Making (whole meal) bread by hand

I have some bread flour and yeast in the house but find all wholemeal makes the bread to dense. I
I use half and half, wholemeal and white.

I had some fresh yeast that I'd kept in the freezer. When I tried to make some bread that yeast didn't seem to be working, so I added a packet of dried to the mix. The bread was practically climbing out of the bowl with the two lots obviously working, but it made good loaves.

So I'd say stick 2 packets in and see what happens! Better too light than wasting the flour making bricks!

I agree with Ruby that half and half is good if you like a lighter loaf. I have made it with three quarters wholemeal but it was verging on being too heavy. I haven’t made bread for years as we have an excellent local bread shop. I used to love kneading bread - perhaps I may buy some yeast!

(I used to know a local farmer lady. A lovely lady who made excellent cakes and bread. She once told me that kneading bread was a really good way of getting your hands clean!!

Thanks for your replies. I particularly wanted to use just whole meal flour. I think I’ll try 2 sachets. I’ll let you how it goes!

Add some Vitamin C to the mix. This will help prevent it being too dense.

I use a 7g sachet per 500g of flour, but find the bread too heavy, so usually use 300g white to 200g of wholemeal, adding 50g melted butter to the mix before the water. Good luck!

Thanks for your comments. I didn’t want to add white flour - I don’t mind a quite dense loaf. I made just one loaf in the end, using 1x7g sachet of quick yeast. I’ll post a pic when it’s cooked!

Looks good!

Thanks mumofmadbots - it’s in the oven now

bots? boys!

Lisagran, if you like a dense loaf, I can recommend the soda bread that I tried yesterday using a seeded wholemeal flour. I only made half the quantity otherwise I would have eaten the lot!

When using dried yeast I add one 7gm sachet to 500gm flour.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/feb/05/how-to-bake-perfect-soda-bread

I love soda bread Shysal - thanks for the reminder. I shall make that later in the week
Now trying not to eat a lot of my whole meal loaf, which turned out pretty well!

Ooh Lisagran - I’m just in time with my Welsh butter for the slathering on - two slices please - do we have to share with anyone else....

Ooh Welsh butter sounds just the ticket! I’ll have to imagine that though, as I’m currently eating no fats . It’s actually amazingly tasty just as it is.

It looks so good, Lisagran, that I can almost smell it!

I use 7g of yeast to 500g of flour. Usually mix some white flour with wholemeal, but you just need to remember that wholemeal might need extra kneading. it's gluten takes a bit longer to develop.

One of my favourite topics!
I used to make 100% wholemeal bread for years by hand. Can't remember how much yeast.
Then husband bought a robot with a dough hook.
Now I only use 1kg flour, mostly wholemeal, a little white, because that's all the machine can cope with.
For that amount of flour I use 2 flat tbsp of Allinson's dried yeast. A little sugar added to the warm water.
Various other ingredients. I made some on Sunday.
I do find it tiring now though. If I start at 2pm, by the time the small loaves or rolls are cooled, bagged and in the freezer it's 6 or 7pm.

ps @ MrsjamJam - when using all farine complete I tried to lighten it by adding extra gluten, from the health shop. . Which did help a bit to make the dough more stretchy, and the bread less solid.
This was in France, where the wheat flour is very low in gluten.
In the UK I think the bread flour is mostly from Canada, much higher gluten.