Whole Grain Bread - the search for something that is not a brick.

I've been baking on and off for nearly 40 years. I think I've made all the mistakes, often more than one at the same time.
I'm convinced that one of the problems with getting "bricks" is that the final rise happens at too low a temperature. If your house is too cold, the dough will just sit there. If you pop it into the oven after a few hours because "it must be ready by now", you get a brick.
I've used tricks like putting the dough in a picnic cooler with a hot water bottle to keep it warm.
Another option is a slightly warmed oven, although that loses heat too quickly. Some recent ovens come with a setting for proving bread.
I also use an Excalibur dehydrator, though its lowest temperature is 46ºC (115ºF), whereas the ideal temperature for raising bread is reputedly 25ºC (75ºF). That means I can't leave the dough in there too long, and must cover it with something to keep the surface from drying out.
Hope someone finds this useful.

Hello. I'm a purist. Flour, water, salt. I stone-mill a variety of local organic wheat berries with a hand crank fresh for each sourdough bread at the time of autolyse. The water is 0 TDS water. Himalayan salt. So...I can testify. It's possible. I've only been baking since Nov 2021. I get a high rise and an open crumb about half the time now...it's still a mystery at the end of the day but I'm cracking that code. Even when a loaf doesn't reach it's greatest potential in aesthetics, the flavor, texture, and nutrition is always guaranteed.

Hi Amanda,

Welcome to Permies!

Hello, John! Thank you! I'm excited to be here. I quit bread cold turkey for a couple years until I discovered this sourdough on my healing with whole foods journey and I've become obsessed. Amazed, awestruck, inspired, bewildered, mind-blown. Being on Disability this is something that has changed our lives.

I got back into some bread making recently but with a twist. I am experimenting with making flour from sprouted wheat I buy from the local feed and seed.

I sprout the wheat myself, and the resulting flour has more simple sugars in it and less gluten which makes for a particularly weak dough. The high hydration techniques were disasters, and I've found that a dough of around 55 to 60% hydration is better. A long cool ferment helps, but haven't yet overcome all the brick like properties. Not get much oven spring at all.

I'm proofing in a loaf pan and placing it in a cooler oven because the hot, fast technique for modern bread doesn't cook the dough through properly. I have a water tray underneath the pan full of boiling water, and I mist the loaf when going in but so far no success.

Any suggestions?

Nick Kitchener wrote:I got back into some bread making recently but with a twist. I am experimenting with making flour from sprouted wheat I buy from the local feed and seed.
Any suggestions?

No great suggestions for the bread except to ask, "Are you kneading your bread too much to get that hard brick?"

However, those sprouts and greens from the wheat seed are filled with all kinds of good nutrients. Make a salad and toss those in with all the rest of the veggies used.