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?

Received this book as a Christmas gift from a relative who really enjoys my bread :)  Yesterday I started the first recipe in the book: 100% whole wheat sandwich bread.  My last three attempts at the 100% whole wheat bread in The Bread Baker's Apprentice were failures, so I was hopeful he had tweaked the recipe and technique.

Baked it today and had it with dinner.  My wife claims it's the best sandwich bread I've ever made!

Yum :)  The overnight autolyse and combination of soaker and biga really seem to have made the difference.

-Joe

I have searched the site and am trying to find basics for making a freshly ground whole wheat starter. What measurements do I use for the water and flour (preferably in cups)? How often do I feed it? When do I refrigerate it? How do I replenish it? Like I said absolute basics =)

Thanks.

I have a West Bend bread machine and can make excellent white bread that rises just up over the top of the pan perfectly every time. However, when I make whole wheat bread - and I've tried several recipes - it never rises - oh, it may rise 40% of the pan height at most, but that's it. My 1.5 lb. wheat bread load is less than half the height of my 1.5 lb. white bread.

Any suggestings on where to start looking for the cause? I have all fresh ingredients.

Thanks oodles!

Terry Farrell

Tampa, Florida

I was wondering if anyone had comments on using fresh skim milk vs. fresh whole milk in bread.  I've noticed that The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book and Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads both recommend fresh whole milk (though Laurel also uses nonfat powdered milk in some recipes).  Does anyone have an opinion on whether this makes a difference?  Obviously whole milk has more fat, but it would seem to me that this wouldn't make much of a difference if the recipe already included butter or oil (a quick search shows that whole milk has around half a gram of fat per tablespoon while oil contains 14 grams).  I've always used skim, but that's just because that's what I keep on hand normally.

Whole Wheat Rolls