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My first attempt failed, but this second one was much better.

Thom Leonard's Country French

The first time I was baking six loaves (3 different recipes, 2 loaves each) on one day, and I wasn't quite with it (tired). I did not take care of the dough well enough, I suppose. It took way to long to ferment and rise, and as a result was over proofed. When I slashed it, it collapsed, and never quite recovered in the oven. It was still quite edible with some soup though! 

So, back to the drawing board. Second time around I made sure I had a good gluten window. This time around I also did a longer autolyse, and waited to add the salt until much later. I did three folds along the way during the bulk ferment. Finally, I made sure I shaped a good really tight boule. The effort paid off. I had a minor collapse during slashing, but probably more due to me trying to slash "assertively". It came back just fine in the oven!

Thom Leonard's Country French Crumb

The crumb was nice, and the crust incredible. The taste was very complex and very sweet. Only a hint of sour. I baked this as an almost 3 pound loaf, so I did use only about 55 minutes of baking time, rather than the 70 minutes suggested for the 4 pound version. Internal temperature was 210F. I did not have high-extraction flour. Last time I did an approximation by sifting coarse whole wheat flour, but the bread came out a lot darker than it should. This time I used a fine whole wheat mixed with regular bread flour (Giusto's Ultra Performance). To keep the color down I used 50% whole wheat and 50% white whole wheat (both KA). 

See my My Bread Adventures in pictures 

I was sent the password from Hades, I think!

Can anyone help me?  I am new to bread baking nad want to bake a successful whole wheat loaf without resorting to a mix with bread flour. I have not been very successful using Reinhart's whole wheat recipe in his book.  I began by following the recipe to the letter.  I have added gluten to the poolish and the dough and still get a lackluster loaf.  I use bulgar wheat as the soaker.  I have laso tried spent grain.  The dough barely rises to the lip of the pan and then drops some when it bakes.  The taste is acceptable.  Are my expectations too high?

After several busy weekends when there wasn't much time for bread baking, I had a nice leisurely weekend when I could experiment with baking some loaves from Daniel Leader's Local Breads. The two small loaves on the left are Meteils au Bleu (Little Bue Cheese Rye Loaves), a very mild and moist rye (made with a white starter) chock full of a regional blue cheese called bleu d'Auvergne. The volcanic looking boulder in the back is Pane Casareccio di Genzano that Zolablue and Bwraith both discussed a few weeks back, a very large open crumb pagnotta style bread. The seeded rye in the front is Chleba, Light Silesian Rye, and the boule on the right is Pain de Campagne, one of my favorite breads. A lovely weekend it was, baking my way through France, Italy and Poland.