New to Extracted Whole Grain Baking - What went wrong...?
A while back I bought a used Nutrimill but due to health and other issues, it sat almost a year before unboxing. I have read extensively that whole grain bread was just different and better. I decided to try my first loaf, but unfortunately had difficulting in finding wheat berries in the Allentown PA area. I ended up buying a couple of pounds of Red Winter Wheat from Whole Foods, it was pretty much the end of the dispenser in their bulks section. No further description is available as to what I bought...... dont know if it was Red Fife or something else or how old it was. My local health food stores dont sell wheat berries.
As my family generally likes white bread, I also bought 40 and 60 mesh screens from Amazon. I ground my wheat and sifted it. I bake with Metric measures, and followed a King arthur recipe for Whole wheat even through I used the flour from the 60 screen My mill was set such that I got perhaps 15% retained on the top screen, Darker color and coarse, and perhaps 30 percent on 40 screen and the balance through the 60.
I add all of the ingredients to my kitchenaid and mix till just combined then let set for 10 minutes to hydrate and then mix for 10. The dough didnt rise well and I ended up adding more yeast as a slurry to save it), and it was on the drier side as well. IT rose and I baked it, and ended up with an acceptable loaf but with a cake like texture......
So I know I am short on details, and dont know what the wheat was, but any ideas in general what I should do to improve the bake on the next loaf?