Some tips on using whole grains

I recently went to this 2 day work shop on whole grains whole grain workshop

There was some nice lectures and demos and some great bread baking.

If I was to boil down much of the information into a few key tips, it would be these: 

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Tip #1: All Whole wheat's are not created equal. At WSU alone they breed 40,000 , yes that's 40 , 000 varieties of wheat.  you need to try different ones from hard winter wheat to spring wheat's.
Tip #2.  Fresh milled flour is really better. Its like comparing a cup of fresh ground coffee with a cup made canned ground coffee.
Tip #3. Starters / Levains really like to be fed whole grains - If you want your starter to really perform feed it whole wheat or rye.
Tip #4. Whole wheat really likes water - you can really push the envelope here with hydration's. The breads in these pictures are 90--100 % hydration
Tip #5. White Whole wheat is just as nutritious as regular whole wheat - it is just a white spring wheat - you can also get wheat's in different colors too, such as -blue, black, etc...
Tip # 6.  Your grandmothers Sourdough starter is no more - People have notions of special starters from the family for years and from special places - like a Russian starter. Once a yeast culture is in a new location it adapts and changes to the new environment and the types of flours it IE being fed. so it you bring a starter back from Russia, it will not longer be that same starter after several feedings with your flour in your kitchen. so we have to get over this romantic notion about starters.

Tip # 7  Sifting can help with flours that are too coarsely milled.  the large chunks of bran can interfere with gluten development. You can always add back in sifted bran later if you want.

Tip #8  Finally Re Pizza - Sorry but Whole wheat pizza just does not cut it .  I still believe you can add whole grain to pizza dough but I recommend keeping it at 10%. I have not tried the softer while whole wheat however, maybe you can push up the % with that. 

Liberal use of flour on the linen lined baskets is a must 

100% hydrated whole wheat from local fresh milled grain