Laurel's Kitchen Basic Whole Wheat Bread
This was my first attempt to make a bread that uses a straightforward single dough, rather than the biga-plus-soaker method in the Peter Rinehart ww book. I was inspired to make this bread after reading so many posts here on TFL about this book, especially txfarmer's posts. I wanted to learn about proper, full gluten development in a 100% ww dough.
This bread was a great learning experience for me. I did finally achieve a true windowpane. And the way that, in turn, affected the dough handling, and the way it held on to the gas bubbles, was totally eye opening.
I learned that I need to be much more thorough in my degassing for this style of bread. I also learned I need to be more careful not to get excess flour on the dough when I'm degassing and shaping. There is a jelly-roll spiral of dry flour in the loaf.
Altogether I'm very happy with this bake and what I learned from it. (It tastes good, too!)
Comments
Hi Jess, it sounds like you baked Laurel’s, “A Loaf for Learning”. Whenever I come across a post concerning someone new to 100% whole wheat, A Loaf for Learning is always recommended.
Tip - don’t call the white flour spiral a flaw, proudly describe it as artistic :D
Great looking and healthy bread.
Dan
Riiiight, artistic. I'll try to remember. ?
This bread is similar to the Loaf for Learning but it doesn't call for dairy, just water. It's nice though.
Next I made the whole wheat sandwich from the Rinehart WW book and I'm beginning to suspect that there's a just a problem with the way the biga-plus-soaker recipes come out for me.
The Laurel's Kitchen dough was a revelation...it actually developed the way bread doughs are described in books and looked the way they look in videos. The PR dough not so much. I wonder if the fresh-milled flour is too enzymatic or something to tolerate those long autolyse and pre-ferment treatments.
Laurel and PR’s books are focused towards very different audiences. Laurel’s book is written with new bakers in mind. Whereas PR writes for an audience of more experienced bakers. Both authors are excellent at what they do.
Maybe if you detail the problems with PR’s sandwich bread we can help. Pictures are always good and often provide much needed details.
HTH
Dan
Thanks for your reply, and sorry I didn't see it before! I lose track of what I've responded to here.
To answer your question about the Rinehart dough, it was very tight, rubbery, and stringy. And sort of clotted. The stringy and clotted is pretty much as I've seen dough with underdeveloped gluten described. But this dough for me didn't want to develop because it was so tight and rubbery that I couldn't knead it.
After the Laurel's Kitchen dough I had a better idea of what the dough should properly be, so I persisted in kneading it until it had windowpane. It took about 1.5 hrs (!) of machine kneading, 4 minutes on, 10 minutes off, but it did eventually work. The resulting dough handled ok and baked ok. I wasn't able to get pics of that one before it was devoured. But after all that time soaking and prefermenting, and all that labor kneading, the taste was not impressive. Maybe the flavor got kneaded out of it.
Another data point was the Laurel's Kitchen dough that seemed ok but burst the cloak during bulk proof. I posted about it here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60023/burst-cloak-during-proof
Another TFLer suggested perhaps this particular wheat is the culprit. It's organic hard red winter from the local health food store bulk bin. Since then I have started adding 1/3 Kamut by weight to my doughs, and they are handling better. Perhaps I should give one of the Rinehart formulas another try.
Thanks again for taking an interest, Dan!
Warm regards, Jess