100% Red Stone Ground Whole Wheat Pan Bread

The absorption necessary to produce this soft loaf was relatively high, at 82%. This is the second loaf that I have made with Bob's Red Mill stone ground whole wheat flour. I used 78% absorption on the first run, which caused excessive loading on the mixer. Water was added to bring the absorption up to 80½%, which still resulted in a somewhat dry crumb.

This loaf was (of course) made with the re-mixed straight dough method. Here are a few more observations on dough mixing and re-mixing:

• All of the ingredients (except salt and sugar) are mixed together until smooth.
• The consistency of the dough has similar characteristics to a so-called “short mix” dough.
• The dough is fermented in the mixing bowl for 2½ hours, then the salt and sugar are added and the dough is re-mixed.
• The consistency of a properly re-mixed dough matches that of a so-called “improved mix” dough. Unlike the improved mix method, the re-mixed dough is only given a short rest before being formed and panned.

For the last six batches of bread produced, the mixing time was determined by observing the energy consumed by the mixer (in watt-hours) and the average power consumption. The average power curve is shown graphically on the display screen of an OP7200 programmable controller, along with watt-hours and elapsed time. This instrument that I cobbled together and programmed is similar to the “Mixatron”, which has been around for decades. I put together my version of the Mixatron some years ago, for use with my SP5 spiral mixer. I never had any luck using it with an ordinary stand mixer, until I started re-mixing dough with a spiral hook. The amount of energy consumed by the mixer (watt-hours) has been remarkably consistent from batch to batch. The photo of the display screen shows a clear power peak (sorry about the fuzzy numbers). The OP7200 was originally purchased from Z-World, which subsequently merged with rabbit semiconductor, and is now available at http://www.digi.com/products/wireless-wired-embedded-solutions/single-board-computers/op7200