I've spent about the last 10 days experimenting with making my own wholemeal bread for husband's sandwiches. It all came about because he got himself a new stand mixer with a hefty dough hook attachment. Started off with some leftover Allinson strong bread flour, which rather usefully had a recipe on the back, and Hovis sachet yeast for breadmakers or hand baking. Tasted nice but didn't rise as much as I'd hoped and was a bit solid, also a tad overdone. (Fan ovens are great for cooking evenly but you do have to knock the temp done a bit, my recipe said 230°c, I'm now using 200°c and for a bare half hour instead of 35 mins.) Very definitely edible though. Continued tinkering - tried the recipe on the back of the yeast sachet which said 500gms of flour instead of 650gms and less water, better but still didn't rise as much as it should. The other problem with the lower amount of flour was it made less dough which meant the dough hook just rolled it around the edge of the bowl instead of kneading it and I had to keep stopping it and shoving the dough back over the hook. It did seem better with slightly less water though.

So I did a bit of a net search for bread advice and discovered that you can add a bit of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Holland and Barrett sell it, the net assured me - not in my branch they don't, but they directed me to Healthy Pulses in Sidwell Street (in Exeter) who did have it, oddly I thought, under the counter (I guess because it could be used to dissolve heroin but I don't know). Tried a loaf with a pinch of vitamin C in it, not a huge amount of difference.

Anyhow, as the object of the exercise was really to save a bit of money I got back on the net to track down the most competitively priced wholemeal bread flour (at time of writing both Sainsburys and Tescos do a stoneground 1.5kg bag for 99p. Coop, Aldi, Lidl et al. are not on the price compare site I used) I had been using an organic one from Seasons in Well Street. In my research I found that Sainsburys do Allinsons dried active yeast at a lower price per gram than the sachet yeast so I got some of that as well. You have to reactivate this stuff by dissolving 1 teaspoon of sugar in 150mls of warm/hot water - they say 1 part boiling to 2 parts cold and then sprinkling a level tablespoon of it on top and whisking well (by hand - try it with an electric whisk and it goes f**king everywhere - I used a fork in the end) then you leave it for 10-15mins in a warm place until there's 2cm of froth on the top then you rewhisk it and add it to the mix. Today's loaf has just come out and it certainly looks bigger - it rose further when it was proving too. So, for the record, here's Flynn's current wholemeal bread recipe.

650gms (nearly one and a half pounds) strong wholemeal bread flour
2 tsp salt
large pinch ascorbic acid
tablespoon vegetable oil
150mls (5floz) warm/hot water
Further 270mls (9floz) warm/hot water
1 tsp sugar
1 level tbsp dried active yeast

Mix the flour, salt and ascorbic acid together in a bowl (the bowl of your mixer if you use one)
In another bowl dissolve the sugar in 150mls warm/hot water and sprinkle the yeast over the top, whisk with a fork and leave in a warm place for 10-15 mins until it has 2cm froth on the top.
Rewhisk the yeast mixture and add it to the flour mixture with the vegetable oil and a further 270mls of warm hot water.
Mix this all together by hand with a spoon at first and then use your hands to make an even dough
Knead the dough in a mixer with a dough hook for 5 mins OR knead by hand for 10 mins, you should end up with a ball of dough that is warm, damp and elastic.
Put it in an oiled 2lb (large) loaf tin, cover with a cloth and leave it somewhere warm to rise for at least half and hour (I do mine for an hour - it should double in size)
Put it in an oven at 200°c for half an hour - when it's cooked the bottom will sound hollow when tapped.