After trying Zoji's recipes without getting what I wanted, I'm using the homemade cycle so I can adjust the cycle times as I go - water first, then flour (4-5 kinds of very heavy whole grains) then I mix it together myself to get it good and moist, which I've read is key. Then I add the rest of the ingredients, including extra VWG and yeast and dough conditioner (and sometimes it rises way too much - it's a learning curve that's more than 2 years long already ;-).

Rest 30 min - I never knew why it had to "rest" until I learned what it's really doing is autolysing (?), soaking up moisture, which is why I mix it first myself, and found it helped a lot.

Knead 30 min.

Then I cover the dough with plastic wrap and put the pan in the fridge for 90 min. first rise (slows down the yeast so it doesn't exhaust itself for the 2nd and 3rd rises - I saw that online so it must be true ;-) -- second rise in the machine up to 2 hrs (I cut it short if it's rising too much); after second punch down I take it out and shape it, then put it into a regular loaf pan (no holes, no teflon), put the loaf pan in the machine, it rests perfectly on the supports for the machine pan; third rise up to 2 hrs (but I check it and cancel if it's going all Goodyear blimp on me); then bake 1-1/2 hrs.

My goal, which seems distant, is something like Dave's Killer Multigrain bread, which I buy every once in a great while to remind myself what I'm shooting for. So far my bread is pretty good, usually too big for a toaster, but my aim is still way off.

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