Hello, all:

I'm new to posting on this forum but a long-time reader.  Thank you to all from whose posts I have learned so much!

For the last few years, I have been using a commercially-purchased sprouted wheat flour in my bread machine and was able to produce beautiful bread that way.  

I recently moved to 5300' (after living at basically sea level) and was still able to keep making that same bread in my bread machine with no adjustments to the recipe.  I decided to try sprouting wheat berries and milling it into flour after being offered the use of a mill and after realizing the cost savings (not counting my labor).

Since my switch to using home-sprouted/home-milled soft wheat flour, my bread baking has been a disaster.  The centers of the loaves have been very gooey and fallen, and the loaf itself barely makes it half-way up the sides of the bread machine pan.  The only change to the recipe was going from the commercially-purchased sprouted flour to my own sprouted flour.

I'm now trying to learn as much as I can about high altitude baking.

I would love to hear from any high-altitude bakers who use sprouted/home-milled flour on specific successful adjustments that can be made, such as increase/decrease in ingredient amounts, proofing/rising/baking times, etc.

Here is my current recipe for the bread machine:

1-1/2 cups water

4 cups sprouted flour

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 tablespoon sea salt

4 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon yeast

The cycle I use on my bread machine is a sandwich setting that takes a total of 3 hours, 20 minutes:

20 minutes preheating, kneading, first rising, stir down, second rising, stir down, third rising, baking

I am able to program a homemade cycle that can include:

preheat (0-30 minutes in 1-minute increments)

knead (0-30 minutes in 1-minute increments)

rise 1 (0-120 minutes in 5-minute increments, dough rises about 82.4 deg F)

rise 2 (0-120 minutes in 5-minute increments, dough rises after steam is released)

rise 3 (0-120 minutes in 5-minute increments, dough rises after formed into a ball, about 100.4 deg F)

bake (0-70 minutes in 5-minute increments, about 254-290 deg F)

keep warm at about 194 deg F for 0 minutes OR 60 minutes

I am trying to understand why the recipe works at my altitude in my bread machine with the commercially-purchased sprouted flour but not with my home-milled flour.  The manual says that home-milled flour is too coarse to work in this machine, but it doesn't seem any more coarse than the commercially-purchased flour.  (But I haven't compared the two flours under a microscope, LOL.)  Since there are only paddles that come into contact with the flour, I'm not sure what coarseness of the flour has to do with anything . . .  Also, I have had friends successfully use home-milled flour in their bread machines.

BTW, I have tried baking bread with the sprouted/home-milled flour both in the bread machine and by hand/in the oven with equally disastrous results.

Thank you so much in advance for your help!

~ BakingMommy ~