Has anyone made the 100% Whole Grain recipe in the cookbook? I’m find that, for me, the amount of water is making the dough very loose, too loose to form a boule or batard. I’m thinking of reducing the water and trying the recipe again. I’m on loaf number 2 (it’s in the oven now) and am going to mix another loaf today. Loaf #2 has a little better structure, but not great. Not sure whether to reduce the water and/or try a different method of building gluten in the dough such as laminating or another process instead of folding.
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I’m sorry that I don’t have the book and so can’t respond to the specifics of the ingredients and procedure you are following, but I have made a lot of 100% whole grain bread. Dough is more difficult to handle when the flour doesn’t soak up the water so readily. However. I’ve used water amounts up to 90% of the flour weight with success. With higher hydration, my free-form loaves are more flat and broad than I might like, but they taste plenty good and have excellent texture.
It’s good to treat the formula’s water amount as a suggestion. Each batch of flour is however thirsty it is and may or may not behave well with the specified hydration. I suggest trying again with 10%, 15%, or 20% less water. If you like the result you can go again, increasing the water percentage till you reach the upper limit of what pleases you.
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Very new to bread baking, and I sort of had the same issue…I was baking my bread on a pizza stone with a soup pot as the cover. This allowed the bread to spread out more. When I switched it up and now cook it IN the soup pot with a lid, it only can go as wide as the pot - so it rose up more.
BTW I think this and the seeded pan loaf are my favorite recipes from the book so far…
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