I've made exciting progress on my 100% whole grain loaf (pain integral). This particular loaf is made from home-milled whole wheat (77%) and whole rye (23%), and 85% hydration (I also dusted it with some white flour). It's been my ambition since I started to bake naturally fermented bread to make whole grain loaves like this (with good oven spring, open crumb, pleasing taste, and hardy crust). I still have a lot of improvements I want to make but I know it's just a matter of time now :)
The current area that I'm trying to improve is dough structure. Even though I get decent spring, I am unable to shape the dough beforehand into a very cohesive structure, so it just spreads out in the dutch oven pan during the bake. I have a few techniques that I'm going to tweak, and I'll hopefully have an even better loaf to show you soon!
- Michael Davis's Blog
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That is a really nice crumb for a 100% whole grain - well done!
I personally like to throw in a wee bit of diastatic malt (I use rye malt) in my whole grain loaves, since I find that using just 5g makes a difference in fermentation time, loft, and flavour. I know that others use Vital Wheat Gluten to get the stronger gluten formation, but i haven't tried that approach yet.
Please keep posting as you figure out what approach works best for you in developing the crumb and loft that you want.
Keep baking happy!
Nice looking bread! Well done! How long are you bulk fermenting / retarding? Could it be that you're pushing it a bit too long and slightly over fermenting? You also might want to try this in a pan, the sides will help push up the loaf and it might give you a terrific sandwich loaf.. could be worth a try! .. bake well, or at least bake happy, bread1965!
I thin k it is just a matter of time for you too when you can make it just the way you want in your sleep. Well done and 'happy baking