Unless you are familiar with pre-doughs: Ferments, Bigas, Poolishs', Sours, and Soakers, these are several terms that you will need to know before the recipes on this site make much sense to you. For the classic home baker, these concepts are foreign. But when working with whole grains I have found them invaluable. You may find that you rebel, at first, before realizing, appreciating, and finally embracing the techniques that are shared here.
I will say it over and over on this web site. If you are going to do something as special as cooking with whole grains you will find that they require some special techniques. We have fallen prey to the idea that you need vital wheat gluten and dough enhancers to be successful at whole wheat bread. Not so. If you start with good grain all of the bread making properties are already there, you only need to develop them.
The following list of terms will help clarify the recipes and prevent frustration.
Biga- The biga (Bee-ga) is a prefermented dough made of flour, water, and a little commercial yeast, traditionally two parts flour to one part water. The bigas on this site are slightly more stiff to make the final doughs a little easier to work with. The biga is mixed in advance and allowed to slowly ferment in a cool enviornment, your refrigerator, for eight to twelve hours. Once the biga has fermented it will give your final dough incredible rising power.
Soaker - Another pre-dough where the flour is allowed to soak and hydrate for eight to twelve hours. The benefits of the soaker are many.
#1 The complex carbohydrates in the flour are allowed to break down into starches (sugars) and are released into the pre-dough creating a richer flavor and enhancing the final loaf.
#2 The bran when left unsoaked actually cuts at the gluten chains creating a loaf of bread that is not as light and fluffy. Once the bran is soaked it softens no longer creating a problem. The gluten chains lengthen as the dough is kneaded making a more extensible loaf of bread.
#3 The gluten has hours to develop as the proteins gliadin and glutenin race around in the wet dough and stick to each other forming gluten chains which in turn serves the bread in a multitude of ways.