Well, here was my first attempt at making Reinhart's Whole Grain hearth bread. I just finished it this morning after having both the biga and soaker in my refridgerator for two days. I have made loaves before, real simple ones though, some turn out fine, some are bricks. Always with organic whole grains though especially since I am the grocery buyer at my local co-op and we recieve fresh, organic, locally milled flours...and it cost me a little less than the normal shopper : )

Any thoughts? I'd love to hear comments! One thing I noticed though is the crumb is very tight : /

I recently tried Reinhart's whole wheat hearth bread. In the final rise period the dough seemed to really spread, as if it was too moist, even though I put it in a lined basket for shape. When I slashed the dough it deflated a little, and came out quite flat.

Tips??????

For a while I have wanted to do the bread off of the flour bag I have used so many of. It seems like a simple enough recipe and I followed it pretty much to the letter with just a couple exceptions I will detail.

My main problem with this recipe is that Rose doesn't say a word about water temperature which would alter your experience considerably. Knowing this is important, I used 78F water and the resultant dough was 76F. The ferment time of 1 hour was a little short but at 1:20 I had a nice double. I did use Agave instead of honey and I'm anxious to taste it. This is a straight mix with no additions that she suggests at the end. I didn't see her add in's until I was past mixing so maybe next time. I had to get out a magnifying glass to read the fractions on the bag. A sign of advanced maturity!

The mix is 3-1/2C of bread flour and 1/4 C of WW with 1 tsp of honey and 1-1/2 C water.

I use Better for Bread which is the Harvest King Bread flour from last year for all my breads that call for AP or bread flour. The taste is terrific,  inexpensive and widely available.

This bread has a pretty good flavor considering how short the fermentation time was. I started this morning at 7:00AM and we are eating it at 1:30 PM. I'm sure it would be more complex flavor with a preferment but this isn't bad at all. Still 1000% better than anything you can buy. Thanks Rose!

Eric

I've been absent from TFL recently, as work and home have eaten up just about every waking minute, and there have been far too many waking minutes in the past couple of months. I could have stood for a tad more sleeping minutes.

Nevertheless, a family has to eat, so I've still been baking. One thing I learned: Don't double the amount of salt in a bread recipe. I did this by accident, doing the math for 2% in my head and adding 20 grams instead of 10 grams. Not even the birds would eat this stuff. Yuck.

I have had some nice loaves come out of the oven, however. Last week, I made the same doubling error as before, but with the starter. I used a 40% innoculation instead of 20% for this largely white flour sourdough (I added 10% whole wheat). All in all, the loaf was fine, though it wasn't as flavorful as I'd have liked. Rose quickly though, and looked beautiful.





I also revived my rye starter to make a 40-30-30 rye to whole wheat to white flour loaf. I didn't add caraway, and missed it, actually.

Starter is amazingly resiliant stuff. I'd not fed it for months (probably three at least ... maybe even four), and it had acquired a nasty black crust that could have been mold, could have been hoochy gunk (the rye is kept at 100% hydration, but it's still pretty pasty rather than liquid). In any case, it started right back up and made a wonderfully sour rye loaf. The shaped dough stuck a little bit to the baker's linen, so I had to slash it strangely to incorporate the rip and avoid a blown out side. Turned out OK, though, in the end.



And, of course, I regularly make my standby overnight whole grain sourdough hearth loaf (60% whole wheat, 30% whole spelt, 10% whole rye. The secret to getting a good "grigne" I think is not to proof it too long. Two to two-and-one-half hours seems to be just about right.





Mmmmmm. Grilled cheese sandwiches on whole grain sourdough hearth bread.

Whole Spelt Hearth Bread

I tried JMonkey's 100% Whole Grain Hearth Bread recipe with slight modification.

Here's the recipe I used:

100% Whole Spelt Hearth Bread

50 grams spelt starter at 100% hydration

10 grams salt

350 grams water

500 grams whole spelt

Good evening,