Whole Wheat Bread - Take 2

With the Fourth of July I had some extra time this week so I decided to try making whole wheat bread again.  I found another recipe on the web to try.  It's called Foolproof Whole Wheat Bread so I figured it was worth a try. 

I wasn't very good at taking pictures on this one...  I started by measuring out 2-1/2 cups water and a half cup of honey.  Then I warmed the mix in the microwave for about a minute.  The mix needed to be between 108 and 112 degrees.  A minute was too long.  Next time I'll try 40 seconds.  This time I just waited until it cooled down to just under 112 degrees.  Next I stired in 2 tbls of active dry yeast and let it sit for 10 minutes to let the yeast work. 

While it sat I mixed 5 cups whole wheat flour with 1/2 cup wheat gluten and 1 tsp of salt.  After about 10 miinutes I had a nice layer of foam on my yeast mixture. 

There is supposed to be an inch of foam on top, at least.  Looks pretty good, huh?

I dumped the yeast mixture into the dry ingredients

And then mixed it with a wooden spoon.  The recipe said once the ingredients were lightly mixed I was to dump everything out onto the kitchen counter in a clean spot (ya think?!) that has been lightly oiled.  It wasn't coming together very well with the wooden spoon but the next step was to knead the dough so I figured I wouldn't worry about it at this point. 

Doesn't look much like dough, does it??  But I started kneading it and it came together pretty well.

The recipe directed to knead the dough for five minutes, adding small amounts of water to keep the dough just barely on the sticky/gooey side.  I added water a couple of times, probably a total of 2 tbls.

Five minutes is a long time when you aren't use to kneading but it seemed to come together well and maintain that sticky texture.  After five minutes I placed the dough back in the mixing bowl.

I put the bowl in the sink after I'd filled it with about 2 inches of hot water (decidedly warm to the touch but not uncomfortably warm: 110-120 F).  Then I covered the dough with a light cloth and let it rise for about 30 minutes or until it doubles. 

After 30 minutes it looked to me like it had doubled in size.  I dumped the dough back onto the counter top and kneaded it again for 3 minutes.  Then I divided the dough into two lumps (unfortunately not very equal lumps) and formed loaves to fit into the bread pans.

I lighly oiled the bread pans, which I had put in the hot water in the sink while I formed loaves.  Then I placed the dough in the pans.

It was at this point that I noticed that the loaves weren't that even.  I tried to even them out a bit by pulling dough from one pan and putting in another but I realized later that was a mistake.  I should have started over to form it up into a nice continuous roll of dough. 

I sat the dough out to rise a second time.  I covered it with plastic wrap (sprayed with Pam) and a light towel.  The second rise was supposed to take about 30 minutes as well.

After 30 minutes it wasn't as risen as I wanted but after 10 more minutes it didn't seem to get any bigger.  So I got the oven pre-heating.  You can see in the picture above how the dough sepearated where I put in extra chunks. 

I baked it at 360 for about 40 minutes, which got me to 190 internal temperature. 

Right out of the oven.  It doesn't look very brown but the crust was very crisp.

While it didn't rise as much as I expected I think I got a good texture.  It is very tasty and has the right texture.

I'll have to call this a success!