Whole Grain bread is heavy
I have been making this receipe in the bread machine on the dough cycle for a year now and and it turns out soft and chewy. I have recently had the itch to learn how to make bread, not just throw ingredients into a machine and bake. So I began grinding my own grains and mixing the dough in the kitchen aid and since doing so have thrown out more loaves then kept. I have triied soaking the wheat and doing a ferment with no luck. They either don't rise, turn into lead weights at best they rise but are super dense As a last resort I threw all the ingredients in the breadmachine and let it do the work and again this receipe turns our soft and chewy. Please help, what am I doing wrong. Suggestions please. I am looking for a hearty multigrain that is soft and chewy. I love the holes that form in the breadmachine version.
Sorry for the length, but I really would like some help as to what i am doing wrong.
This is my breadmachine receipe for 1 loaf. By hand I double it and adjust with water or flour as necessary.
- 1 1/2 cup water
- 2 olive oil
- 1 ½ tablespoon molasses
- 1 ½ tablespoon Agave*
- 2 cups whole wheat flour, less 2 tablespoons
- 2 cups spelt flour, less 2 tablespoons
- 4 tablespoons wheat gluten
- 1 tablespoons sunflower seeds
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
- 2 tablespoon flax seeds
- 1 tablespoon millet
- 2 tablespoon quinoa
- 2 tablespoon dry milk powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 tsp instant yeast
Put the oven racks on the bottom and middle rack, place a stone on the middle rack. Preheat oven to 400. In a empty bread pan (I use a pie plate) fill with 2 cups boiling water. Put bread pans on the stone and turn oven to 350. bake for 40 minutes or until internal temp reaches 200.
1st attempt - mixed all ingredience till well formed, folded and put in it a lightly oiled bowl, covered for 1 hour. After 1hour, folded 8 times, again covered and let sit for 45 minutes. Then formed into bread tins and waited till it rose to the top of the bread pan......it NEVER did.
2nd attempt
Ferment of 1 3/4c spelt four, 5.2oz water, 1 tsp salt, and 1/8 tsp instant yeast. I got this from a bread book and prepared it the night before. It was a hard mixture. This next day, late morning, there didn't seem to be much action but decided to try it and see. With this attempt I also soaked the seeds for an hour in a little boiling water and suptracted the amount of water from the final receipe. Added the ferment and soaked seeds to the mixure along with the rest of the ingredience and followed the same proofing and rising steps. It seemed to rise, slowly, until it went into the breadpans where it pretty much stopped.
3rd attempt.
Did the same ferment, this time adding a little more yeast. This time though I decided to soak the rest of the wheat. I added the rest of the wheat and flour in the remaining water, mixed and then needed for a couple minutes until smooth, then covered and refridgerated overnight. ( I tried this as I have another receipe that uses this technique and it works well) The idea of this to soften the hard edges of the whole wheat. Not sure if it actually works. Added all the ingredients to the mixer and the remainder of the steps remain the same. Again, the results have been the same, short dense loaves.
today, at the last minute I decided I wanted to make bread, not making the ferment the night before had to find another process. This is what I did with the same receipe:
Sponge: 3/4c water, 4 1/2 tsp yeast, 1 cup wheat flour mixed well- cover for 45 min. While that was soaking I soaked the seeds in a seperate bowl. to the soaker I added, 1/2C w/w flour, 1 1/2c spelt flour and 1 1/2c water. Mixed well. After mixing, transfered to the mixer and added the remaining ingredience. Following the same steps as above. Each rise process was fantastic, even when transfered to the bread pans, they rose to the top in about an hour and baked beutifully. They are still dense though.