Bread Baking – How to Make Bread with LOTS of Seeds

There are some previous questions with good answers like this one, or this that go into much more detail than I'm about to.

You said your bread didn't rise with the first rise, if you don't have a first rise you can't go onto the next step. If your yeast was old, or the temperature was cold in your kitchen or you used cold water in the dough, or the yeast came in contact with salt then its action could have been slowed down drastically and it would take much longer to get a rise. I've had a first rise take up to 4 hours in the past because of these factors. The times given in recipes are just guidelines, you have to be result-driven. Active dry yeast also takes longer than quick yeast to activate. When using active dry instead of quick yeast you would get better results by mixing it with the water before mixing in. I'd recommend using quick yeast as it's milled into smaller grains and you can mix it directly into the flour.

Of course your yeast may have simply been dead, or killed by salt or heat. Get some good fresh yeast and store it in the fridge to keep it fresh long-term.

Also, using all whole wheat flour isn't going to produce anything like a baguette. Whole wheat flour is very heavy compared to white flour and will take longer to rise. A half and half mix would work better. I'd recommend sticking to the recipe first, then gradually modifying it over time until you get your desired result.

What kind of salt are you using?

In the presence of iodine, starch can turn a surprisingly purplish-black color. This phenomenon has be leveraged for many decades in medical examiners' offices, to help determine the contents of a last meal in a cadaver (pardon the unappetizing digression).

Iodine is an essential nutrient, vital for the proper functioning of our thyroid (read more about Iodine Deficiency) that has relatively few ways of entering our bodies through our diet other than through shellfish, meats, eggs, and some dairy products.

One way to combat the problems of iodine deficiency is its addition to our salt, which we consume in predictable quantities and never goes bad. Table salt contains up to 25mg/kg of iodine and that number has been on the rise since its safety and helpfulness have been demonstrated repeatedly. Sea salt contains some iodine, as it is naturally occurring in the ocean, but in a much smaller quantity.

Maybe when you were at the beach, your salt supply changed to sea salt or an uniodized version and and when you returned and used the regular Iodized Morton's or Iodized sea salt.