I baked a Babka using half unbleached flour & half whole wheat flour & finished product tastes terrible having a sour taste to it.  I've baked Babka for many years, using only unbleached flour with great success, but I'm not sure - is wheat flour supposed to have a sour taste to it?

Also baked a batch of cinnamon rolls - my first attempt - well half way through the baking, the filling started to smoke.  I turned the temp down immediately, but don't understand why that happened.  The end product turned out beautiful, waiting for them to cool down so we can check the taste.  I followed a recipe that is supposed to be the original Cinnabon recipe.

Would appreciate any feedback.  Thank you all.  Love this site!

All whole wheat, from overnight starters, with one Brioche.

Hi, I am a complete novice to bread making outside a ABM.  Now that I have discovered that I can soak-sprout-dry-grind my own flour I am made my very first attempt at baking a loaf of 100% whole yeast wheat bread using my own sprouted grain flour.  I found PRs recipe here on the forum looking for a recipe listed in metric units since I read that I was a good approach and I have a good scale.  After watching bread kneading videos on Utube for days I decide I was ready to give it a try! 

For the soaker I used a sprouted/dried/ground spring wheat berries (prairie gold) medium fine grind, and for the biga and final dough I used sprouted/dried/ground spelt ground very fine in Family Grain Mill.  Since I live at high altitude (8895) in Colorado I added about 2tablespoons of VWG to the final dough.  I forgot to add the final amount of salt to the final dough and thought I might have made a fatal error. 

The information and lessons on this forum were indispensible!  Thanks to everyone here!  The loaf turned our perfectly!  I had very low expextations, being my VERY FIRST ever loaf of bread I have ever made outside the ABM. 

What do you think?

of the day.  Is White Whole Wheat flour bleached?  If not how is it made? If it is how can it be called organic if there are chemicals in there? 

I've made about 8 different recipes from PR's book, always with success, although with experience I improved.  Then I tried his regular Whole Wheat.  I used corn for the soaker, but only regular "store bought" whole wheat flour for the Poolish and main ingredient.  As I kneaded the dough, I noticed that it would not pass the window-pain test.  I tried adding more flour and then less flour, and then simply kneading some more (hoping for the gluten to develop), but NO GO.  Finally, I just put it in a bowl for the first rise, which was fine!  I then formed it into loaves, but after an hour the texture of the dough was no longer smooth and they had not risen much at all!  The two loaves looked all broken on the surface, giving me an indication of poor gluten formation.  I'm going to bake them off, but I expect a poor result.

Q:  is this due to my not using high-protein wheat flour?  That was my only variation from the recipe, and the book does say I can use it.  I was skeptical because I've noticed that other "whole wheat" recipes call for both white and wheat, perhaps because of gluten?  I am a novice here, and upset over my first failure with this fellow's wonderful recipes.  Where did I go wrong?

This was the Hamelman Oatmeal Bread using KA Bread Flour and Gold Medal Whole Wheat.  I was suprised how much spring I got on the scalloping.

I have multigrain English muffins with toasted sunflower seeds proofing right now.  I saw the sourdough English muffin recipe on TFL and decided I had to try some.  I much prefer whole grain breads so these have some unbleached but mostly multigrain flours, my San Francisco sourdough starter and since we love crunches I added the sunflower seeds.  I cannot wait to see how they turn out after they finish proofing and I have heated up the griddle.  Here is a picture of them proofing:

I will add pictures of the finished product later today.  Melody in Santa Fe

Hi,

I've been trying out Rinhardt's whole wheat recipe for a hearth bread.  The whole process seems to work

according to plan but at the end in the oven I'm not getting much of an oven spring.  The bread in fact barely

rises.  It's flavor is ok but just doesn't have the height that I'm seeing in the photos on this site for people

who have tried his bread  or the photos in his book.  I wonder why.  I'm not having any trouble getting a rise

during fermentation.  It's just the oven spring that isn't working out.  Any ideas?  I have tried to use both

Reinhardt's hearth oven cooking method, and I have also used a cloche, without producing different results.

I use a very basic recipe to make sandwich bread.  When I use regular unbleached flour it always seems to turn out fine but when I try to use Whole wheat flour I have so much trouble getting it to rise properly.

3C      flour
1tsp    salt
2tsp    yeast
4tsp    gluten
1Tbsp honey
2Tbsp oil
1C     water

By adding the gluten and using half regular flour and half whole wheat I got a pretty decent rise but when I use just wheat then I just cannot get a good rise.  I made a loaf last night and when I was kneading it seemed to be doing well but then the 2nd rise just went nowhere, even when I left it overnight to see if it would eventually get there.  I'm not sure what I need to do to get it to cooperate.  Any suggestions/help would be appreciated. 

I would like to share this recipe with everyone. It is a recipe that I make about every 2 weeks.  It is one of my favorites from a recipe book called BAKING BREAD: Old and New Traditions by Beth Hensperger.  The cookbook was given to me about 10 years ago from my highschool girlfriends.  I tried a lot of the recipes but they are were very challenging and it wasn't until recently that I really started to understand how they worked (due in large part to this website!).  So please try this and if you can find the cookbook, many of you advanced bakers would LOVE the challenge of the recipes.

Seven-Grain Honey Bread

Yield: 2 9X5 loaves

1 1/2 cups of boiling water

1 cup seven-grain cereal

1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast

Pinch sugar

1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)

1/4 cup warm buttermilk (105 to 115 degrees)

1/3 cup local honey (I usually substitute molasses for honey as I like this bread darker and less sweet)

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

3 eggs

1 tablespoon salt

4 1/2 to 5 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour

1.  In a small bowl, pour boiling water over the seven-grain cereal.  Let stand for 1 hour to soften and come to room temperature.

2.  In a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast and pinch of sugar over the warm water.  Stir to dissolve and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.

3.  In a large bowl, using a whisk, combine the buttermilk, honey, oil, butter, eggs, salt, and 1 cup of the flour.  Beat hard until smooth, and 1 minute.  Add the cereal and yeast mixture.  Add the remaining unbleached flour 1/2 cup at a time until a soft, sticky dough is formed that just clears the sides of the bowl, switching to a wooden spoon when necessary.  This dough may also be mixed in a heavy-duty mixer, if desired.

4.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until a soft and springy dough is formed, about 3 minutes, adding 1 tablespoon of flour at a time as necessary to prevent sticking.  The dough will have a nubby and slightly tacky feel.  Place a greased deep container, turn once to coat the top and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rise at room temperature until doubled in bulk about 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

5.  Turn the dough out onto the work surface.  Divide into 2 equal portions and form into 9X5 loaves.  Place the loaves in greased loaf pans.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until double in bulk, about 30 to 40 minutes.  Twenty minutes before baking, preheat over to 375.

6.  Bake in the center of the preheated oven until golden brown and hollow-sounding when tapped, about 35-50 minutes.  Remove from pans to cool on the racks before serving.

Hope you all enjoy and please comment if you try it!

http://www.amazon.com/Baking-Bread-Old-New-Traditions/dp/0811800784