As I recently mentioned, I do sometimes have pretty good success with 100% whole wheat loaves. There have been some epic fails with 100%, however, and then sometimes there are loaves that turn out like this:
At first glance, it doesn't look all that bad. It looks a little odd on the top, but that's not a series of oven-spring splits. More on those momentarily. The issue with the loaf is apparent when it's on the slicer:
It's a wide-angle lens, so there's some distortion, but at the back are a couple of slices cut from last week's loaf, a standard 50/50 blend. You can see they're a little wider. The 100% loaf in the foreground is very compact and dense.
Cut open, it's pretty obvious. For comparison, here's the 'victory' loaf referred to in the post linked at the top:
The ultra-dense loaf doesn't really constitute a fail; it's salvageable and will make decent sandwiches. This time I know what the issue was: the sponge was too dry. As I mixed it, it seemed very (very very) dry, but I wanted to try it to see what would happen. On oven proof, it actually did eventually rise a bit, but overall it remained pretty dense. The bands visible on top were just legacies from when I formed the loaf before putting it in the basket.
In a cold house, there are only two periods when it rises: before going into the proofing basket and once it's in the oven. In this case, more time on the initial rise might have been helpful. When I formed the loaf and put it into the basket it was apparent it was very small. I may experiment a bit more with it to see if I can make it work.
