway, not bad.

Nellie and my German Sourdough Rye Bread: Nellie considers my German Sourdough Rye Bread by Tom Jaine

I have a variety of grains in my arsenal, and I thought it was time I tried something other than the usual.  I settled on spelt and found bwraith's post on Marcel's Grandmother's Spelt Bread (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2828/marcels-grandmothers-spelt-bread).

There were a few obstacles.  First was the uncertainty whether the 1/2 cup water used to dissolve the yeast came out of the 500 grams in the ingredient list.  I proceeded assuming it did, but the resulting dough was too dry, so I added it back in.  Then there was the question about rises.  Apparently the only rising is of the loafed bread in the heating oven.  Then there was the fact that I make mini-loaves (I got eight mini loaves out of this one-loaf recipe).  Finally, there's my own klutziness when it comes to matters of art and grace.

I pretty much followed the ingredient list.  I used double caraway seeds because I neither like nor have anise seeds.  But instead of going directly from mixer to loaf pans I went through my traditional bulk rise after a bit of kneading (which apparently was also not required).  I rolled the formed loaves in the sunflower seeds rather than just having them stick to the sides of the pans.  Finally, I was afraid to try the cold oven approach.  As it was, one hour in a pre-heated oven was more than enough.

The dough had a wonderful feel.  It reminded me of Play Dough.  But in the end, the bread did not rise particulary much.  Maybe that's okay.  I looked at Bill's picture, and it's about the same density.  Remember, I got eight mini-loaves out of the recipe - I shouldn't expect much height.

Bottom line is that I couldn't stop eating it.  One mini-loaf (177 grams before baking and before sunflower seeds) is in my stomach.  The taste is different.  I believe some of that is attributable to the nutritional yeast, but despite that it's wonderful.

If I define success in baking bread by how willing I am to eat the final product, then failure is extremely rare.  It may not be tall and light, but it's always good!

Rosalie

I had reported with shock that my tap water had chloramines in it.  The spring water was behaving more like reverse osmosis water, so I'd started using tap water.  Mike Avery's plaint about his overly-soft tap water got me curious and I inquiried of our public works director about our water.  He said that due to the distance it travels from its source (from the Sacramento Delta to Morro Bay, a couple hundred miles at least and not what I'd consider a positive environmental situation), its treatment produces long-lasting chloramines.  Mike asked me to try making a starter with it as an experiment.

I have a variety of things to report, and I'm not sure what to make of all of them.  I tried to make a well-controlled experiment, but the biggest glitch was my inability to get reliable information about my water.  I took it to Culligan to be tested for hardness, and I learned that my water softener wasn't working.  That cost me $85.  I learned that the Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water I'd given up on had a hardness of 124ppm, so I don't know why I was having problems with it.  The reverse osmosis water's hardness was 27.4, quite reasonable.  But I forgot to ask for a chloramine analysis.

After the water softener was fixed, I took some more samples to Culligan to get another test.  A different person - the son of the owner and the heir apparent - did it this time and I liked the first one better.  The first time I got precise numbers in parts per million, but the second one just gave me vague softness declarations based on grains per gallon, their preferred unit.  The multiplication factor is 17.1, but he didn't even give me numbers.  He just declared all of my waters very soft, less than 1gpg or 17ppm.  I have my doubts.  Furthermore, he was unable to detect any chloramines in any of them.  He did complain that the samples were too small.  And he told me that because I'd drawn the samples the day before that the chloramines were probably mostly gone.  About all I got out of that visit was an assurance that my water softener was working and a reminder that my deck and garage front waters were both on the softener and that I had to go to the special line installed in the back yard that bypassed the water softener for the original hard water.  I now have another e-mail in to our public works director about the chloramines.  After all, that's what this experiment was supposed to be about.

Another thing that I learned was that reverse osmosis is an effective remover of chloramines.  And that aquarium owners are also very concerned about chloramines.  I learned that from Google and the Internet.

But back to the experiment.  I'm hoping to have more info later, but here's what I did.

For my starter procedure, I chose Mike Avery's http://www.sourdoughhome.com/startermyway.html. You mix 1/4 cup water with 3/8 cup flour in a quart container, cover, put in 85-degree oven for twelve hours; repeat; then toss half and repeat until there's lots of bubbly.  That's a brief summary.  I chose three waters to experiment with:  Deck tap water (later changed to back yard water when I realized that the deck water was softened like the kitchen water); Kitchen tap water; and Reverse osmosis.  I was fairly methodical and did my best to keep from cross-contamination without being anal.  I started with the purest water starter and rinsed out the implements well between starters.  The oven with the light on has been my incubator, and the temperatures have been ranging from just below 80 to about 87.  And, of course, I keep a fairly detailed log.

I was surprised to see life from the beginning in all three.  I started on Saturday evening, fed Sunday morning (12 hours), Sunday evening (12 hours), then three times Monday (yesterday) because of my schedule.  I've fed it twice today and am wondering if the experiment is ready to be called over.  Maybe I should try baking some bread; but I'm a bit surprised at the result.

Since chloramines were the issue, I'd thought that the reverse osmosis water would do the best.  But it was consistently the worst.  It's been six hours since the last feeding.  The other two starters (and I've been using the hard water on the one for only the last two feedings) are at double, and the RO starter has hardly budged.

Well, I'm not sure where to go from here.  Whatever I do or learn from the city, I'll report here on the results.  The only reliable lesson here so far is that RO water is not good for starters.

Rosalie

I got a new digital camera, inspired by all the wonderful pictures on this web site.  But then I had to wait for photogenic bread.  Then I had to wait for an AC power supply after the wimpy alkaline batteries died.