I'm wanting to start working with whole grains more. I'm going to be working up to the lovely 5 grain that gaaarp posted.
The bread I baked today was thrown together out of need for a sandwich bread for the week that would go well with ham, our choice of lunch meat. It needed to be relatively soft with a soft crust, as that's my boyfriend's preference, and needed to be slightly sweet to complement the salty ham. The other thing I wanted was some sort of higher fiber whole grain flour thrown in.
Last night I had to feed my hungry beasties at around 10:30. I pulled out my discard, fed my 100% starter as normal, and added 1/8 cup water and a little under 1/2 cup flour to the starter. This produced a very nice, very firm starter, which measured about 166 grams. I let that sit overnight. I also measured out 125 grams of my 7 grain flour blend and mixed it with 100 grams of water in the bowl that I was going to make the bread in the next day. I covered that and let it sit overnight as well.
The next morning I was greeted by the sight of a very active firm starter (it had almost grown out of the bowl) and a very nice soaker. I had set the stages for a very good bread.
We eat a lot of sandwiches so I needed a larger amount of bread. I added to the starter and the soaker 265g of milk, 355g of flour, 2 tablespoons of butter, and 2 tablespoons of honey. This made a total of slightly over 1000g total dough. I kneaded it all together and let it sit for about 45 minutes, at which point I realized I forgot the salt and kneaded in about 2 1/4 teaspoons. Then I stretched and folded once an hour for...3 hours or so? The dough was pretty wet and sticky.
I proofed for an hour before putting it in the oven in a makeshift brotform: a wicker basket lined with a floured tea towel. I put it on my stone in a slightly warm (but not fully preheated) oven for 45-50 minutes. 400 for the first 30, then down to 375 for about 10 minutes. I left it in the oven after turning it off for about 10 minutes as well.
I pulled this out.
I'm very happy with how things went. I'm really getting some good results with my sourdough.
Thanks again, gaaarp!