Whole Wheat Bread Success Story

As I have previously written, I sometimes do 100% whole wheat loaves using the no-knead approach described in that post.

The picture at right shows the same white/soft whole wheat loaf as in the previous post.  There's a decent amount of rise but it's overall pretty dense and the crumb structure shows small gas pockets (versus larger ones obtainable with some mix of white flour).

This is typical of whole wheat loaves, and it's true even with added vital wheat gluten (VWG)--as the one at right has.

Fast forward to this month, and I baked a whole wheat loaf using standard red wheat flour.  I forgot about the VWG and left it out.  I realized that too late to add it, but was committed at that point and went ahead.  I expected an even denser than normal loaf, but the end result was pretty good:

This is impressive.  One key factor is that it has gotten cold here in Georgia (comparatively), so I'm now heating rather than using air conditioning.  I have a seasonal temperature swing of about 10 degrees (79 summer, 69 winter) and I have previously observed that I get better results in the winter. During the day the temperature drops even lower, to as low as 63.  As one of the instructional videos at Breadtopia notes, counter and oven rises are to some degree offsetting: a vigorous pre-baking rise usually means less oven spring, while less rise during the fermentation time leads to a more dramatic rise in the oven.  That's part of what probably happened here.

The flavor is not impacted either way, and the individual slices are still pretty dense.  A 100% whole wheat loaf (particularly with red wheat) is not something everyone will like.  I like it okay although I wouldn't want to eat it all the time.  As noted in the other bread post, I usually use a near-50/50 split of whole wheat and white flour.  It gives consistently good results, although it is also affected by the seasonality issues mentioned above.