I'm happy to say that thanks to the good advice I've received here and from other friends, I've had pretty good luck with my bread baking.  But when I tried to make Peter Reinhart's version of struan bread from his Artisan Baking Every Day book the results were disappointing.

I followed his recipe ( 638 gm unbleached bread flour, 43 gm coarse cornmeal, 57 gm brown sugar, 19 gm salt, 19 gm instant yeast, 30 gm honey, 340 gm lukewarm water & 115 mg buttermilk) except that I replaced the 29 gm of rolled oats and 57 gm of cooked brown rice with 90 gm of cooked rolled wheat flakes.  To cook the wheat flakes, it turned out that 90 gm of them filled the rice cooker measuring cup so I just put the flakes into the rice cooker and put in water to the one cup line for white rice.  45 minutes later the flakes were cooked and when cooled were hydrated but fairly loose in texture.

I combined everything and followed PR's mixing, resting, mixing instructions followed by four sets of folds with resting inbetween and overnight refridgeration.  The next day the dough was separated in two, shaped and put into two 4 1/2 x 8 inch pans.  The dough surface with lightly spray with oil and was allowed to rise to 1" above the edge of the pan.  Then into a preheated 350 F oven, turned after twenty minutes and temperature checked after another 25 minutes.  The internal temperature was 190 F in the center so I called it quits.

The baked bread was removed from the pans after 20 minutes and placed back on the cooling screen for another six hours.  At this point I cut off a 1/2" thick slice and toasted it until the edges were very dark.  The flavor was good, the look of the crumb much like everyone else's pictures and the surface was firm; but the interior of the slice was gummy and essentially inedible.  The next day I tried again with the same gummy texture result. 

This bread has received uniformly rave reviews here at TFL so I really want to make it work.  Any constructive advice will be gratefully received.

  aloha,

Dave Hurd, Hilo, Hawaii

I made the Multigreain Struan from BBA yesterday. Yes, the bread was edible, however, something went wrong. I think I know, but I wanted to seek input from the pros in this community. I think the bread has potential, and from Peter's photogragh--it looks yummy, thus helped in my decision to try it. Here's what I did: In making my soaker and selecting multigrains to add to my struan bread, I used some teff flour and amaranth flour plus some rolled oats and cornmeal to the weight specified: 6 ounces. I don't have the teff and amaranth in grain form--is that what made my bread so dense? That would leave me pretty limited in my choice of grains to use (mostly flax, oats and cornmeal or millet, I suppose). Any thoughts? On a brighter note, I also made the BBA cinnamon raisin bread and it was wonderful! Super yummy! Just posted it on my blog today! http://veganthyme.blogspot.com 

Hi, I'm new to this forum and recently returned to the art of bread baking. Yesterday I tried Brother Juniper's Struan Bread (Peter Reinhart, Brother Juniper's Bread Book, 1991) with mixed success; it's such a wonderful recipe I'd like to perfect my results. My main confusion about bread baking at the moment is about the right moment to put the bread in the oven. I thought I was too hasty in the past, for scheduling reasons, getting a smaller dense loaf as a result.  This time I waited till the loaf domed over the top a little more, and as it wasn't really very high, I waited patiently.  I finally put it in the oven.  I suspect I had let it get past its prime because it didn't really spring in the oven and it had a slightly bitter yeast taste. Not bad texture-wise, although I thought it should have been a little lighter since I used all white (hard wheat) flour, along with the other grains called for. So what can I do to (1) assess when to put the bread in the oven (2) assess whether I'm doing something else wrong? I'm aiming for a perfect loaf!

Hi. I've set a dough of Peter Reinharts Struan from WGB, made with whole grain rice. However the soaker became more batter-like or porrige-like than what I expected, which resultet in a very very wet final dough. Because of this I added a lot of extra flour  to get the kind of dough that I'm used to. I can't find another explaination than that I've misread the instructions or measured wrong (I suspect my weight to not be entirely good). Have other had similar experiences?

Dear Floyd,

Thanks for the marvelous website!  Thanks for the recipes, too!   

 There is a detail missing from the Struan bread Recipe, that Peter insisted upon - Egg wash:

We used one egg to about eight ounces of water, in a 12 ounce glass, stirred with a fork, then poured into the plastic reservoir of the paint sprayer we used for that.  Sometimes, for a small batch of a bread, we'd just brush it on, but usually it was sprayed.

A home baker could brush it on.  We used to spray it on with a "buzzer" plug in paint sprayer, at the low table by the bench, before loading the loaves in the shelves on the 175 loaf rolling "train" rack, to go into the proof box.

We didn't use undiluted egg, because it was too thick, and congealed at the edges, giving "scrambled eggs in the pan", as Karen D. would say.

 The reason for Egg, instead of water, was first for retaining more of the seeds, that would otherwise just fall off, next for flavor, and lastly, for the browning of the top.

Many did not agree with it, because of the inevitable mess from overspray, but Peter insisted, and that's how we baked it - from 1990 to 1993, when I was there, from apprentice, bagging, through Slicing, to  Mixer, to Plant Manager, after eight months with that Struan, Cajun Three Pepper, Wild Rice and Onion, Buttermilk Bread, and so on, including the Pullman Loaves.

I remember "MO", the huge ex-Navy slicing machine we used to use, until we shipped it back to PA, and the adjustment period with the new slicer, and the two small belt driven slicers that we often used when everything else failed, and who could forget Brother Juniper's Breadbox!

I remember you were a dependable island of sanity, and  appreciated for your stability and drive, which calmed the atmosphere a great deal. 

I still recall hearing the buzz around my hometown, Forestville, California, about the new cafe that had opened there when I was growing up, Brother Juniper's. Inevitably people's comments sounded something like "My sandwich/chili/coleslaw was excellent, but did you try the bread? It was incredible!"

Hi to All ~

This might be geared more to Floydm & Dolf - But all are wecome to reply.

I have one of PR's books( Bro. Junipers Bread Book ) and found a recipe here on this site that is different ( for Struan Bread ) plus notations that it is in all of his books.

 Been awhile since I've made this bread - made it yesterday ~ not to pretty -But tasty just the same!!

 Did the "ONE" thing I've always stressed not to do - Rushed it a wee bit - LOL - plus used  bigger loaf pans ( 9x5 ) instead of 8x4 .

 Saw Dolfs pics when I got home and on-line - NICE Job - Plus read about autolyse - going to try this method this afternoon - will post results good or bad -

I am getting ready to make the Struan Bread tomorrow.  The recipe calls for a lot of sweetener, 3 Tbs brown sugar and 1.5 Tbs honey.  I am tempted to leave in all the honey but cut the brown sugar back to 1 Tbs.  What have others done with this recipe?