Help, Breadmaking by hand, using fresh yeast, too dense/heavy. Ideas please.

siegemode

Hi,
I'm really hoping some of you can help us in our quest for the perfect loaf. My OH has taken to making our bread after becoming so fed up with the declining quality of shop bought bread. It works out cheaper and so far he has reached the point of satisfaction with white bread but is now having issues with the wholemeal. I taught him to make bread because my wrists/hands are no longer strong enough and it has been really therapeutic for him.

The wholemeal bread seems to be coming out rather dense and heavy. He's tried various recipes from the internet and both modern and old cookery books, most recently Mrs Beetons. (I prefer old style hand down recipe books in general.)

The kitchen is warm as he puts the water distiller on (each distillation takes about 4hrs and heats the kitchen nicely) he keeps the door shut, so no drafts. All ingredients are organic, the mixing bowl warm slightly once mixed and turned out he kneads approx. 500 times/ 10 minutes. He then puts the dough back in the bowl and covers with a warm damp tea towel until doubled in size. Next he kneads and shapes it. Then puts it into butter grease tins, again coving it with a warm damp tea towel for 20 mins before it goes into a hot oven (fan oven at 210 degrees) for 10 mins. Then he turns the oven down to 170 for the remaining 40 mins or until cooked.

Recipe used,
1oz fresh yeast
1 teasp sugar
3 teasp salt
1 1/2 tablesp extra virgin olive oil
1.5 kg strong wholemeal flour
1 3/4 pints of warm water

Sorry about the long post but we would really like to know how he can improve on the results as he is feeling fed up that he can't get it right. The bread he is producing is still nice but not how he wants it and he feels he is failing somewhere.

Any tips, solutions, advice or tried and tested recipes welcomed.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to passing your helpful comments on to him and cheering him up.

marmitepotato

I thought brown/wholemeal bread needed a vitamin c tablet in it. Other than that I can't help. Water distiller?

Funky_Bold_Ribena

http://youtu.be/PvdtUR-XTG0

I use the above method with
500 g flour
350 g water
10 g fresh or 7 g dried yeast
7g salt.

Is he making too much at once?

And is he scoring it with a razor before putting it in the oven?

ash28

Wholemeal bread is much denser than white, there is chemical in the flour that retards the elasticity of the dough. the chemical called glutathione and it's naturally occurring.

Some people get round this by using 50/50 white and wholemeal flour and others by crushing half a vitamin C tablet and putting it in their bread. Organic bakers are able to use a vitamin C tablet.

BitterAndTwisted

I'd try cutting down on the salt. Three tea-spoons seems like an awful lot to me when you're using only one of sugar. Salt inhibits the action of the yeast. I use a recipe where the sugar (actually it's honey and molasses) is four times the amount of salt.

siegemode

marmitepotato wrote: »

I thought brown/wholemeal bread needed a vitamin c tablet in it. Other than that I can't help. Water distiller?

OH uses it to remove nasties out of water and drinks it for health reasons. It makes the kitchen warm and creates the perfect environment for and the water being dispensed is the perfect temperature for bread making. I'll look into vitamin c. Thanks