This is my take on Peter Reinhart's whole-grain struan. Instead of adding yeast, I made the firm starter using sourdo.com's San Francisco strain that I've been feeding nothing but home-milled wheat.

For the flour, I milled a mixture of 45% hard red wheat, 45% hard white wheat and 10% rye.

For the soaker I used 2.5 oz roasted (unsalted) sunflower seeds, plus .5 oz each of black seasame seeds, two different kinds of flax seed and two different mustard seeds. These are combined with flour and a little water, then left out overnight.

The firm starter was left out overnight to rise.

The next day, the firm starter and the soaker were worked together on a cutting board, then chopped up into a dozen pieces and mixed with the wet ingredients in my DLX. You can see it come together as I mix the preferments with oil, honey, and agave nectar. I also added in 2T of espresso-ground coffee beans that I'd finished roasting earlier in the day (Costa Rica La Legua Bourbon taken just into the beginning of second crack, for you sweetmarias.com fans), plus a teaspoon of caramel color from KA.

After the dough came together, it got a 15-minute autolyse.

Here's the final dough after another 10 minutes of hand kneading.

For the first 2 hours, I did a stretch-and-fold every half hour. Afterwards, it was left to rise for another 3 hours.

The risen dough was broken into four pieces and shaped for mini-loaves. They proofed for another 2.5 hours.

The loaves were cooked at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  

The result is a dense, but not at all heavy, bread that is fantastic sliced thin and served with cheese and fruit.

Hi Everyone:

   Although I have been a member of The fresh Loaf for a number of years, this is my first post.  I've also been an avid home bread baker for about 45 years.

   I wanted to try the recipe for multigrain struan on page 102 of Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, but I also needed to feed my 100% hydration sourdough starter.  Here is the result of my first attempt.  (BTW, I have pictures of the whole loaf and the cut loaf in My Documents > Pictures and tried to upload them to this post, but failed.  If anyone can tell me how to upload these pics, I'd be happy to do it.)

Note the crack on the side of the loaf, telling me that I should have scored it before baking.  Here's a look at the opened loaf.

Here's the Recipe.

Soaker
170 g mixed grains (I used 85 g cooked kasha and 85 g cooked brown rice)
57 g whole wheat bread flour (I used white whole wheat)
½ t kosher salt
170 g soy milk

Starter
186 g 100% sourdough starter
134 g whole wheat bread flour
77 g water

Final Dough
Soaker, all of above
Biga, all of above
244 g whole wheat bread flour
1 T canola oil
2 T agave nectar
2 t kosher salt

Directions
Make soaker and biga evening before baking. Refrigerate both overnight. Remove both from refrigerator 2 hours before baking. Cut up soaker and biga and put in stand mixer. Add rest of ingredients and mix for 5 minutes. Ferment for 1 to ½ hours until 1½ times original bulk. Fold and shape into loaf and put in 8x4x2 inch loaf pan. Preheat oven to 4250F. Let loaf rise for about 1 hour until 1½ times original bulk. Place loaf in oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 3500F and bake for about 20 minutes, turning loaf 1800 . Cool for at least 1 hour before eating.
Total weight: 1.096 kg

Bakers %
White bread flour (from starter) 13%
Whole wheat flour                    62
Mixed grains                           25
Soy milk                                 25
Water                                     25
Canola oil                                 2
Agave nectar                             4
Salt                                          1

Although the formula appears to have only 56% hydration, the dough is actually quite tacky because of the water in the cooked grains.

Hello everyone, i am new to sourdough and want to attempt a sourdough version of Peter Reinharts Struan bread and would like your opinion on the method i came up with.

Recipe:

Soaker

• 198g Water
• 60g Hodgeson Mills Rye Flour
• 35g Arrowhead Mills Kamut Flour
• 45g Sunflower Seed Flour
• 40g Rolled Oats
• 56.5g King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
• 8g Salt

Starter

• 32g Refreshed Whole Wheat Mother Starter
• 95g KA White Whole Wheat Flour
• 71g Water

Final Dough

• All of the Soaker and Starter
• 56.5g KA Whole Wheat Flour
• 110g KA White Whole Wheat Flour
• 88g Water
• 14g Walnut Oil
• 21g Molasses

Proposed Method

• Evening of Day 1: Assemble the soaker and place it in the fridge. Then assemble the starter and leave it out overnight to ripen.
• Morning of Day2: Combine the soaker with the starter and the rest of the flour and allow to autolyse for 20 minutes before adding the Oil and the Molasses. Then perform three series of stretch and folds at 20 minute intervals before placing the dough in the fridge for 24 hours.
• Morning of Day 3: Take the dough out of the fridge and shape it into a sandwich loaf and allow to properly proof before baking acoording to Reinharts instructions.

I would like to know if this sounds like a good method before i proceed because I would really like to not waste my ingredients.

Hello there. I am venturing into whole grain baking, particularly because of the lower glycemic load of this kind of bread (I love my bread and refuse to give up entirely). I'd like to try PR's Wholegrain Struan recipe with a few modifications. I have some flaxseed meal, and I've read that you can substitute up to 1/4 cup of flour for flaxseed meal in most recipes. I'm wondering if this is a good idea, or if I should start with a smaller amount? Also, I've read that flaxseed absorbs TONS of water. Because of this, should I add the flaxseed meal to the soaker? Soak it separately in water? Or just add more water by eye when the dough comes together?

I also plan to use 1//2 cup quinoa and 1 cup of bulgur for my grains. I'm clearly going for a high protein, slow-carb bread.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Hi. I've set a dough of Peter Reinharts Struan from WGB, made with whole grain rice. However the soaker became more batter-like or porrige-like than what I expected, which resultet in a very very wet final dough. Because of this I added a lot of extra flour  to get the kind of dough that I'm used to. I can't find another explaination than that I've misread the instructions or measured wrong (I suspect my weight to not be entirely good). Have other had similar experiences?

I've been baking the multigrain struan from Reinhart's Whole Grain Baking book, and while the flavor is excellent, the crumb has a tendency to fall apart. I know this is multigrain--but still. It works best when the soaker is uncooked millet, quinoa, cooked rice, oats, worse when the soaker contains a lot of cornmeal. I'm cooking by weights, so not sure what the problem is. I've also had to increase the kneading time to 8 minutes, or the thing falls apart even more. Any suggestions on ways to get the bread more solid, less crumbly?

I just pulled my Quinoa Struan out of the oven a little while ago, and I'm rather pleased with the results.

Finally had a chance to do one of Peter Reinhart's recipes, from Whole Grain Breads.  Did the multi-grain struan, since that's his signature bread.  Here's the result, lightly dusted with black sesame seeds.  Tastes as good as it looks! 

Alan 

here's the recipe I followed:

Whole grains:

I still recall hearing the buzz around my hometown, Forestville, California, about the new cafe that had opened there when I was growing up, Brother Juniper's. Inevitably people's comments sounded something like "My sandwich/chili/coleslaw was excellent, but did you try the bread? It was incredible!"