First Attempt At Sandwich Bread With Whole Wheat

The first attempt at a sandwich bread with whole wheat:

The target for this loaf was:

The recipe:

300 grams bread flour, 100 grams hard white wheat flour (substitute any hard wheat flour), 260 grams cool water (65% hydration), 8 grams kosher salt (2%), 12 grams honey (3%), 12 grams oil (3%), and 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast. Mix on low speed for 10 minutes. Move the dough to a 9×5 bread pan, cover and let rise.

I had intended this dough to take 5-7 hours to be ready to bake, which is why there is such a small amount of yeast. If this were a weeknight bread I’d bump up the yeast to 1 teaspoon so that the dough could be ready in around 2 hours.

After the dough has doubled in size bake at 425F for 45 minutes. For the first 10 minutes I covered the bread pan with another inverted bread pan to try to help get more oven spring. Remove the bread to a cooling rack when baked at let cool at least two hours.

Overall it made a nice loaf for sandwich bread. I think next time I’ll increase the total amount of flour to 500 grams so that we get a bigger loaf and larger slices. It may also be that the honey or olive oil could be omitted — I’ve seen more than a few “100% whole wheat breads” that use both, and starting at 3% honey and oil seemed like a fairly conservative way to introduce them without completely changing the lean character of the bread. In future attempts I’ll also try slashing the loaf, though this loaf got a decent amount of oven spring without it.

Baking a whole bunch of repetitions and variations should mean improvement, but it’s a good start.