Freakishly Healthy Rye

I hit Mini up under one of her blog-posts a bit back for some pointers on how to manage high rye-ratios. And after another go, I'm happy to report a success. And ofcourse would like to issue a thankyou.

But I digress — so, the story:

I'd been doing reasonably with my ryes before, but had issues with the crust being too tough after playing the "wait a long time before you eat your bread"-game. Back when I was baking in a large oven, this was less of an issue because the crust was a smaller percentage of the total bread, so things were relatively livable. However, after having moved I now have to stick to smaller volumes for loaves that will fit in the bread-machine (I do an interesting trick for mine; don't start wailing on that back-button just yet) or toasteroven. This meant that if I had too tough of a crust after waiting to slice I would not get a lot of less-work-to-eat crumb as a reward for sawing away at it with the knife.
So, after being assured that the crumb would still set up even in a plastic bag (inserted after cooling ofcourse), I gave the technique a shot, and had a happily managable crust, along with a crumb that set up completely oblivious to the fact it had been put into a bag atall. Maybe someone can explain this to me, if it's known. Apparently a rye crumb solidifying over the day-or-so I try to wait before cutting has less to do with sheer dehydration than I thought.

Since I'm health-conscious, I generally do what most bakers would consider an outrageously long roomtemp ferment. Doing this not only enables phytic acid to be fully hydrolized, assures a sufficient pH-drop (low pH prevents acrylamide-formation), but also allows the culture to eliminate gliadin/WGA/avenin, which is a natural defense to which _all_ people have an immune response, though it is visibly pronounced in celiacs.
So here the second trick was to keep the "disconnected crust" syndrome to a minimum, something that I'm told is all-to-common for rye-newbies. It was also something that I'd noticed happening with in my large loaves, but again I was not highly concerned because a given slice was still big enough to use to make a sandwich so I was happy. But now needing a small loaf, I tried Mini's ratio, I did everything as I should with the exception of the fermentation-time. As a result, I got a somewhat hollow loaf, despite having docked it. This left me with slices that were hardly large enough to do anything with, much less sturdy enough to butter, lacking a non-estranged crust on one side.
After posting, I was set straight that I needed to actually be a bit braver with the depth when I docked the loaf. It was noted that once bubbles are able to breach the surface of a rye dough/batter, it's a sign overproofing is about on. It's also a warning to handle gently, as too much jostling could break what bubble-holding structure remains inside. So given my own suspicions about how my bread had performed, I decided to mix the flour, water, and culture, and then place it directly into the greased medium. From there I'd let it ferment, and then come back and dock it boldy, and then put it in a low position in the baking heat, with knowledge that scooping it around into a different container so late in the game, perhaps having to wait for an additional rise could cause problems.

And so it went.

I ended up with a nice UFO-shaped loaf (see below) with an intact (connected) top and quite soft crumb and crust. It tasted good as usual. (When you let a cook bake, the bread may taste and smell good, but just not generally behave itself otherwise... much like the gingerbread man.) If the site's working right, pictures are below.

Some of the slices were enjoyed with some locally grown oyster mushrooms, and an organic pepper-jack from a local cheese-producer; the son in the family was a wayward dairy-farmer, but liked to engineer different cheeses, so it didn't work out too tragically, and he didn't have to bitterly leave home and so-forth afterall.

I have recently been looking through books on whole grain breads.  I have yet to see any information on a whole wheat french bread and am wondering if it is because of the unique qualities of this type of bread.

I really have two questions:

1) Is there a whole wheat French Bread recipe available, that still maintains the slight sourness, airy texture, and large holes?

2)  Would using a whole wheat sourdough(ish) starter effect the flavoring?  Would any adjustments need to be made?

Thanks for your imput!

First up: the Failure.

They were completely sourdough, but something wasn't quite right. They got a bit too puffed. I'm thinking that the fact that I let the dough come back up to room temperature had something to do with that. I should've boiled straight from the fridge, then baked. It could also be that I didn't get them stretched out quite enough, either.

The taste, though? Perfect. Exactly what I want.

Second: the Success.

This is another basic sourdough rye. No caraway, no sugar...just flour, salt, water, and starter. No complaints. Time to get out the mustard. Or maybe the corned beef...

Just to show that I've been baking. Not neglecting my hobby this week. :)

In the interest of buying and eating local food, I just bought 50 kilograms of local stone ground organic whole wheat (red fife) and "fine sifted" wheat flour, which is pretty much like whole wheat but a little lighter with less bran. I was assured it was very good quality and high in protein for bread baking. I'm keeping it refrigerated so I know it's fresh.  I thought I'd just keep experimenting till I got it working well. 

But alas, I'm having the same problems others have expressed around here with stone ground whole wheat: it just refuses to develop into a strong dough.  Today's experiment (jmonkey's buttermilk and honey whole wheat) started with a biga so some of the wheat had time to soften first.  I did everything right (I have made the same bread with different flour with great results), kneading about 40 minutes and adding some unbleached white along the way since it was extremely sticky. The dough eventually felt quite nice but would tear at the slightest stretch. (Actually, half the dough I folded to see if a different treatment would make a difference; it stayed so sticky and unmanageable, I ultimately opted not to shape it into a sandwich loaf and baked it in the scorching cast iron pot a la NYT; the texture was about the same as the loaf I baked in a pan).

I'd love to hear from anyone who has successfully turned stone-ground organic whole wheat into a great loaf.  Is it possible??  While there have been lots of suggestions about what should work, I'd specifically like to hear from someone who has solved the problems to their satisfaction.

The most important thing I've learned so far is that slices of even the most disappointing loaf taste pretty great spread with Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread).  I'm thinking of getting the large size next grocery trip.

A few things converged on this fateful day. I had a craving for hummus, and I was out of pita bread. I didn't really feel like going to the store just for pita bread and then I started wondering how hard pita bread was to make. So to the google! And that's when the Fresh Loaf website informed me of the greatest fact ever. Pita Bread is one of the easiest breads you'll ever make. So the first thing I discover is that it's also one of the cheapest breads that I'll probably ever make. It starts with six ingredients (left to right: kosher salt, instant yeast, flour, buckwheat honey, water and olive oil): I figure that I had less than a buck invested by the time all was said and done. Mostly that's because I'm unsure as to how many cups of flour may actually be in a five pound sack of flour, so I'm guessing 50 cents for the flour. I also find out that my mixer can do most of the work. So mucho credit to the Indigo Master: Okay, an amazing thing happens. The rising part. I set aside the dough in a bowl to rise. It's only supposed to take 90 minutes and double in size. This has been a failure many times before in bread experiments. But LOOK: Here, I've taken my ingredients and transformed them into eight pieces of future pita rounds. These need to rest a bit and you can see the action shot taking place as husband begins to lay the damp kitchen towel over the dough rounds for a 20 minute rest. In the meantime, I heated the oven up and put my pizza stone in the middle to get nice and hot. I had the pizza stone because I like cooking gadgets, but I've never actually done my own dough on it. Once the pizza dough has rested, all that's left to do is roll them into rounds-ishes. This is the fun part as things are actually looking more pita-ish. I do take the extra step of the spray bottle as mentioned in the recipe (I'm paranoid and don't want to chance anything). Mostly, I think I scared the dogs. I do think I could have stood to have rolled everything a bit thinner... Otherwise, I'm incredibly proud of my result - and the pocket that appeared! Of course it was rather late, so the hummus had to wait. This was the beginning of my bread-making adventure. I hope to get more of my stories up here soon!