Whole Wheat Revisited

My whole wheat recipe had been giving me some disappointing results. Part of that was due to my sluggish starter. I also think that the amount of water that I was using was a little skimpy. My old recipe was

Whole Wheat, Take 6
Prepare sponge.  When it is ready, put these ingredients in the bread machine with the white flour going in last.  Add the sponge on top.
Water	4 oz.
Whole wheat flour	2 ¼ cups
White flour	1  cup
Vital Gluten	none
Salt	1 tsp
Oil	2 Tbl
Honey	¼ cup

My next attempt added 2 oz. more of water. I used the 4+4+4 starter refresh. That is take 4 oz. (all measurements by weight) of the old starter, add 4 oz. of white flour, and 4 oz. of water. I let that mature for 10-12 hours. I use the same formula to create the sponge, except that it uses 4 oz. of the newly refreshed starter. My sponge starts looking like this:

That was a 9PM. The next morning at 6AM the sponge has expanded nicely.

For my recipe, I've decided to measure my flour by weight for more consistent results. The recipe is now

Whole Wheat, Take 7
Prepare sponge.  When it is ready, put these ingredients in the bread machine with the white flour going in last.  Add the sponge on top.
Water	4 oz.
Whole wheat flour	10.5 oz.
White flour	5 oz.
Vital Gluten	none
Salt	1 tsp
Oil	2 Tbl
Honey	¼ cup

This mixture made a nice looking dough ball in the bread machine.

The completed loaf rose better than any whole wheat sourdough loaf to date. What can't be seen here is that the pompadour hair style that my rye loaves used to  exhibit has shown up in the whole wheat bread. I'll add some milk in place of some of the water next time.

As a bonus, it was delicious. 

Slow Starter

I thought I had this all figured out, but lately my starter has been a little sluggish to start. Originally, I had been using the practice of discarding half of my starter and refreshing it with 4 oz. (by weight) of white bread flour and 4 oz. of water (by weight or volume, they are the same for water). My recipes call for 4 oz. of starter, so I figured, "Why throw out half? Just add 2 oz. of flour and 2 oz. of water to get the extra 4 oz. that my recipe needs."

Well, it seems that my starter is not so refreshed with that method. I decided to try an experiment. The week-old starter (since the last refresh and bread baking) that I had in my fridge was about 8 oz. I divided that into two containers of 4 oz. each. To one, I added 4 oz. of flour and 4 oz. of water. (The left container in the picture.) To the other, I added 2 oz. of flour and 2 oz. of water. The arrows are the levels at the beginning of the maturing process. The level in the left container is a bit obscured by starter that was stuck to the sides.

I set them out to grow for about 8 hours. Not much had happened by then.

I left them for another 12 hours.

It's not so clear from these views, but the container on the left has grown some. So has the second container, but not nearly as much. Opening the containers shows that the 4+4 refresh (left) is much more active than the 2+2 (right).

It appears the refresh needs a higher ratio of new ingredients to the old stuff. I might still be able to get away with a 2+2 refresh, but I might need to start with a smaller quantity of starter.

I've been having some disappointing results with my bread loaves, so I'm not going to try that experiment right away. I want to have a good loaf of bread.