On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 11:25:42 -0500, Nathan Gutman wrote:

> I made bread from stone ground whole wheat flour using the following
> recipe in a 1 pound Panasonic bread machine: 1 1/4 c water
> 2 c flour
> 2 tbs honey
> 1 tsp light brown sugar
> 1 tsp sugar
> 1 tsp salt
> 2 1/2 tsp dry yeast
> 3 tbs wheat gluten
>
> The bread rose only to about half the size of a regular bread flour bread.
> It is edible and tasted good but a bit dense and heavy. I used the whole
> wheat cycle.
>
> Is this normal?
> What should I change to get it to rise more? Thanks for any help.
> Nathan

Yes, it is normal. 100% whole wheat bread will never rise as much as white
flour or mixed white/whole grain loaves. Basically the bran present in the
whole grain interfers with gluten development. (Minor side note - many
people confuse a high protein flour with high gluten. Not the same. Gluten
is formed by the hydration and kneading action to form the protein
molecules into long gluten chains. If you lack proper hydration, complete
kneading or have something like bran in the dough that interfers with
gluten development, you won't get a high rising dough even with a high
protein flour.)

Some people add extra vital gluten to their dough to help (though
apparently that didn't satisfy your objective.) Others use a mix of
white/whole grain flours - a 50:50 mix still gives a very good rise but
give a good whole-grain taste. Or you can just accept that a 100% whole
grain bread is just going to be different than a white bread.