Whole wheat no-knead round deux

Ever on the quest for a somewhat soft-textured whole wheat bread, I decided to try another round of no-knead type bread with 100% whole wheat.  In my opinion, whole wheat bread needs to have all whole grain flour in it.  I have had some locally grown red-fife wheat flour, which I have been interested to try out.

Having done some snooping around, there were a number of ventures which called for more liquid in the dough, and some which used additional gluten.  So, spatula and bowl in hand, I set about it, opting to go for the no-knead approach, because I like the flavours that develop during the long, slow ferment.

When making up the dough, I made it quite wet to allow the yeast to work its magic.  I added nearly an extra 1/2 cup of liquid to the no-knead proportions, and tossed in a few multigrain flakes at the end.  the other thing I did was add about 2 1/2 tablespoons of gluten to help things along.

Mixing the dough -- very moist! Looks pretty gross!

The dough was very wet, but when I poured it into the bread pan, it had nice bubbles in it.  I let it sit in the pan till it rose level with the top, then put it in the oven (400 degrees).

Dough in the pan after rising

During baking there wasnt a lot of extra rise, so i was worried it would be fairly dense.  When i sliced it open, however, the structure was fairly open, and the taste was nice and sweet even though this was a basic dough (ww flour, salt, water, yeast and gluten), due to this being VERY freshly ground flour from locally grown wheat.

Whole wheat loaf, look inside! The spots you can see are the barley flakes I added to the dough

So after round deux, I will make some more refinements, and see if I get closer.  i think i will keep the gluten level about the same.  i will reduce the liquid by about 1-2 tablespoons, and try the next round with no barley flakes.  I liked the flavour, but not the texture.  From a previous tryst with pans of different sizes, I also think I will try the narrower bread tin and see what happens.

Stay tuned for round trois!

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