As many of you know, I've been questing for a tasty, open crumb, 100% whole grain hearth bread for a long, long time now.

This weekend, I finally achieved my goal.



Nice open crumb, creamy texture, tangy and flavorful crumb, appealing slashes, crunchy crust.

Here's how I made it, and, to be truthful, it was mostly on a whim. The day before, I'd made some whole wheat sourdough sandwich bread, and had about 80 grams of starter left over.

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

Hey everyone,

I recently tried making the whole wheat hearth bread from Peter Reinhart's whole grain breads book. It calls for the use of a soaker (not a heated mash) and a pre-ferment. The result was a beautiful round with great coloring and (a rare event) scoring I was proud of. Alas, I was visiting my parents and didn't have my camera so i can't share pictures, which is sad because i really appreciate your feedback. Anyways...

My first question concerns buttermilk & vitamin C.  These both acidify the dough, which gives the yeast a boost.  Does the buttermilk do anything else - or anything different than regular milk?

For Classes on yeast-free, gluten-free cooking contact River Organica @ 360-840-7802

Farro is an old Italian word for Iron and as such can ONLY mean emmer because emmer is the only grain in the world whose limiting factor is iron and will provide 100% of the bodies needs in one cup a day. Farro from italy most often isn't even emmer any more but is spelt. The Italians think the americans can't tell the difference (and they are right - most everybody but I cannot) tell emmer from spelt from barley from wheat from einkorn, especially pearled.

I have signed up for Peter Reinhart's whole grain bread class in Chapel Hill NC on October 20th.  Is anyone else planning to attend?

I got my copy of Reinhart's new book yesterday! I'm used to referring to The Bread Baker's Apprentice as BBA, so maybe I'll use WGB to refer to this one - Whole Grain Breads...less typing.

This weekend I made the sourdough miche recipe from Peter Reinhart's BBA book.  I want to share this experience, since I was surprised how quickly the dough fermented and rose.  I followed the formula much like it was detailed in the book, using half whole wheat flour and half bread flour and the 7 oz. batter-like starter called for.