Application Guide

WHOLE WHEAT BREADS
Mention whole grain bread and one of the following images might spring to mind:
heavy, dry, tooth-breaker. Any experienced baker knows there is some truth to each of
those images, but in reality, whole grain breads can be hearty in flavor and still light
textured. Whole wheat breads are part of a genre known as whole grain breads because
whole wheat flours are ground from all the parts of the grain. A 100 percent whole
wheat bread may be the quintessential whole grain loaf, a loaf that every baker wants
to master, but there is room for the hand of creativity in whole wheat breads, too. They
can be made with all different proportions of whole wheat flour, from a few table
spoons to 50 or 75 percent. Differences in the grinds of different brands of flour also
contribute slightly different textures to whole wheat breads. You will have your fa-
vorite brands of flour and will use them over and over again, but by varying the types
you use, you can get a wider variety of whole wheat breads.
There are fine, medium, and coarse grinds of whole wheat flour.
Which one you use can make a big difference in how your bread turns out. Unless you
order from a specialty mill, like Giusto’s, though, bags of whole wheat flour are not
generally labeled by their grind. This means that you have to buy different flours and
figure out what grinds you have by looking at them and feeling them. In fine flour, all
the parts of the grain—the germ, the bran, and the endosperm—are equally ground. It
feels smooth. The finest grind of whole wheat flour makes a moist, fine-textured, but
dark-colored and rich-flavored, bread. Coarse and medium grinds disperse the bran and
germ throughout the flour. You can easily see and feel them. The larger the pieces of
bran, the coarser the flour. The coarser the flour, the coarser the crumb will be and the
heavier the finished loaf, because the sharp edges of the bran tend to cut the thin
strands of stretchy gluten during rising. I note the grinds of various brands in the mar-
gin of my workbooks with comments like “Gold Medal, medium grind” or “Stone
Buhr, coarse grind.” Many of my recipes in this book specify what grind of whole
wheat to use in order to assure the best possible loaf.
The type of machine you own will dictate, to some extent, the whole
wheat and other whole grain breads you can make. For doughs that call for half whole
wheat and half white flour, white whole wheat, or some whole wheat pastry flour, you
can use the Basic cycle. All machines are capable of handling the dough density pro-
duced by these proportions. For breads with a higher percentage of whole wheat flour
or all whole wheat flour, you must use a machine that specifically has a Whole Wheat
cycle, which indicates that the machine has a motor powerful enough to handle the
heavy doughs. Even on these machines, if you hear the motor straining or pausing be-
cause the dough has stalled the paddle during the kneading, open the lid and use your
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