Perfecting the Whole Wheat Recipe - Take 3

Last week's attempts to get the whole wheat recipe right were short of 100% successful.  I made a brick on Saturday.  Sunday's attempt was better, and in fact, edible, but still denser that I would like.  Today's attempt is only a slight tweak from last Sunday.

First, I fed my sourdough starter overnight.  That gave me an active starter that had never been refrigerated to make my sponge.  The only other change is that I am going to add 2 teaspoons of vital gluten to help the loaf rise.  I thought of adding a little more white flour to the final mix, but I want to just tweak this recipe a little at a time until I get it right.  The amount of vital gluten is a guess.  Some of my rye recipes use as much as 1 tablespoon  Some recipes use 2 teaspoons.  The box of vital gluten says to use 4 teaspoons, but they might be biased. 😀 I thought of trying just 1 to start, but I'd really like to have a success, today.  Two it is!

The whole procedure is

	Whole Wheat
Preparation	The night before, discard all but 4 oz. of the starter from the fridge.  Add 4 oz. of water and 4 oz. of white flour.  Set in a warm place overnight.
Sponge	Take 4 oz. of the fed starter.  Add 4 oz. of white flour and 4 oz. of water.  Set in a warm place for 6 hours. Place the remaining starter (unfed) in the fridge for next time.
Water	3 oz.
Whole wheat flour	2 ¼  cups
White flour	None
Vital Gluten	2 tsp
Salt	1 tsp
Butter	1 ½ Tbl
Honey	¼ cup

The starting point for my sponge:

That looks like a lot more than last week, but the bowl is smaller.  After six hours it grew to this:

The dough ball in the machine looked healthy.

Alas, the loaf of bread is still a little vertically challenged.  Here it is compared to last week's half-eaten loaf.  It's about the same size.

It tastes good and isn't a brick, but I'm still on a quest to make it taller and less dense.  Next week, I am going to try saving some of the white flour for the final mix.

Next, I am taking a break from the whole wheat quest and making a sourdough rye that uses a half cup of sour cream.