Greetings from Rome
Hallo,
new to the forum, but not to home baking. I make bread at home since the '80s, albeit not continuously.
For years, I have struggled with wholemeal breads which were too dense, although edible, when I used the bread machine. Baking "by hand" always gave good results, but it's more of a hassle.
Just as I think I found the right recipe, my bread machine* gave up the ghost, although I will make an attempt to resuscitate it, I just need to buy the proper triangular screwdrivers.
Looking for a possible new bread machine purchase, I found out this site. I will contribute when I have some interesting and well tested recipe, or some question.
May your loaves be tasty
*Unold Backmeister 68511, which looks very similar to a Zojirushi BBCC-V20 Home Bakery Traditional, so it could be a rebranded version. Lasted 10 years but only circa 60 loaves, I am not impressed.
Hello. Just yesterday I was reading old posts and came across one about 50% WW machine bread being too fluffy. Since you had the oppostie problem, you might find the thread interesting. Hope you can fix your machine, or find a suitable new one.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/69871/bread-too-light-and-fluffy
Hallo, thanks for your answer. Yes, that poster had a too fluffy bread, but if you use 50% wholemeal and 50% strong white, and a lot of hydration, fluffiness is something that is to be expected.
I am trying to use my bread machine to obtain a repeatable and reliable 100% wholemeal bread, although at the moment my wholemeal percentage is between 80 and 90. I think I am very near the "perfect" wholemeal bread.
That was an interesting reading, though.
Ciao. I have nothing to say about bread machines, because I do all my baking by hand. But I am interested in fresh-milled whole grain. I too am in Rome. I wonder, what flour do you use? And are you interested in milling at home.
Hi,
All my whole wheat is freshly milled. I have a Komo Classic and I have used Giusto's Hard red wheat but when I could no longer buy it locally, I started ordering from Azure Standard here in the US. I have used hard white whole wheat berries before but I prefer the hard red.
I use the sourdough clas and it does a great job on conditioning freshly milled flour and removing any bitter or strong taste from hard red wheat. It gives a crumb that I like very much-no dense bricks! Here is my 100% lean loaf.
What do you like to bake with whole wheat?
hallo jo_en,
at the moment I am concentrating on bread. Bread is a very important part of my diet. Wholemeal Pizza is something that I sometimes did at home, and also wholemeal roti, but I am mostly interested in good old bread.
I like fruity notes, congeners released by yeasts. I think I am going to experiment with brewer's yeast used in actual homebrewing soon (I am a homebrewer). I suppose normal yeast for bread is selected for a "neutral" flavour, but I would really like a very complex, fruity, aromatic bouquet when I slice my bread.
I have to investigate sourdough and, especially, brewing brewer's yeast. But that's for the future. At the moment I am concentrated into getting my recipe perfected, and managing to repair my bread machine.
Hallo or ciao JeremyCherfas,
I am using Casillo integrale*, marked as W220, bought at a Carrefour supermarket. That is a "reconstituted wholemeal", i.e. it is produced with a roll mill and the fractions are then reconstituted. The label makes no mention of the germ, which is to be read as "germ was taken away", as is the case, normally, with reconstituted wholemeal flour, i.e. wholemeal flour made with a roll mill. I have never seen a wholemeal flour made with a roll mill which declares the germ was put in the product.
I am planning to switch, in three or four loaves time, to stoneground wholemeal flour. That is a more wholesome flour, although it is even a little more difficult to bake than the normal integrale, as stoneground flour has a "sharper" bran. Yet, nihil difficile volenti, and all bran can be managed with sufficient (abundant) hydration and kneading.
I am interested in milling at home, but I haven't yet tackled the problem, I want to reach a repeatable and very good recipe to be made with the bread machine. I will then switch to home-milled flour, but that's even more "troublesome" to bake at home (more bran). One step at a time.
*integrale = wholemeal, hence my jocking nickname
I have only one of the small Carrefour local near me and they have almost no flour. At the moment I buy 5kg bags on integrale rinforzato from Bongiovani (via tibionia.it) and I like it very much. I normally use 50% integrale but this also makes a very tasty 100% integrale sourdough that is not too fluffy but rises well.
Hallo, I went and see this "reinforced" wholemeal soft wheat flour. It is very good as it is stoneground, which means it preserves the germ, although there certainly is some vapour treatment to prevent it from getting rancid too soon. It is not organically grown, though.
In my personal opinion, I think the ideal solution, if and when it is available, it's a home ground flour from organically grown wheat: that preserves all the germ, without the treatment to preserve it (which certainly damages the vitamin content).
Lacking that, your flour appears to tick almost all the boxes, but one.