I'm pretty new to bread baking.  I've done lots of reading which I find interesting and have baked a few white flour loaves.  They turned out fine.  I baked the whole wheat sourdough recipe from Laurel's Kitchen yesterday and encountered a problem.  This recipe is entirely whole wheat except for the sourdough starter. The first two rises were fine, but the third rise, in the pan, was a flop.  It rose maybe 50% in 4 hours!  I did bake it and it tasted fine.  I'm wondering if the yeast got too hot during the third rise.  With all rises I put it in the oven after turning the oven on and off for 30 secs.  The 3rd rising period was in the oven for 30 minutes and on a heating pad for the other 3+ hours!  I had the pad on low at first and then bumped it up after an hour or so.  I had a towel on the pad and a plastic container over the top of the bread. 

Her recipe states the 3rd rise will take half as long as the 2nd which would have been about an hour.  I would have expected to see some rising within 30 minutes which I barely saw. 

What most perpexes me is that if it rose fine the first two times why not the 3rd, unless as I said, maybe I got it too warm.

Thanks

Ginny

This week I tried Michel Suas' whole wheat sourdough bread for the second time.  I made four pounds of dough and divided it into 2 loaves (2 lbs each).  The leavening is an overnight levain.  After reading Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads I decided to take a little different approach and prior to mixing the levain into the final dough I mixed the whole wheat and bread flour (for the final dough) together and mixed in the water and let it stand for 5 hours.  It became very soft and creamy.  Then I when the levain was ready I mixed it into the final dough mixture and let it stand for about 20 minutes.  Then added the salt and gave it a good 8-10 minute hand mixing using Richard Bertinet's "slap and fold" method.  During bulk fermentation I did three stretch and folds at 20 minute intervals.  Then divided the dough into 2 equal sizes, shaped it and placed them into heavily floured (50% rice flour/50% AP flour) unlined willow brotforms.  I belief soaking the combined final dough flour with the water really made a difference.

You might be interested to know that I used a different knife to score each loaf, which are sitting in front of their respective loaf.  The left loaf (right photo, top) was scored with a PureKomachi 5" high carbon stainless steel serated tomato knife.  The loaf on the right was scored with a standard serated 5" kitchen knife.  I think the PureKomachi does a hugely superior job. I also have the PureKomachi bread knife, which is also a great knife.  Hey, I sound like Ron Popeil selling Vegamatics :>).

Anyway, if you like whole wheat bread, well, it doesn't get any better than this.  It has great taste, nice mouth feel with a tinge of sourness after swallowing---and terrific flavor. 

Howard

Michel Suas Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread - Advanced Bread and Pastry

Using Mike Avery's refreshment method (every 8 hours), after a 2 day refreshment I placed my starter in my jar (slightly less than half filled) clamped on the lid (with rubber gasket) to seal it and placed it in the refrigerator.  Next day I had a very active starter.  So, instead of tossing 2/3 and refreshing it again before storing it back in the fridge, I decided to hold out the 2/3 "discard" and make some whole wheat sourdough bread.  Incidentally, this is a 10 year old Nancy Silverton starter.  I'm not suggesting that Ms. Silverton's starter is better than other starters but it's what I made when I first started my sourdough journey and, as is evident, it still works quite well.  I'm Just thankful that I checked it when I did.  This is the same "bad boy" starter that lifted the lid off my dutch oven a while back during the baking of  a 3 pound boule.  

Sourdough Starter and Container: Refreshed Sourdough Starter

Anyway, I made a couple of whole wheat boules, mixed by hand.  I did two "stretch and folds" during a 2 hour bulk frementation, then placed the container of dough in the fridge for a 14 hour retardation.  The following day I took the dough out of the fridge (it had risen during retardation, which is unusual), divided it, shaped it, placed the 2 shaped boules into 2 heavily floured (half rice flour mixed with half KA AP) linen lined bannetons and let it do it's final fermentation for about three and a half hours at room temp, as it was still cold from being in the fridge.  Then turned the boules onto parchment lined pans, scored them, placed them in the oven and baked them at 450 deg for about 40 minutes, using a heavy dose of stream at the onset of the baking cycle---and turning them half way through the baking cycle.   

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

They may have slightly overproofed because they dropped a bit after scoring, but overall I was pleased with the results. They tasted very good, had a good crust and very nice, rather complex, flavor and good texture.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread