Dick,

Thanks for the whole-wheat tips. Good stuff.

> 1. For sourdough, forget whole wheat. Good WW bread stands
> on its own for flavor.

I agree that good whole wheat does stand alone. I make regular yeasted
loaves all the time. I keep coming back to the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book
for tasty stuff, though I usually adapt her recipes to include some sort of
overnight sponge.

I do like the taste of whole wheat sourdough, though, and my wife likes it
even more than I do. (This is not another -- "Damn, my wife and kids really
dig my bread" comment, I promise) They used to sell a great whole wheat
sourdough bread at Trader Joe's about 5 years ago that she was nuts about,
but they stopped carrying it, which is one of the reasons I bake it today.

As I said, I'm pretty pleased with my results, I just want to improve them.

Over the weekend, I'll upload some photos and post a few links to show what
it looks like. It can't compare to your billowy loaves, but it's not a
brick.

Here's an old version of what I usually make today. The only change is that
I now make a wet sponge with all the water and an equal weight of flour
(about 10 oz). It's easier to measure.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/1073

> 3. Use about 1/3 bromated bread flour. There is simply no
> substitute for bromate, but a little bit goes plenty far. It
> keeps the risen dough from collapsing when heat is applied.

I'm sure bromate helps, but I'm a gullible health nut. :-)

More importantly, my wife, whom I love dearly, is even more of a gullible
health nut. And no way is she going to let our daughter eat anything with
bromate. So I'm out of luck, there.

> 4. Add some molasses as yeast food. Use ordinary dry yeast.

I like instant yeast, myself, since I don't have to muck about with warming
water and all to disolve it.

> For instance:
> http://www.prettycolors.com/bread%5Fculture/BMWW/

Wow! That's amazingly tall. I'll have to try your recipe. Orange zest is a
great idea. Looking at the picture before reading the recipe, I had no idea
what those wormy looking things might be.

> Well, you could try with sourdough (not bread-machine). But
> I have never made it work to my satisfaction, except as shown.

I'm trying, believe me.

Thanks again.

--
Jeff