Are you adding any ascorbic acid? If not, I would suggest adding 1/8 t. per 3-cups of flour. The acid will help to counteract the negative effects of Glutathione that is present in the wheat germ which is damaging the gluten. The ascorbic acid will help prevent the gluten bonds from breaking down and help sustain the leavening. If you don't have ascorbic acid, Fruit Fresh will work (combination of citric and ascorbic acid).

Due to the hydration problem, your whole wheat flour may well have a much higher percentage of protein than the normal 12-13%, which would require more liquid.

Check out Sue Gregg's web site: http://suegregg.com/
She uses the two-stage process for 100% whole wheat bread making as well as some easy blender batter baking using whole wheat berries, as well a variety of whole grains (kamut, spelt, einkorn, rye, barley, etc.) - Blender Pancakes/Waffles, Blender Cornbread, Blender Crepes, Blender Banana Muffins.

These cookies are always a hit, and a favorite whole wheat cookie recipe from the Kansas Wheat Commission:

WHOLE WHEAT SUGAR COOKIES
Ingredient List:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
2 tablespoons 2% milk
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

In a medium bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together sugar and butter until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg, milk, extracts and mix well. Blend together flour, baking powder, soda, salt, nutmeg and orange peel. Add to egg mixture and continue to mix until well blended.


Shape dough into balls, using about 2 teaspoons each. Roll in granulated sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet coated with cooking spray. Flatten cookie slightly. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 9 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on pan for 2 minutes and transfer to wire rack.

Calories/Serving: 71
Servings: Provides 3 dozen cookies.
Nutrition: One cookie provides approximately: 71 calories, 1 g protein, 11 g carbohydrates, 1 g fiber, 3 g fat (2 g saturated, 0 trans fat), 13 mg cholesterol, 2 mcg folate, 0 mg iron, 78 mg sodium.

Source: Wheat Foods Council (Recipe provided by Kansas Wheat Offices)
[Grainlady note: I also like to add a 1/4 t. Fiori di Sicilia flavoring from King Arthur for a unique citrus/vanilla flavoring.

If you decide to go back to using the Zo and need an enriched 100% Whole Wheat Bread recipe, I'll would post my recipe for "Mildred Bread", which is a sponge recipe where the sponge "hangs out" for at least 1-1/2 hours, but I usually did an overnight sponge.

Check your local library for books that are specifically for using 100% whole wheat. They usually have a higher success rate.

-Grainlady

It sucks when you put so much effort into something and it isn't as successful as you'd hoped. Your resulting bread looks a lot like a terrific giant molasses cookie though. :)

grainlady, that is very interesting about the ascorbic acid! I've been wanting to ask you about the common addition of vinegar to gluten-free recipes...

Call it panini

I would not give up just yet. We all have different base ingredients and climate. DH has had a dozen successes recently...but last night was a total fail.

He did something different. I noticed a big bowl of dough on the counter in the un-heated mud room. But it was later in bags in the fridge.

Usually my time to play. I had everything prepped for a quick pizza...but it was like elmers glue, more on my hands than not. My cry for help went unnoticed as he had run off in a truck to help someone with something as he tends to do. I ended up rolling it in a massive blob. A sticky mess on parchment and into the oven it went in a cast iron skillet.. Not good at all, lol.

(must be how deep dish pizza was invented. Sorry deep-dish police. I just don't like it) : ) what a mess.

Grainlady, I did add a tablespoon of white vinegar, but I can taste it, and I don't like it, plus didn't seem to make any difference from the first loaf I made without it. I've been all over the internet finding recipes and techniques, but everyone says something different, from don't knead at all, to knead 20 minutes, to use acid, you need vital gluten, no you don't. I figure experimentation is my only hope.

Nothing at the library at all, of course.

sleevendog, sorry about the pizza. Mine would have actually made some decent pizza crust, I think, and had it not been so "slack", the texture was OK, it might have been an OK loaf baked in a pan.

