Getting whole Wheat bread to rise?

I'll be interested in seeing what others recommend.  It sounds like a really good bread, but I'd nuke with ten times that much yeast and bail on the no-knead approach.  

Maybe do an overnight sponge just some of the flour and a little bit of yeast, then combine that with the rest of the ingredients and a couple of teaspoons of yeast?  I think that is what I'd try, but, again, I'll be interested to see if anyone else has had luck with a low yeast, no-knead recipe with that much mass to it.

That's a whole lot of seed, oats, and fruit you're mixing in with only a little over 3 cups of flour.  That might possibly hinder a good rise on your bread.

Have you fermented this dough at room temperature for 18 hours? if so, it might be over fermented by then (dough would have lost vigor, and won't rise in the oven). Whole wheat containing doughs ferment faster than an all white dough, all things equal.

 Try adding another 1/2 tsp of dried yeast and once you mix it, put it in the refrigerator. within the next 24-48 hours you can bake it successfully, given that you remove it from the fridge and let it rest at room temperature for an hour or two to remove the chill. You can then start dividing, and shaping.

Lastly, bread with fruits, and nuts have to be kneaded well at the beginning before the nuts, fruits are added. dried fruits are better soaked, to prevent them robbing the dough of its moisture.

-Khalid

18 h rise at room temp. is tooooo long (120min with S&F after 60 min should be fine).

Mirko

What was the purpose of the long,slow rise with the small yeast amount? Flavor? Ease of handling the schedule? KNowing that would also help with more pertinent suggestions being made.

I have made a fruited whole wheat nut bread every week for the last few years. The trick is to develop the supporting network very well either through kneading or through a S&F method. Hydration is also very important-WW and thirsty ingredients need more liquid. Using a preferment would improve the flavor of the bread a lot.

I think you need some ingredient tweaking and some technique tweaking to develop a delicious loaf.I haven't made your recipe but in my opinion, just looking at the ingredients:

1. Your bread will be chewy to the point of rubbery with that level of gluten forming ingredients. I would not add the 2 tbsp of gluten flour. Red whole wheat and good AP flour both have adequate gluten formation capability.

2. If you want  more of a no knead technique (I don't think this loaf is capable of being no knead if you want any bread-like crumb), I think you have to do at least 3-5 stretch and folds. Whole wheat needs to be well hydrated and doing S&F exposes more particulate to water for eventual absorption. Any dough needs well developed gluten to support a high level of fruit and seeds but esp if it has WW in it.

3. It needs more hydration. The dough needs to start out definitely sticky. The correct amount of liquid is that the dough starts out definitely sticky and would be messy to handmix but after sitting 1-24 hours, it becomes tacky like post it note -touch brings no dough adhering to the finger.

4.The yeast needs to be increased to at least 1 tsp and poss a little more.Osmotolerant yeast may work a bit better given the sugarienss of the fruit but try first with what you have on hand. The dough also needs to be chilled if you want it to sit for the length of time you are talking. The 1/2 tsp yeast is living out its life cycle and simply dying off. There are limits to trying to develop flavor using small amounts of yeast. Mebake is absolutely right. Either a much shorter room temp rest or a longer COLDER retard.

5. Flax seeds-try adding ground flax seeds-you will more easily digest and extract the nutrients you are going for and also it will provide some gel to contribute to the softness of the crumb. This may also increase the need for more liquid as ground flax is a thirsty ingredient.

6. Soak any dried fruit and the oats before adding. Use the soaking water as part of the liquid in the loaf or not-your choice. This will prevent the dried ingredients from robbing the crumb of moisture as it bakes and afterwards so the bread is less likely to become crumbly.

7.Develop a S&F method. I believe the method described in "Tartine" would work very well for this. Barbara Krauss recently did a demo video that is on TheFreshLoaf.She is making the all white but it would actually work very well for this bread.

8. I would consider reducing the amount of dried fruit a bit. You have about 4 1/2 c additives (fruit and seeds) and 4 1/4 c flour! Suggestion-1/4 c sunflower seeds,1/4 c oatmeal,1/4-1/2 c (at most) dried fruit. Keep the flax at 1/4 c flax meal(ground seeds) and soak all the dried fruit and oatmeal before adding.

I add cardamom and coriander to my bread and honey as I don't care for molasses. The toast perfumes the air every morning. Keep going-you have a good basis but need to refine  a bit both technique and ingredients. Failures can be delicious,too!

My apologies on using the abbreviation (S&F).

After watching the video below, read my reply again and see if "stretch and fold" makes more sense with what I said. It probably did not make much sense thinking "soak and ferment"

Take a look at the videos on this site and definitely review the Barbara Krauss video

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/33253/home-video

Stretch and fold may open up many new ideas for you!

I assumed this recipe was for 1 loaf. I always think about  3 c flour per 1 loaf so I'm not surprised it made 2 small loaves.

At some point you may want to start weighing ingredients as it helps to make a more consistent product and it is easier to make a bigger amount of dough or even a lesser amount without losing the characterisitcs. But that may be another topic and another learning curve (tho not a hard one) 

They look very nice! How did they taste?