In the Kitchen - How do you know if your bread is done?

I would like to share one of my most recent struggles.  It is all about the darn bread.

I started with a good foolproof recipe for honey wheat bread.  After the first 2 loaves, I was able to produce a consistently good loaf of bread for my family.  There is nothing better than that first slice of warm bread after smelling it baking all day!  We loved it.

But then I learned that flour on the shelf was not as nutritious as it could be and have begun experimenting with soaking the flour before making the bread (I try not to waste and still have several pounds of commercially ground flour in the cupboard).  Soaking produced some really smooth delicious cornbread but I am having difficulties reproducing the perfect loaf of whole wheat bread!

Since the soaking, I have also experimented with grinding my own fresh wheat.  It is inexpensive to buy wheat berries at the store but there are red wheat berries and white wheat berries, the two most common.  I sprouted the wheat and dehydrated it again before grinding and tried to make some even better more nutritious wheat bread for us but that has also been problematic, as I seem to need a longer cooking time than my recipes indicate (and remember my oven temp is all "gummed up"). 

What I have been producing are loaves of undercooked bread.  Not too good.  The recipes always say "tap them and if they sound hollow they are done".  Apparently my ears are about as reliable as my oven because the bread sounds hollow to me but when I cut it, it is not done.  DARN!!

I now have several loaves of bread in the freezer that will be recycled into croutons or stuffing for the turkey at Thanksgiving.  No one will be the wiser.  It is still good bread.. just needs a little more time in the oven.  I even tried cutting into a loaf to cut a slice, only to find it wasn't done and then returned the loaf to the oven.  That didn't work either.

So back to the research!  Then I found out that you can test your bread by using a meat thermometer.  I purchased mine today for $1.29. 

If you insert the thermometer into the center of the loaf it should be a certain temperature inside or it is not done and needs a few more minutes in the oven. (here is the next challenge:  It is recommended you put in the thermometer from the bottom of the loaf - really??  Mine is in a loaf pan for Pete's sake.  Sometimes these instructions can make you feel like the dumbest person in the world.. how do you get to the bottom of the bread?)  So I will begin by inserting the thermometer into the very top of the bread for now and looking for the following readings:

• Right at 190 degrees for sweet breads
• Right about 200 degrees for white breads
• At least 205 - 210 degrees for whole grain or wheat breads.

Hallelujah!!  I think I can make bread NOW!!  If my new grain mill would only get here in the mail.  I won an ebay auction yesterday for a used Whisper Mill grain mill that will save a lot of time and effort in making all these new loaves of bread... now I could save even more time if I could just do it right!!