Annie

Just between you and me Annie, ;) I would skip trying the dutch oven if your bread is flabby, just put it in a loaf pan and then put that in the dutch oven. That's what I finally ended up doing with my saggy loaves. I got a special oval shaped Rommertopf just for bread but the stuff comes out looking like a half deflated football, and sticks to the pan and the parchment paper. Here's the pics of my attempt at pain l'ancienne.

Oh, and PS Grainlady those cookies sound really yummy I'll have to try them sometime soon!

Annie, I would think that with 100% whole wheat you need much higher hydration. 66% is going to do it.

Also, I didn't quite understand what you did. If you are going to make a starter,(biga, etc.) you need to mix the small amount of yeast with the flour and water and leave it overnight to rise. Then add the starter to the batch of bread dough you are making along with the yeast, salt and water.

~Ann

Ann T, I was following the instructions on a Youtube video, of course. The baker claimed that they were using the "Forkish" method with home ground wheat flour. They mixed the flour and salt with water in one bowl, and then separately mixed the yeast with more water, a little more flour and sweetener, suggesting either honey or molasses. After the flour had a chance to "soak up" the water, they dumped the yeast mixture on top, suggesting that the yeast needed about two hours to "work" and the flour needed the same amount of time to absorb the water. They then stretched and folded the flour/dough ball up over the top of their starter, thus blending the starter into the dough ball. You see how well that worked for me. (sigh) There was definitely no stretching or folding of the dough ball I had, although after mixing in the starter, the dough became more workable. The video showed the dough left to rise for two hours, then folded and left to rise again, then shaped, allowed a third rise and baked. I'm really trying to avoid that long overnight rise, because I don't like the sour flavor. Elery loves sourdough. Me? Not so much. I also didn't like the sour flavor that the vinegar added, so I won't do that again.

Just goes to show you, don't believe everything you see on Youtube, either!

Now I have a very flat loaf on the counter and another in the freezer. I had toast this morning made with store bought bread and even that was better than the stuff I made. Elery claims to like it, so he's welcome to it, although I don't see that loaf getting smaller very fast.

Annie

Annie,

I've found there's a lot of differences between the wheatberries from different farms. If yours aren't working, you might try finding one with a tested for that crop higher protein level.

These might not apply to you, but are some of the things I've learned for 100% whole wheat, home milled, bread: If you mill at home, and aren't looking for a sweet flavor, you don't need any sweetener. What the honey is for in a lot of recipes is hiding the bitterness that whole wheat flour develops when it sits awhile (weeks) and starts to go rancid. A little acid, besides dealing with the anti-nutrients, works as a dough conditioner and retards mold growth (if we leave an end long enough to mold it's the free flour on it where it starts, not the bread itself). Ascorbic acid is fairly easily found as vitamin C crystals. I figure a jar may last me forever. It does add a little complexity to the flavor, which you might notice as acidity, but won't taste sour like vinegar. Handling the risen dough as little as possible, helps keep the gluten from being cut. It does not like "drawing a tight cloak". Like that saying about teaching a pig to dance, drawing it around like that just annoys the bread--the gluten breaks rather than stretches. A better way to shape, if necessary, is by folding, lightly. Do your best not to degas because it may not reinflate. If you're willing, adding vital wheat gluten makes up for the deficiencies of the protein content of the wheat.

Re hydration, I always do a soak. A soak is where you either make up the dough for a long rise (at least 8 hours), or just combine the flour and liquid and let that set for at least 8 hours. This can be done in or out of the fridge. It takes awhile for the wheat to hydrate and what seems too dry turns damp and sticky. Whole wheat also takes more hydration than white. The best proportion I've been able to find, and have been using, but haven't tested extensively enough to know for sure from my own hands is 5 tsp. water for every cup of whole wheat flour that you substitute for white flour.

Also be careful of the rise. If it doubles, it's probably too far gone. Aim for half that (1.5 times the original bulk). Maybe a little more. I haven't found a lot of good recipes, but that's common to all of the ones I do have, and if I miss and it gets to double on the rise, I don't get any oven spring. Oh, and no double rises. It doesn't want to be punched down.

