Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread (50%)

 

Soaker	Biga – quite sticky.  After knead for a while (supposed to be 1min but I think I kneaded it longer than that), it became very tacky, less sticky, but still has quite a bit of residue on the hands.
Cut soaker and biga into 12 pcs.	Mix.
Mix all together other ingredients.	After hand kneading for 4mins, dough is very soft and tacky. Like post-it, not much residue sticking to the hands.
Before bulk fermentation.	After 45mins on the counter, supposed to be 1 1/2 times.
Before.	After.

Before final proofing. After 40mins (much less than the 45-60mins the recipe asked for), slight indentation with finger poking, time to bake.

Use pizza stone and baking sheet steaming technique to bake. Bread has nice tall oven spring.  End result is soft tasty and satisfying.

Recipe source: Transitional Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread from Peter Reinhart’s Whole Grain Breads P.99

Notes:

• Flour:  Rogers white bread flour, Anita’s whole wheat fine grain flour
• First time making soaker and biga.  This is actually a very easy process and do not take up that much time.
• Biga is really quite sticky.  Did not put additional flour in.
• Both 1st and 2nd proofing used up much less time than the recipe.  I think the kitchen in summer time is really warm.
• Lovely bread.  Will definitely do it again.