Over the last few weeks I've tried two other 100% whole wheat recipes and made dense (but tasty) bricks. Finally got one today worth sharing with my family! It needs work, but at least I found a recipe that's worth investing the time into perfecting.

Recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/classic-100-whole-wheat-bread-recipe

Only thing I did different was being half-asleep at 6am when I got it started and totally missed the fact that on the yeast it says to mix with some of the water first. I chucked it all in together and mixed it, then went back to bed for 30 minutes.