Hi Fresh Loaf People...

I received the Bread Baker's Apprentice for Christmas.  I am a long time home baker, but I was interested in trying Reinhart's formulas and (I hope) learning new ideas about bread baking.

The first formula I tried was his "Light Wheat Bread."  This seemed like a simple starting place in his book.

I was surprised at how dry the formula was... 55.6% hydration?  I am used to much wetter dough (65% minumum), but I thought I would try to follow his directions before going my own way.

His recipe was for only a single loaf, so I used the baker's % to scale up:

The resulting dough was nearly unworkable.  I finally broke down and added more (and more) water (about 250 g more).

Revised formula:

The loaves are in the oven now, but I don't have high hopes for how they will turn out.  I think the dough was abused too much in the process.

I found a post here where someone also added additional water and was happy with the result.  My question is... has anyone had sucess with the formula as written?  Or is it me... have I misunderstood how I should be applying the formula?

SO. Today was the first time I've ever baked bread period AND used whole wheat flour so I'm still attempting to figure out the whole baking thing. (I'm mostly a cook, not so much a baker so these absolute proportions are something I'm still wrapping my head around HAHA).

Anyways, I pretty much ended up with what typical failures in WW baking look like....dry, dense-as-bricks bread.

I only used Whole Wheat Flour and Dark Rye Flour so to subsitute the lack of gluten? I added a bit of Vital Wheat Gluten.

Anyways, here's a rough of what I did:

SPONGE: 1c. dark rye flour, 2 c. WW Flour, 3 packets active dry yeast, 2 c. H2O, 2 tsp Honey,
The sponge was liquidy and rose for an hour and rose considerably.

DOUGH: I mixed the sponge and folded in about 1 c. WW, 1/2 c. Rye and 1.5 tbsp Vital Wheat Gluten (Along with some hemp,poppy, and flax seed)
I let it rise for 3 to 4 hours with a damp cloth in a sunny area. I may at this point have added too much flour. The dough did not rise too much but it did not rise that much (not like sponge) and it formed a little hard crust outside....

I ignored that, shaped and sliced the dough, basted it with a bit of egg, and sprinkled the top with seeds and flour.
Baked one at 400F for 10 minutes lowered the temp to 350 and baked for 30.
Second one baked for 30 - 40 min at 350.

What can I do to make a better crusty bread? (It was also incredibly bland-- I think I need to add some salt for that)

Do I HAVE to add unbleached flour to bread to make it a little fluffier but still maintain that nice rustic crust? It's a bit discouraging when I would love a high-fiber, 100% whole wheat bread that's crusty and similar to the artisan bread that I buy that my supermarket bakes the day of (from La Brea Brand and such).

---

I think my problems may be that I
1. Added too much flour
2. not enough honey for yeast
3. need more gluten!
4. kneaded too much although I barely kneaded it.....?

The two whole-wheat breads I've made recently, both from Reinhart's Whole Grains book, were his Whole Wheat Anadama bread and Transitional Cinnamon Raisin Bread. Both breads had crumbs that were much dryer than I would like. I'm trying to figure out what I should have done differently. I make Reinhart's Oat Broom Bread frequently, with the same whole wheat flour, and that bread always turns out moist. Comparing the recipes I am wondering how much butter vs oil affects the moisture of bread. The Oat Broom bread calls for olive oil, which I use, but the other two breads call for either melted butter or oil. When I made them, I used melted butter both times. Could using butter make the bread more dry than using oil? I thought I would try using oil next time I make a whole wheat bread, but I figured I'd ask here first to see if anyone already knows. Thanks.

Can anyone help me in calculating the butter fat percentage in commercial butter offered in supermarkets.  I am looking for an unsalted butter with a high percentage of butterfat - a dry butter.  I checked the facts on the backs of several different supermarket butters and came up with a total fat content of 11gm and a total weight of 14gm in a tablespoon of butter.  If my math (always questionable) is correct that's only 78% fat.  I also thought that in the US butter was required to have 80% BF.  Any help with this would be appreciated. 

My friends are complaining that my breads are too dry.  I am using 3 tablespoons of olive oil for each 4 chup of flour and between 1 1/4 and 1 1/3 cups of water.

Will a different type of oil be better, or should I jsut add more oil?  Also, for more percentages of Whole Wheat, should I add more oil generally?

Thanks

aisin Bread: Response to Questions

So, since the last post (which was quite some time ago), we moved back to Canada after three years of living in Africa.  I had a really good sourdough starter going in Zambia, it was reliable and very active, and I didn't want to just dump it.   I looked around and found some pages which described how to dry starter for transport, so that's what I did.  Here are the steps:

 1) I shmeared (thats a technical term,ha) a thin layer of starter all over a piece of baking paper, which I put on a cookie sheet.  In a couple of days it was pretty dried out and started lifting off the baking paper.  I let it dry out another day and then it was really dry and coming off the baking paper in big flakes.

 2) I took all the flakes, put them in a zip-lock bag and crunched them up into something that was close to powder.  it was a little a chunky, but still fine.

3)  I packed the zip-lock into our baggage and hoped for the best.  With all the airline paranoia I was a bit worried about explaining a bag full of white powder to the customs agent.  "Well, it is organic, and I use it...to..um....bake."  Sure, what will the sniffer dogs think? Luckily, nobody looked at our bags and the starter made it to Canada without any questions being asked. 

4) After we got home, I simply mixed the dried out started with some water and some flour in a covered container and let it sit.  At first, nothing happened, but after a few days a few bubbles appeared,  I then fed the starter some more and let it sit, and it became more active.  A couple more feed and refresh cylcles and it was going good as new.

 So, now we have Zambian starter in Canada.  I've used it a couple of times and it works great, so I'm pretty happy.  I'm no yeast scientist, I wonder if there are that many different strains of yeast that something that started in Africa would be very different than a starter started in Canada, from the "kind of yeast" point of view.  Anyone care to venture a guess?

The following are the ingredients that are used in my recipe for 1 batch (3 loaves) of homemade sourdough bread:

6 cups bread flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 ½ cups warm starter
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 envelope regular yeast

Today, I purchased a 1lb. block of Fleishman's Instant Dry Yeast. I need to know how much of the IDY to use that would be the equivalent of the single envelope of regular yeast. Also, is IDY the same thing as the rapid rise? If so, after the bread dough is blended, do I go ahead and divide it into 3 loaf pans for only one rising? Please respond to eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6c%62%77%36%34%38%40%68%6f%74%6d%61%69%6c%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%6c%62%77%36%34%38%40%68%6f%74%6d%61%69%6c%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b')). THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!