100% Wholemeal Bread

I have never liked white bread and I find it amazing that the majority of bread sold in the UK is plastic wrapped white sliced bread. I find it bland and boring, both in taste and texture. I prefer wholemeal bread but even these are pretty bland when bought as a plastic wrapped loaf from the supermarket. Unfortunately all my attempts at making 100% wholemeal bread have resulted in bricks. As I have developed my bread making skills I have increased the proportion of wholemeal flour from 50% to about 70 or 80% now (the rest being strong white bread flour). I am pleased to say that I have finally managed to make a very good 100% wholemeal loaf with a nice soft crumb that isn't at all heavy.

Excellent oven spring

I have to admit that the fantastic oven spring in the photo is actually only on one side making the loaf slightly lopsided. However the taste and texture are great and it certainly isn't heavy. Next time I will slash the top with a razor blade before baking for a more even rise in the oven.
So what is the secret? As reported on my previous post I am now using a Kenwood Chef stand mixer for kneading and am being very careful not to overproof.

700g Waitrose Organic Stoneground Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour
5g Doves Farm Quick Yeast
11g light brown sugar
10g sea salt (coarse but ground in a pestle and mortar)
11g unsalted butter
455g water (temperature calculated for a DDT of 27C)

With a Desired Dough Temperature (DDT) of 27C I subtracted 3C for the heat generated by the mixer to get 24C. With a room temperature of 21C this gave a water temperature of 27C (21 + 27 = 2 * 24).
I first used the K beater to mix the dry ingredients and then used it to rub in the butter. Then I switched to the dough hook and slowly added the warm water. Once the dough was formed into a ball on the hook I scraped the dough off the hook and removed the bowl from the mixer. I put it into a large plastic bag for about 20 minutes to autolyse. Strictly speaking this should be done before adding the yeast and salt but I just combine everything for ease.
The next step is to return the bowl to the mixer and knead with the dough hook for 10 minutes at slow speed. Every now and again I increased the speed a bit for a few seconds or stopped the mixer and used a spatula to scrape the dough from the hook. I'm not sure this is necessary but it isn't always obvious that any kneading is actually happening.
After kneading I put the dough into an oiled plastic food storage box, put on the lid and put it into the fridge until the next evening (about 20 hours).
I took the box out of the fridge for about an hour and then shaped it for a greased and floured large 2lb loaf tin, covered with a shower cap and left it to rise.

This is after about 40 minutes of final proof

Just before going in the oven

After about 2 or 3 hours it was ready for the oven. I sprayed the top of the loaf with water and sprinkled with rye flour.

I preheated the oven to 260C (non fan setting) but turned it down to 240C as soon as the loaf went in. After 10 minutes I lowered the oven to 220C for another 25 minutes.

Fresh from the oven showing the nice oven spring