Trying again after the salt fiasco
Today I baked four pan loaves of Vermont Sourdough with whole wheat. This time I just mixed the levain, flours and water to they were well mixed and looked like mashed potatoes. After a one hour autolyse at 70F I added fine salt and kneaded for about ten minutes. I noticed more strength in this dough. It is possible that the whole wheat was a bit coarser than usual since I had it apart a couple to clean out the rye. My wife is not a rye fan. The dough could possibly used more water but not much.
I folded the dough twice at 50 minute intervals per the instructions in the book. I used wet hands to help with the sticky dough and to help a bit with moisture. At the end of 2 1/2 hours the dough looked good. I divided it into four 20+ oz loaves and shaped them for the pans. They did their final fermentation for 2 1/2 hours in the pans.
I preheated the oven to 425F this time and misted water on the loaves and into the oven. This was not a serious attempt at steaming but just to see if I could make the crust a bit darker and crisper.
The recipe was modified to provided about 84 ounces of dough, reduce the salt content to 1.75% and to bake in pans I used the last of a starter I was discontinuing and the rest was from a AP flour culture I have. I now just have rye and AP cultures but they all shared a common source. The whole wheat was hard red turkey wheat that I milled right before using it.
Impression. Salt content is correct for my wife and I but perhaps too light for some. Almost no sour flavor. The crumb feels like sourdough but the bread is lightly flavored. Good for sandwiches of all types.
I'll see if I can post a picture of the crust. Thanks again for the help.