It has been quite a while since I have written about baking with whole wheat flour. Previous efforts involved using ultra-fine whole wheat flour, which has smaller bran particles (
https://archive.md/1mqPk). This would supposedly prevent cutting gluten strands, creating a better result (
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/what-makes-whole-grain-bread-so-hard-to-bake-63878/). There was definitely some improvement, but overall, there was still too much interference.
The last strategy that I tried involving gradually adding water to the flour. This was so that the dough would initially be not sticky, so it would be easier to knead. This strategy seemed to work, but took a lot of physical force, which I didn't have too much time to fully test until now.
Smaller bran particles reduce interference, but the best strategy is to create a very dense dough. Even ultra-fine whole wheat flour is less dense than regular flour, so naturally, it would help if the particles were much closer to each other to create tighter bonds. Additionally, the bran particles would be more restricted in movement.
To test this idea out, I made New York-Style Bagels (
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/easy-new-york-style-bagel-recipe/). The results seem to be very promising. There was no bitter smell or taste, and the dough had a good rise. The bagels were very chewy like most bagels, indicating strong gluten development. It seems that the only downside is that much more physical effort was required to knead the dough, but that proved to be very worthwhile.
I even had to spread the dough out so it could mix with the flour more quickly. It was nice seeing the dough double in size though!
The bagels are boiled for two minutes on each side to absorb more moisture. They float towards the top.
There is an additional challenge at this point: Getting regular hydration whole wheat dough to be more like dense dough in this respect.
