This is my wholemeal sourdough loaf, using Neven Maguire’s sourdough bread recipe from his book “Home Economics for Life”.
Neven’s recipe calls for 150-175 ml of water but I increased this to 250 ml for this particular loaf as I was trying to get the most open crumb possible. This may not be the most open possible but it is certainly acceptable.
This loaf can be tough to slice, however, because it is so soft. The usual loaf, as per Neven’s recipe, has a denser crumb, less open, and easier to slice because it is more solid as a consequence of the denser crumb.
When the crumb is this open you can find your butter or honey dripping through the holes in the bread so I would not look for such an open crumb all the time. But it is good to change the recipe from time to time and experiment to see what impact changes of some of the variables have on the finished loaf.
