It has been many moons....

Kind of funny to be looking at my last post on this blog and now I'm longing for spring. Good news is that we tore down the Virginia Creeper on our purgola and Andi has given the go ahead to plant more hops. I just have to wait to buy the rhizomes and then plant some time in late March. Any way, on to the bread.

It's been while since I've baked, and I tried my hand at a whole wheat bread. This one started out with two pre-soaks. A soaker and a starter. The soaker was some water and called for some coarsely ground grain. All I had was some rye flour and since the recipe called for a grain, I figured this would be ok. The soaker sits with grain and water over night. That is supposed to start some natural yeast, coaxed from the air, as well break down the coarse grain.

The other was a pre-ferment, which consisted of the whole wheat, yeast and water. After the pre-ferment rose, you cover and stick into the fridget overnight (to retard the rising process.)

I didn't quit like how the pre-ferment turned out. Something about it didn't seem right and I should have listened to myself. The next day, I left the pre-ferment to rise and take the chill out while we were out to church. When I came back, I completed the dough, and again, something didn't feel right.

It was very wet, and none of the moisture seemed to be going away. Wheat breads, or coarse grains tend to take a little more water, but this was weird. I must have added close to a cup of extra flour and it didn't seem to help. The dough felt too dense and too wet.

As you can see, after a couple of hours rising, it failed to double in size, and I feared that it would turn out to be a brick. If you can't get the window pane test to pass, then the bread doesn't form the glueten strands to keep it taught, and therefore won't trap the gas bubbles to rise. This dough ball is cracking beacuse the gas isn't getting trapped. It was too wet, but I forged ahead.

I was hoping to get a spring in the loaves from the oven, and then perhaps they would rise. But alas, it was for naught. They didn't rise, and turnned out to be bricks. They didn't even make good croutons. Blech. Oh well, I'll chalk it up to one year old wheat bread, and sub par kneading. Andi is at the grocery store right now getting me some fresh whole wheat and some steel cut oats (one of the whole grains it calls for) and I'm confident that this loaf will turn out better.