homemade bread won't toast

It's probably the higher water content of the bread compared to your baseline bread. Just takes time to dry out the surface enough to toast it. Until enough water evaporates, the temp of the bread surface won't be beyond boiling point.

Is there much sugar in the bread. No sugar no browning a little sugar a long time to brown.

Posted by chefedb 

Sorry Ed.  Not true.  Not true at all.  Basic French bread, made with flour, water, yeas and salt only, toasts to brown quickly.  The problem with OP's bread, almost certainly, is that it's too wet.

BDL

I don't see a reason to cut back the water necessarily. Just plan to toast it longer IMHO.

If your "oz" measures are all by volume and not weight, you can cut back on the water considerably.  30oz of solids (flour and cereal) should need less than than 16oz of water and you're using 20oz.  I'd start with 16 oz, and if the dough is too dry too incorporate all the solids after a few minutes of kneading, you can add more water then.  My guess is that it will still be on the slack (wet) side.   

On the other hand, if you're weighing your flours and cereal, you're working at a roughly 66% hydration, which should mean a fairly stiff dough.  But your problem sure sounds like too wet -- and perhaps a bit underdone, as well.

You can also (and I think you probably should) bake the loaf a little longer -- perhaps at a slightly lower temp; but I'm not really familiar with tweaking a bread machine. 

BDL

Besides the wetness, which certainly prevents toasting, my guess, completely intuitive, is that there are too many grains and too little flour.  The grains, when soaked, maintain their humidity.  They also make the bread fall apart, and probably cut the gluten strands when you knead. What if you used broken grains, like tabouleh type grains, so they blend in better (for the crumbling) and just grind more of them into flour (or use whole grain flour for part of the grains). 

McDonalds Corp as well as other Burger joints increase the sugar in their buns so that they brown faster and can pudh out more customers at a time.

After soaking the grains have you tried pouring off any excess water?  Or giving it a squeeze to express some extra moisture content?  Also, if the regular toaster isn't cutting it, have you tried toasting your bread under the broiler in your oven?  It might work better with a moister bread like yours.

G-man, i think you have to get used to the hand and touch method of bread making - that is, to adapt the recipe as you go along depending on the way it feels. 

If the dough is too wet-feeling, then add flour.  The measures don;t tell you everything.  Grains can be of different sizes, and will absorb water differently.  Apparently you noticed there is extra water in the grain - when you soak a grain it is not a matter of exact measures but "enough" water - the right amount to soften that particular grain, without any excess.  If there is excess, drain it off.   Flours also vary in humidity, and other factors (amount of gluten, etc, depending on the growing temperature, origin, how long the grains dried before grinding, or i don;t know what. )

So adapt the recipe, adding flour, water, whatever is necessary, so the dough is of the right consistency - which means not tacky.  . 

I'm no expert except in the fact that i make a lot of bread at home, but i would say that the jagged edges of broken grains are not going to cut more than whole grains because the soaking will soften the edges, no? 

The problem is any object kneaded in can cut the gluten, even raisins.  I really don't think adding gluten will change that since it's not that there is no gluten but that it's broken.  (If that's what the problem really is)

Sugar will make it brown because the sugar will burn more easily, but it will not necessarily "toast" - since toast is different not only in the color but in the texture, from regular bread.  The sugar on creme caramel also browns, but the cream remains wet!

I also have some questions about internal temperature.  The "internal temperature" of water may be very hot BUT IT IS STILL WET. 

bread is done when it's cooked not when it's hot, it;s not a piece of meat.  (I know anathema will be rained upon me for saying this, but i can;t see temperature telling anything about a wet bread dough being cooked).  Buy some bamboo kebab skewers (like long toothpicks) and when the bread has reached the time it;s supposed to cook, tap it with your fingers - it should sound hollow.  Then insert the skewer into the middle of the dough.  If it comes out wet at all, you have to cook it more, it doesn't matter what the temperature is.  You may need to cook it at a lower temperature for longer to get the inside cooked, but the whole thing might be made easier if you just add some flour and use less water. 

Ok, sorry, G-man, I thought you might be too tied to a recipe. 

I still think that the heat doesn't mean the bread is "cooked" in the sense of being ready to eat.  If it's very wet, it might be hot but not "cooked" as bread should be. But maybe others would say differently.   If i'm not mistaken, part of thecooking process is that the bread dough dries.