Hello!

I've just joined this group and have spent the past several hours reading through the forums - what an amazing bunch!  I'm excited that I've found you all, and I know you'll be able to help me get started.

First, a bit of history, then my questions:

I've been baking bread at home for the past several years.  Mostly "Betty Crocker" recipes, which have served me pretty well.  The bread is tasty, and my husband doesn't seem to think that I should change a thing.  However, in my quest to become a better baker, I've recently branched into sourdough - using a yeast-based starter.  After more research, I've started a wild-yeast starter - hoping to switch to that one fully once it's ready.

My goal is to produce 100% whole grain sourdough breads with few added ingredients.  From browsing the forums, I've gathered that this type of bread is more "dinner" style bread, and that sandwich bread needs ingredients like white flour and dairy to be light enough to stuff with sandwich goodies.  I'm ok with that.  I'll try that type too.

I've also just been reading up on stretch and fold (which is a bread-new concept to me!) 

So... here are my questions:

I need a good recipe to start with.   A basic, simple, preferably whole grain sourdough recipe that I can learn on.  I have read that WW breads are a bit tricky for beginners because of the sharp grains (is this right?) but I'd rather jump right in with a few flops.  It can't be worse than the sunken-topped bread with pores so open that honey leaks through that I've been feeding my poor husband for months now! (In my own defence, it does taste good and its moist... :-p)

After I get a handle on a basic loaf, I think I'll feel more confident in trying other, already posted recipes.  When my hands know how to stretch and fold, how tight WW bread needs to be formed - stuff like that.

Oh... I don't have scales.  I know, I know... I've just read the heated debate about them.  I'm now instantly aligned with half the members of this group, and the other half will tell me that scales should be my first purchase.  I can't make that purchase right now, so volume measurments would be appreciated. 

Am I totally off base here?  Am I asking the impossible?  Do I need to start with plain white bread with eggs, milk and honey to get a good idea of what bread should be??  I hope not...

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.  I look forward to your responses!! 

Hi all,

 I've been baking from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain cookbook for about a month now. I'm not an experienced bread baker, but I've slowly been increasing the hydration of my dough, learning to shape slack doughs, and improving the crumb of my hearth breads. 

I'm having a bizarre issue with my pre-doughs (the soaker and the biga in Reinhart's terminology); both the soaker and the biga tend to develop a greyinsh-brown film on top. If I leave the soaker out at room temp, this film becomes pronounced and very hard (I lose a good portion of the dough by trying to pick it off).  It's diminished by storage in the fridge, but still noticeable as a darker coloring, only on the top of the dough that is exposed to air.  This seems to happen whether I use water, buttermilk, whey or milk as the liquid in the recipe, and it happens both with yeast (biga) and without (soaker).  It seems to get worse with time (if I leave the pre-doughs in the fridge for 2 or 3 days it is more pronounced than after 24 hr).

Does anyone have experience with this?  It doesn't seem to always happen; I've been using the same batch of flour (25 lb batch of organic, freshly-milled hard red wheat flour from a local farm); I haven't gotten around to buying a different source of flour from the store and checking it out.

Anyone know what this is, or have ideas as to how to prevent it? 

Thanks much,

Kaela

I've been absent from TFL recently, as work and home have eaten up just about every waking minute, and there have been far too many waking minutes in the past couple of months. I could have stood for a tad more sleeping minutes.

Nevertheless, a family has to eat, so I've still been baking. One thing I learned: Don't double the amount of salt in a bread recipe. I did this by accident, doing the math for 2% in my head and adding 20 grams instead of 10 grams. Not even the birds would eat this stuff. Yuck.

I have had some nice loaves come out of the oven, however. Last week, I made the same doubling error as before, but with the starter. I used a 40% innoculation instead of 20% for this largely white flour sourdough (I added 10% whole wheat). All in all, the loaf was fine, though it wasn't as flavorful as I'd have liked. Rose quickly though, and looked beautiful.





I also revived my rye starter to make a 40-30-30 rye to whole wheat to white flour loaf. I didn't add caraway, and missed it, actually.

Starter is amazingly resiliant stuff. I'd not fed it for months (probably three at least ... maybe even four), and it had acquired a nasty black crust that could have been mold, could have been hoochy gunk (the rye is kept at 100% hydration, but it's still pretty pasty rather than liquid). In any case, it started right back up and made a wonderfully sour rye loaf. The shaped dough stuck a little bit to the baker's linen, so I had to slash it strangely to incorporate the rip and avoid a blown out side. Turned out OK, though, in the end.



And, of course, I regularly make my standby overnight whole grain sourdough hearth loaf (60% whole wheat, 30% whole spelt, 10% whole rye. The secret to getting a good "grigne" I think is not to proof it too long. Two to two-and-one-half hours seems to be just about right.





Mmmmmm. Grilled cheese sandwiches on whole grain sourdough hearth bread.

Today, I made Peter Reinhart's master formula whole wheat bread from his new book Whole Grain Breads.  According to the text, soakers "change the way the dough performs, usually sweetening it and creating a richer more golden crust."

Normally, I never add sweetner to my sourdough recipes. Interestingly, I see that most of the recipes in the book call for a whopping 2 - 3 Tablespoons of honey or agave nectar; sugar or brown sugar, so I wonder if that is the reason why the bread is sweetened ....

Diane

Upstate NY 

Even though these are 100% whole wheat, I'm not even going to try convincing anyone (though I've tried to convince myself) that these are remotely healthy. But since whole wheat flour is what I've usually got on hand and since using whole wheat flour does make them somewhat less unhealthy (maybe), when I make sticky buns, I make them this way. The dough is an amalgamation of many recipes, but the filling and topping are from King Arthur Flour Whole Grains Baking.



In any case, however detrimental they may be to the body, these warm sticky buns are awfully good for the soul on a chilly weekend morning.

Just a quick post to show the Cream of Wheat I made using whole wheat ground

CREAM OF WHEAT

Though I'm sure I'll be lured away once again by the delights of a good poolish, I'm back to baking whole grains.

This picture is from a 100% whole wheat, rather high hydration dough. It had been kneaded for about 20 minutes at speed 2 in a Delonghi/Kenwood mixer. The lighting isn't that great, but if you look at the base of the left thumb, you'll see a fingertip behind the dough. The browner areas are simply dough that has not been stretched. This started as a piece of dough about the size of a golf ball And yes, it made nice bread - in this case a light sandwich loaf.