For a change, i decided to lay a side my beloved "BREAD" by Hamelman, and go back to my first baking companion: "Peter Reinhart's" Whole GRain BReads.

I always wanted to bake the Struan, but the laborious and tedious preparation for this bread deterred me. Yesterday, i took a deep breath and gave it a try.

The Recipe (750 g loaf) calls for butter, sweetner, and cooked and uncooked soaked grains. This is a 100% wholewheat bread.

I deviated in two places: 1) folded the dough once after the first 30 minutes of the total 1 hour bulk fermentation. 2) I did not add the extra flour, so the dough was wetter than suggested by Reinhart.

Now that i did Baked it, i realized that i should have either added the extra flour called for, or shortened the final 1 hour final proofing time to 30 minutes max. The Loaf was overproofed.

The taste of the bread is absolutely superb, sweet soft interior with chewy soft grains, and wheaty after taste.

 Highly recommended!!

**** SOLD:  No longer available. ****

Used copy Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads for sale; paring down the kitchen bookshelf.

Price:  $18.00 + shipping (est. $3.99 for standard shipping).  You can pay by paypal for the fastest turnaround.

In excellent condition with the exception of two recipes, which have seen a bit of water on them so the pages have rippled a little.  The jacket is intact and looks like new.

If you are interested, please contact me by email (tania.hide@gmail.com).

Cheers,

MommaT

I decided to order two english bread books to my uncle's home, who will come and visit us in a couple weeks. Books are probably everywhere cheaper than in Switzerland, this way I will be able to save around 30 Dollars, which is a lot for a student like me.

Now, question: which books? I decided to order for at least 25 $, because otherwise I'd have to pay for the shipping anyway. I rather spend my money for books only. ;)

I've already got Reinhart's BBA and Hamelman's Bread.

I was thinking about one Whole Grain book, either Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads or Laurel's Kitchen Bread book. I'm not sure which one I should take. I'm looking for a good book with interesting formulas. not only american style pan loaves. I do like hearth breads as well. It seems to me that Laurel's Book includes more formulae, but I don't know what kind of bread they are. I don't mind a couple enriched, sandwich style loaves, but I'd like to have some lean doughs as well. Do I find this in Laurel's book? Reinhart's on the other hand seems to have less theory and less formulae, but a section with hearth breads. is it worth it?

Secondly, I'd like to buy a book which includes formulae which consist out of a variety of grains, not only white flour, some sourdough . . . They can be time consuming, but please, not only! I don't want to have three day-projects all the time. A preferment - fine, sourdough - fine, but to fussy recipes don't fit into my schedule. I was thinking about Leader's Local Breads. I know about the errors in the recipes, but I think it wouldn't matter to much for me as I mostly use weight measurements? And I've already got quite some experience with baking, so I hope that I'd be able to correct errors if I find some?

Any other propositions?

I'd be very happy about some help to make my decision. And I promise to post about my baking which will result out of these books. ;)

Salome

Somewhere on this site when I first started looking there was a photo of the most wonderful multi-grain bread.  I can't find it and I didn't think to save it at the time.

Can soakers be used in any recipe?  What is the procedure and what exactly do I buy in order to do it?

My every week bread is a standard one consisting of

3-1/2 c bread flour

1/2 c wheat flour

1-1/2 tsp salt

2 cups water

Mix together, sit for 18 hours, fold a little (I'm still working on that part) shape, let rise and bake in cast iron dutch oven, first with lid on and then lid off.  It's a great bread, but I'd like to add some whole grains to it.  I"m just not sure of the technique.

I do have 2 starters to choose from.  One 100% hydration and one about 70% if I need to go that route.

thanks for any and all help

-Susie

While I said I was tired of rye, I still haven't done a true pumpernickel. My husband loves dark, bitter breads. It doesn't seem to get much darker or more bitter than this. I think I'm going to bake a light rye on the side so -I- have something to eat this week, too!

Has anyone used the recipe for this from Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads" pg 224-227 (Hey, nothing intimidating about 3 pages of instructions, right!?).

I've converted a bit of my spelt starter over to a mostly-rye starter, and I've got a bit of my wholegrain sourdough that I made last week (The 'Dr. Evil Bread' as I called it) cubed up and soaking to make the altus for it. Heck, I even went out and bought a candy/deep fryer thermometer just for this after having my yogurt not quite cooperate last week for the sourdough English muffins (FWIW, you -can- do a second innoculation of yogurt that's in a yogurt maker if it isn't curdling properly!).

Reading the instructions 2-3 times is one thing. Having any commentary from someone who's actually made this would be invaluable. I still can't find truly coarse-grind (pumpernickel grind) flour anywhere, and I'm just not willing to buy it, so I've got some of Bob's Red Mill Dark Rye for this project. I'll be omitting the optional diastatic malt powder. I do have the rye berries - should I throw some into the food processor use that in the mash where it asks for "whole rye meal or rye flour" rather than sticking with just the dark rye?

June is one of the two months out of the year here in Arizona for harvesting mesquite pods. These are often used in place of hardwood chips to smoke meats, AND to grind into flour. The pods make a rather sweet flour (no gluten, obviously). I've read that a tablespoon or two adds a distinct flavor to breads. I have never tried this flour in a bread recipe (yet). Has anyone every tried mesquite flour? I think I'll try it tonight . . . I'll let you know.

Phxdog (Scott)

I thought that the breadmakers may enjoy this story of three elderly sisters who are still running a whole grain bakery out of their home. The youngest is 84 years old!

http://www.madison.com/wsj/media/bakery/index.html

Since Labor Day weekend, I have been out of the country on business trips almost constantly.  Most of my time is spent in the Ensenada area, which is about a 90-minute drive south of San Diego.  There was a 1-week trip to Trinidad (also business) but, other than the odd weekend back home every other week, I’ve been here in Ensenada the whole time.  The only exception was last week, when I spent a week of vacation at home.

Can anyone help me?  I am new to bread baking nad want to bake a successful whole wheat loaf without resorting to a mix with bread flour. I have not been very successful using Reinhart's whole wheat recipe in his book.  I began by following the recipe to the letter.  I have added gluten to the poolish and the dough and still get a lackluster loaf.  I use bulgar wheat as the soaker.  I have laso tried spent grain.  The dough barely rises to the lip of the pan and then drops some when it bakes.  The taste is acceptable.  Are my expectations too high?

I'm kinda excited.  I'd ordered Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads" and Daniel Leader's "Local Breads" from my local bookstore (sorry, Floyd, I don't do business with Amazon).  Both were due out in September, but I had a message on my answering machine today (early August) that they were BOTH in.  Sometimes they get books in early and are not supposed to sell them before a certain date, but they had no such directive.  So I have them right this very minute!  Too bad I have to attend to other things right now (make crackers for an event tomorrow