I found this recipe in a surprising place when I was looking for a low cleanup (water saving) daily bread: http://www.instructables.com/id/100-Whole-Wheat-Crusty-No-Knead-Artisan-Bread/ It's a good recipe. I've been playing with it, adding in other grains, and mixing in seeds and all. Overdoing that can also interfere with the rise, but I've got it to where I like it, and I prefer the multigrain flavor.

I don't know if any of that is helpful to you. I've been on the same journey for a year, and had some sourdough flats of my own. :) Great sympathy here!

Thanks, plllog. What I've been trying to do is make an edible loaf from 100% homeground wheat, with no added vital wheat gluten. Elery says the bread is good, I don't care for it, so "edible" is up for translation, I guess.

Maybe he's right, it's fine. Maybe I just don't like it. That's what happened with meatloaf, I tried several recipes and they were all terrible. Eventually I realized that I just didn't like meatloaf. Any meatloaf. (shrug)

I've already discovered that I don't really care a lot for sourdough, and don't want bread that's so chewy I have to really work to get a piece off the slice, nor do I want it so shatteringly crunchy that I can only think of my dentist. The addition of orange juice didn't help, nor did vinegar. Youtube was no help at all this time, nor was a 20 minute knead helpful the first time.

Maybe my expectations are too high. I thought some freshly ground wheat would result in a sweeter and more nutty tasting bread, everyone who grinds their own raves about the wonderful flavor. Instead it tastes a lot like bread made with commercial flour right off the shelf, and like vinegar when I add that. Definitely not what I'm trying for.

Back to the experiments!

Annie

Annie, I think you've been misled! Home baked whole wheat bread generally tastes good, whereas some commercial whole wheat bread tastes like cardboard. Home milled whole wheat bread often tastes better because, especially if we're talking breads with no sweeteners, because it isn't rancid. Honey masks the slightly rancid taste. You also might have been using commercial flour which hadn't turned. I thought my WW baking with King Arthur tasted great until I started milling. The difference wasn't pronounced, but obvious enough to go through the bother. Rather than sweeter and nuttier, I'd say that home milled tastes not-bitter and not-cardboard. :) Same thing, but more subtle.

You might try using one quarter of the grain (by weight) as rye berries. I love rye and it adds a lot to the flavor. It does make it darker, however.

You'll get the texture. That's in great part due to the ratio of water in the dough, and some to the temperature of baking. If you don't use a stone, and bake at a lower temperature, you'll get a thinner and less crunchy crust. If you use a steam pan, you should get better lift, some more crunch, but less hardness. If your loaf comes out too crunchy and hard you can (horrors!) put it in a plastic bag.

You'll get there. I've yet to meet an experienced baker who got 100% whole wheat right the first few times. I've made good loaves without VWG or white flour, but both are used by a lot of commercial bakeries and home bakers to make it all workout easier. It's possible to get a perfect, soft, close crumb with whole wheat flour, water, yeast and salt. My Tuscan bread (no salt) comes close, and rises taller if given a pan to hold it up. Keep going! You'll get there.

I've been fussing with whole wheat breads for a couple of years and most of my results have been "meh." However, the best results (flavor-wise for me) have been bread recipes using bulgur or cracked wheat or wheat berries. They seem to have that nutty taste that I like. Just don't believe anyone who tells you you don't have to cook the wheat cereals first. Maybe they like bread with crunchy hard bits in it but I don't. However, cooked bulgur is good. I haven't tried cracked wheat or wheat berries yet, but I like them as cereals and the berries (well farro to be specific) in pilafs and salads so someday I'd like to try them in breads. I'm on a rye and oat bran kick right now though. I accidentally bought twice as much of both grains as I needed. I make French style rye bread (sans any seeds or flavorings) and I like that a lot. Also I have a recipe for a bread with 12 grain cereal in it which is also great. I have to admit sometimes I cheat and only use 7 or 8 or 11 grain mixes! ;)