The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Whole Wheat Bread.... Batter??

Chiyoe's picture
Chiyoe

Whole Wheat Bread.... Batter??

Disaster~! Every time I try to make basic whole wheat bread, the consistency of my dough is impossibly sticky down to being so wet I can pour it like pancake batter. In other words, it would take several cups of flour to become something I can knead, rather than the stated few tablespoons here and there. This happens whether I'm using my sister-in-law's recipe (which she successfully uses every week for years, and she lives in the same city as me in case you want to blame climate), various website recipes, or even Peter Reinhart's amazing basic sandwich loaf. My dream is to make Reinhart's work, but this morning when I got up to use my soaker and biga, they both poured out of the bowls. (=_=)

In an effort to save my precious dough, I added about four cups of flour to get it to a real dough consistency and now have four pounds rising on the counter instead of my original two. That just tells you how wet it was! I don't think my problem is recipe (because I've tried so many) and whatever it is is making a BIG difference. I measure everything carefully and precisely. At this point, my best guess is that it has something to do with my flour.

My flour: I mill my flour with a Nutrimill. I've used hard red and hard white in the past with similar results. Today I used soft white. I turn both the Motor and Feed Rate up just a little bit: say, 11:00 for both? I really don't understand how to figure out for sure what the best settings are. The flour comes out fine and pretty by my amateur estimation. I stir it to mix the separated parts in evenly (I think that's the bran and the germ?). I measure with a dry measuring cup and use the back of a knife to level it off. I'm starting to think maybe I should switch to measuring by weight for more accuracy. 

Any ideas how I'm managing to screw this up so badly?? Is it the way I mill it? The way I measure it? Please help. m(_  _)m

 

Edo Bread's picture
Edo Bread

Before I finished your post and read it, I was going to ask are you really measuring or weighing? That jumps out to me as the first issue. 

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

For now,  I would assume the milling is not the problem, and work on measuring.  The first thing to do is buy a scale, not only is is more precise, it will make it much easier to work with bakers percentages, which will make it easy to adjust the next time if the dough is too wet or dry.  Do you want to post the flour and the water amounts in your sister's recipe in cups, and we can convert it to see the hydration percentage?  Which Reinhart recipe are you using, is it the one from Whole Grains?   If so, let me check my copy and see what the hydration is and will get back to you.   BTW,  you won't want to use the soft wheat in a bread recipe, it is great for quick breads, like banana bread, or waffles or pancakes, but not great for breads that you want to rise. 

charbono's picture
charbono

It would help to weigh your ingredients, but it is not mandatory.  It's pretty hard to under-measure the flour volumetrically, so you're probably over-measuring the water.  Are you using a liquid measuring cup?  In a typical bread recipe, even a tablespoon of water will have a noticeable effect.  Ditto what barry said about the soft wheat.

 

Chiyoe's picture
Chiyoe

Thanks guys.... I think it was primarily my mistake of using soft white wheat. (There is so much to learn about bread!!) I switched to 100% hard red wheat, and I started measuring by weight, and for the first time I got the most beautiful loaf that tastes amazing!! I discovered that measuring by volume was putting me off by as much as 1 cup of flour alone! I can finally graduate from sandwich bread soon and start trying other breads, heh... 

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

Glad you got it sorted out.   Not only does measuring by weight make it more precise, if you use grams, it makes it extremely easy to double, or half , the dough, or any other amount, without the frustration of using cups, and tablespoons.