Howdy! This is my first post here. Been reading this forum for some time now and found a lot of great information that really helped me on my new bread baking obsession.

I'm from Brazil and good information about bread baking here, especially sourdough and whole grains is very scarce, so a source like this one here is pure gold.

I've been baking all the bread my family eats for some months now and I don't think I'll ever get back to buying commercial bread. Mine, even when it goes wrong somehow, tastes better than any supermarket bread.

90% of the bread I bake is 100% whole wheat. On weekends we get to indulge on some white breads, though.

I've baked many breads following Laurel Robertson's instructions, which gave me a better understanding of the whole wheat and the fermentation processes, but now I'm using Peter  Reinhart's whole grains book's instructions, which issue a tastier, more dependable bread, without the hassle of kneading for 600 strokes!

Anyway, let's get to my actual question. This is the latest bread I baked here, been out of the oven just now:

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I'm pretty happy with it, it had a nice rise while proofing and a very good oven spring. However, it has, as my latest breads, a crust that is too soft in the parts in contact with the pan. I bake it for 45 minutes in an oven heated to 350F, and left the temperature constant. I used no steam and my oven is a common, gas oven.

It seems to me that only these latest PR WGB breads (100% whole wheat sandwich bread) have this soft crust (btw, the top crust is fine). What could be causing this?

I took it off the oven and measured the temperature inside and it read 200F, so I know it's fully baked.

I used the wild yeast starter instead of the biga.

Could any of you help me with that?

Thanks!