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Reinhart Spent Grain bread -- troubleshooting

medora66's picture
medora66

Reinhart Spent Grain bread -- troubleshooting

After teaching myself to make a decent sourdough boule, ciabatta and challah with Peter Reinhart's BBA, I finally got his Whole Wheat Breads and tonight made a loaf of the spent grain bread, using grains from a pale ale brew we whipped up earlier in the day.

The bread came out with delicious flavor -- so I know there's potential here -- but it had crummy rise.  It's very dense and disappointing because it pretty much reminds me of the beginner wheat bread experiments I've suffered through in the past.  

 

I have never attended a class (though I'm trying to rectify that) and this is really my first try at WW bread since I've been making bread regularly.  And I admit that I jumped in without reading all of Reinhart's leadup in the book, so maybe I missed something elementary.  But I would love it if this great community could help by suggesting the  points where this could have gone awry?  The knead?  The proofing?  Could I have made the dough too dry?  I have trouble distinguishing between "sticky" and "tacky," I guess.  Would it help if I "cheated" by tossing in some diastatic malt, or KAF's "whole wheat improver?"

I used KAF WW, btw

I can try again later this week.  I've never had this problem with other Reinhart breads, so I'm guessing it's just that I'm missing something in the WW transition.

(I do have photos btw and will try to figure out how to post them -- doing this on my ipad so it's a bit wonky).

Thanks!

medora66's picture
medora66

medora66's picture
medora66

Alas, can noone bear the site of this unrisen brick?  :)  (Just bumping this up for the Monday morning rush ... )

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

I like heavier dark breads and this may not have any rye (I'm partial) but I don't see any problem with this loaf.  

What do you not like about it?  

The shape and light color tells me you like to slice and toast it.  

How does it work for an open face chicken salad sandwich?  

Or buttered and grilled with double cheese inside (and ham and sliced onion and a smear of mustard)

 

medora66's picture
medora66

Thanks MiniOven -- while it has good flavor, the texture is doughy and heavy, and not in a good way.  It's also not nearly as loose in crumb as the photo in Reinhart's book -- his clearly is lighter and fluffier.   You can see the density particularly at the bottom of the loaf.   So I'm pretty confident that something didn't go as it should.   

margaretsmall's picture
margaretsmall

The crumb looks pretty good, even if it's not as light as Peter's, but the taste is the deal-breaker. If you followed his instructions exactly, I'd think proving time might have been a bit short. I'm a novice too, and I do find, so far, that for me these heavier breads sometimes don't have an even texture, and are  rather denser at the bottom of the loaf, as yours is.  I sympathise with you over the 'sticky' vs 'tacky', I find his instructions usually make 'sticky' for me, but I doubt your problem was a too-wet dough, more likely the opposite. Don't know that the malt would help, but the bread improver might, Peter suggest adding some as an option for whole wheat breads in his Artisan Breads book, so its not cheating :-) .Give it another go and post your result.

Margaret

medora66's picture
medora66

Thanks for the encouragement, Margaret, I actually added quite a bit of flour in the kneading on this one because I thought it was too sticky (and his instructions clearly shout "tacky not sticky!") -- maybe I will lay off that this time. This while I lay on the KAF WW Improver. If the instructions say to proof for an hour, I usually won't let it go much more than 15 minutes past that because I start to get nervous. That's what happened on this one. So I should just let it go longer, eh?  You do the test where you lightly tap and see refresh pops back, yah?