100% Whole Wheat Hearth Bread

I love whole wheat bread for sandwiches, but had not been too successful with hearth breads just yet. Most of my other attempts had been with sourdough, so I was eager to try one with active dry yeast.

Since this is a free form loaf, the shaping equipment is very important to achieve a great rise with good thickness, so it can be used for sandwich bread that doesn’t have too much waste from the ends. This recipe was super simple and produced a great rise. I was amazed on how much rise I got and wondered if there was an issue with my other hearth breads, namely the sourdough "purist” versions.

This bread is great for sandwiches or just snacking on and was gobbled up in no time. One of my favorites.

Since we enjoy whole wheat bread, I was looking forward to trying this recipe. We liked the 100% sandwich bread and thought this recipe also had potential.

I made this recipe exactly as written. The flavor was excellent. The texture was also good. My only problem was that it flattened into very short loaf. This loaf was barely an inch high!

I think my mistake lay in how I formed the loaf. I would prefer a loaf that would hold together better and raise up instead of out! The taste of this bread was good enough to deserve a retry.

Truly remarkable! Peter has taken the already successful recipe for Whole Wheat Hearth Bread from his Whole Grain Breads book and has improved it.

Whole wheat bread, as we all know, is very good for us. The problem is that the bran which is good for us is terrible for the gluten strands which make for light, airy bread. The standard whole wheat loaf is often tasty, but usually crumbly and dense.

With his previous recipe, Peter used a few techniques to soften the bran and extract more flavour - specifically an overnight soaker and pre-fermented dough. It made for a quite good bread (I gave it 4 stars).

Now, however, he's knocked it out of the park, making the recipe easier to make, and the results noticeably better. Higher hydration, the stretch and fold method and overnight refrigerator fermentation are the secrets. I just made this with Red Fife wheat, and got the best loaf of whole wheat bread I've ever made. I'm in awe...