I've been baking a lot of stuff out of PR's _Whole Grain Breads_. His 100% whole wheat sandwich bread is awesome. It calls for a soaker (made with ww and buttermilk and salt) and a biga (ww and water and yeast).

Through inattention (I blame Sportscenter), I tried a variant yesterday -- the soaker used water and the biga used buttermilk. I'm happy to report it came out just as good. :)

I would say it came out better -- I liked it better -- than the correct method, but I think that the fact that it used Agave nectar instead of honey had more to do with it. I may do some side-by-side tests.