Homemade Wheat Bread

We've been baking our own bread since we purchased this bread maker last summer. The $5 per loaf prices in Alaska were KILLING us. So, now we typically make a new loaf about every other day, which keeps Jared fed with PB & J to his heart's delight.

I picked up some whole wheat from the church cannery the other day (50 pounds for about $12! Wow!), and went home to grind it in the new dry Vitamix Container that Jared's parent's got us for Christmas (THANK YOU!). The first attempt to bake bread with the freshly ground grain was NOT GOOD. Okay, it was BAD. It was about half the size of a normal loaf! I guess the freshly ground grain is much different than the bags of supposedly "whole wheat" flour you get from the store. But I was determined to make it work!

So, I searched online for tricks to make bread fluffier, and tried a few of them.

And, I'll let you decide if it worked...

Oops!

So, I've taken the tips I read, cut down the size of the recipe, and made a smaller loaf that didn't bake into the top of my bread maker lid . I still haven't completely perfected the recipe, because sometimes the bread is nearly FLAWLESS, and sometimes it is not. Here is my current bread machine recipe for a 2 lb loaf of whole wheat bread that is FLUFFY:

1 1/8 cup water
3 T oil
1 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cups wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
1/4 cup gluten flour
2 1/2 tsp yeast
2 T lemon juice

I have found that baking it under the "Basic" Bread mode (as opposed to "wheat") works better for my bread maker. The gluten flour seems to be the real trick to getting fluffy bread, and I've actually forgotten the lemon juice the last few times I've made it. HOWEVER...it has been thicker, lately...so perhaps adding lemon juice to make your bread fluffy isn't just an old wive's tale?

Are you still buying your bread from the store? You STILL don't own a bread maker? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!! :)