Hard Whole Wheat Crusty Help

So I recently got into baking and tried a few different recipes in hopes of finding a great whole wheat loaf to make weekly. I tried a recipe by one of the threads,

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/wholewheathoneybread

I decided to cut the ingredients in half to make one loaf. With success, I made a nice loaf with a semi-soft crust and dense crumb. Bland but a purfect texture. Aside from leaving the salt out of the first datch, I tried a second time only to get a much drier dough after neading. I had a feeling this would result in a harder crust and was right.(NOTE:) I used half/half in the second batch rather thant 6 oz. of evaporated milk as was added in the first. What went wrong this second time around? Was the half/half a bad sub for evaporated milk?

Soft Crust Loaf

Hard Crust Loaf