Whole Grain Honey Wheat Bread (5 loaf batch)

I want to make my recipe available for anyone who is looking for a basic recipe for whole grain bread. I have two recipes. One for 5 small loaves that is meant to be mixed with a dough kneading machine (like a Bosch or K-tec Mixer) and a recipe for two loaves that can be made in a Kitchen Aid mixer. If you take the two loaf recipe and cut it in half you can use a food processor to mix and knead 1 large loaf of bread. I use 8-1/2 by 4 inch tin ware pans for baking which can be purchased on line from Urbanhomemaker.com.

Honey Wheat Whole Grain Bread
Large Batch (5 loaves)

Stage 1: Soaking
Mix and soak the following ingredients for 7 to 15 hours in a covered bowl on the kitchen counter. The dough should be a little bit stiffer than kids' play dough. Mix with a spoon until it becomes difficult and then knead in the moisture with your hands. Different flours absorb water differently. Spelt will absorb less water and Kamut(R) will absorb more. You can add extra water if you need to to make the flour uniformly moist.

1/4 c. yogurt or kefir whey
4 c. water
11 c. whole grain flour, made from high gluten wheat such as hard white winter wheat, hard red winter wheat, spelt or Kamut.

Stage 2: Mixing and Baking

2 1/2 T Red Star yeast
1/2 c. warm water
dribble of honey

Put 1/2 c. of warm water into the Bosch mixing bowl, dribble in honey and sprinkle in 2-1/2 t of yeast. With the dough hook in place, turn on the mixer for a couple seconds to mix in the honey, yeast and water. The yeast doesn't have to all dissolve, but it should at least be moist. Let this mixture sit for 5-10 minutes. If the yeast doesn't foam up it is no good and you need to make a run to the store for fresh yeast.

Add to the yeast mixture:
2 eggs
4 T vital gluten(optional)
5 t. Real salt
2/3 c olive oil or coconut oil (slightly warmed)
2/3 c honey
3/4 - 1 c unbleached white flour (organic preferred of course) or whole grain

Mix slightly then stop the mixer and add the soaked flour. Begin mixing the dough with the other ingredients, but keep extra flour on hand. You may need to add additional flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl. When enough flour has been added the dough will clean the sides of the bowl but will still be soft and wet. Note: If you do not add the 3/4 - 1 c. extra flour at this stage the liquid in the bowl will centrifuge up and over the edge of the mixing bowl. It still might a little even with the flour. Be sure to use the lid and catch the drips with your finger as they seep under the lid and run down the sides. I scrape it back onto the lid so it gets back into the dough. The extra flour creates friction that helps the oil and honey mix with the soaked dough. Mixing usually takes about 2 minutes. Once the dough is mixed and cleans the sides of the bowl set a timer and let the machine knead the dough for 10 minutes.

At this point if you use SAF yeast you can form your loaves and let them rise in the the pans for 45 min. to 1 hour and then bake the bread.

I prefer to use Red Star yeast and let my bread rise once in the bowl for 45 min. to 1 hour and then I knock down the dough using the machine before I transfer the dough to my floured bread board. (Sometimes I will let it rise a second time in the bowl before I shape the loaves and let them rise in the bread pans for a 3rd rise.) Once you transfer the dough to your kneading surface use enough flour to make the dough manageable and use a board knife to divide the dough into about 5 chunks. You will knead each chunk about 20 times on a lightly floured surface. If your dough seems too stiff use a wet surface and wet hands to knead and shape your loaves instead of flour.

I prepare my pans with PAM spray. Place the shaped dough into the pans and cover them with a damp towel. Let them rise to just above the top of the bread pans. This will take 30 -45 minutes.

In the mean time preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

After rising, place the loaves on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 to set the crust and then turn down the oven to 350 and bake for another 20 minutes. Be sure to allow a small space between each of the bread pans.

Cool loaves out of pans on their side on a cooling rack until completely cooled. Once cool you can bag the bread. If you bag the bread before it cools completely, it will trap in moisture and make the bread mushy.