Hi everyone,

I want to add flax meal to my bread recipe and wondered if i need to add more yeast to the recipe when doing so, as about.com says. i tried it yesterday and my bread did not rise as much. i read somewhere i needed to sub 1 tbsp of oil for 3 tbsp of flax meal and did that, but it never got as high as usual. in that flax meal is heavier, do i need to add more water or yeast? if so, how much more? I am using active dry yeast.

Thanks!

Gill

All I have on hand at the moment is finely ground WW flour. I would like to make some baguettes (I know they won't be "authentic" with 100% WW flour, but that's the shape I want). I've never made any 100% WW bread before, and I don't want them to come out dense. Does it make sense to add vital wheat gluten? The WW flour was milled from hard wheat, and supposedly the issue with most WW flour is not low protein, it's the effect of the bran cutting into the gluten strands. If that's what's going on, then it seems that adding VWG wouldn't help, yet part of me thinks that it might.

I've seen some of these things touched upon in other posts but not this specific question. If it has been covered, sorry for not finding it. But the basic question is, if the reason WW bread tends to be dense is the bran, not the lack of protein, does it make sense to add VWG?

Oh, one more thing - I know some people have said you need to do a long soak to soften the bran, but let's assume that you're somewhat pressed for time and would like to get the loaves done in a few hours. Not the best way to make bread, I know, but humor me here. Thanks.

I've been scowering the web comparing recipies that use all purpose flour on the one hand and whole wheat on the other other. I also found a post that seem to explain that when you convert from all purpose you use the same amout of flour but add 5 teaspoons of water for each cup of flour you use.

All these figures and recipies seem to indicate that you should increase the hydration from all purpose to whole wheat at about 8% for baked breads. Does this make sense? If I mill my own wheat does that change the ratio any?

Thanks for any insight

The Flying Baker ;) (Jeffrey)

I received pararie gold bread flour and all trumps bread  flour as a gift.Im not sure how they compare to say King Arthurs Whole Wheat that I am use to using for my bread.Any ideas or recipies? Do I use them cup for cup etc.?

I was until recently under the mistaken impression that all rye bread was the sort you get in supermarkets in the UK and Belgium and Sweden. Small, dense, dark, and exceedingly rich in flavour.

This is the picture of the common UK brand. Like in Belgium and Sweden it is sold in the UK in pre-sliced form. The texture is crumbly and the bread has a habit of falling in half when you take the slices out. 

Ingredients: Cereal (Rye Wholemeal, Whole Grain Rye Flour), Water, Natural Sourdough (Wholegrain Rye Meal, Water), Sea Salt.

I followed a 'deli style rye' recipe from the American artisan bread in 5 minutes book, and was rather surprised that it produced a nice tasting loaf but decidedly unlike the sort of 'rye' I have been wanting. Really quite light in colour, and far more subtle in flavour. Ignorant of me perhaps, but it was news to me that when recipes from other countries say 'rye' they don't necessarily mean the very dark bread I'm used to. 

Is it a 'dark rye' that this sort is called, or is it something more like pumpernickel, does anyone know? I notice the tendency of such loaves to be made in Germany- is this a specifically German style of rye bread?

Is regular rye flour different from the wholemeal and whole grain rye flour mentioned in the ingredients? The rye flour I have been using is unbranded stuff from my local health food store, so I am uncertain of the type, but it looks quite fine. 

Any advice would be appreciated on unravelling the mysteries of rye varieties.

I'm wondering wether it is possible to make a loaf (not brick) with 100% wholemeal flour?

Maybe using vital wheat gluten in the 100% wholemeal poolish starter? if so.... how much would be used?

Cheers....

I've done a search and have found some candidate recipes to play with, but I'm posting in case anyone can point me to what I am looking for.

My husband and kids like soft sandwich bread, and would eat Wonder Bread if I allowed it in the house (ick).  That said, they will eat home baked breads, as long as they stay soft, and will also eat grains with whole grains, although 100% whole grain breads usually don't get finished.  I work during the week and hubby stays home with the kids, and he has agreed to bake bread if we can come up with a dough that we can keep in the fridge, similar to the "Artisan in 5 min a day" breads.

So my ultimate goal is to find a recipe I can mix up over the weekend and throw in the fridge for him to bake up as needed during the week.  I would like to have a substantial amount of whole grain in the bread, but a blend with some white bread flour is OK - it will still be better than the stuff from the store that my husband will inevitably pick up otherwise.  I have a grain mill and a flaker, and I currently have a good supply of oats, Harvest Gold hard wheat berries, Kamut, as well as KASL and KAAP flours.  Everyone seems to like the flavor of the Harvest Gold and Kamut better than other WW flours I have tried.  I assume, in order to keep the bread soft, I will need to make some sort of an enriched dough, probably with both honey and either oil or butter.

If anyone has any suggestions for a recipe I can use as a starting point, it would be greatly appreciated.  I'd love to find something as close to the final result that I am going for - the less tweaking I have to do to get it right, the more likely I am to get them to accept the idea of eating home baked bread on a regular basis.

Here's my take on TXFarmer's 100% whole wheat 36 hour baguette. I am not quite as bold as she is, and hold back to 95% hydration (425 g WW flour, 400 g water, 150 g 100% hydration starter). I am limited dimensionally by my round baking stone, so make 4 half-length baguettes. Flavor is reliably good (with some variation depending on timing of the first rise and kitchen temperature - I prefer 65-70 degrees over 60 degrees both for a more balanced flavor and shorter rising time, also, for all skeptics - yes, letting your water sit on the counter overnight to dechlorinate makes a difference, even if you don't think it is causing you problems).

As you can see below, my results aren't as aesthetically pleasing as hers. I've found that simply dividing the dough and stretching it to length (a la Ancienne) gives a more open structure (this is the method I used for the photos below), while more agressive shaping produces a much finer, sandwich bread type, crumb, which isn't the goal here.

I bake in a gas oven with boiling water in a skillet below for steam. I've had some issues with the bottom getting overbrowned before the top is particularly well browned, as you can see in these pictures, although moving racks has helped, some.

I haven't tried dmsnyder's "slide it across the counter" shaping method, yet. Any other words of wisdom?

Does anyone have the 100% whole wheat sourdough recipe from sourdoughhome.com (in weight) written down? I planned on making the bread today and the site is on strike for SOPA :-O If anyone has a fairly simple by weight recipe for whole wheat sourdough I'd be happy to try that, instead! Thank you for your help!

Tiffany, Newbie Baker

Can someone guide me to some instruction about hydration? Never heard of it before.

Thanks!

Voni