100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Introduction

This recipe is streamlined so that anyone starting out in bread baking will have a reasonable level of success. 

While there are some tools preferred, as noted in recipe and discussed further below,  easily available alternatives  are provided.

Start with what you have.

Try out the recipe.

Once you master the basics, then invest in a few tools.

You will soon be wondering where good bread has been all your life.

It could be life changing…

Simple and Nutritious

This whole wheat loaf recipe only includes whole wheat flour, water, salt and wild yeast.  ( Instructions are to oil the loaf pan but you can line the pan with parchment paper instead if you prefer. )

It is what is called a “lean” dough recipe.

Most traditional European daily breads start out with a lean dough.

There are no eggs, oil, honey or molasses as typically found in many contemporary whole wheat recipes yet the resulting bread still is tender and has a certain sweetness.

As the proponents of a whole food plant based diet often argue, whole foods naturally contain healthy ratios of carbohydrates, fats and protein.

The wheat germ in fresh home milled flour contains volatile oils that give bread a wonderful mouth feel, flavor and aroma.

The long fermentation time in the recipe allows for the sourdough culture to break down the starches into more easily digested simple sugars.

The same long fermentation allows for the water to fully hydrate the bran and for the phytic acid anti-nutrient found in wheat to be broken down so that the full range of minerals in the bran can be absorbed during digestion.

This lean dough recipe does not cut corners on flavor and delivers on awesome nutrition.

Why a Loaf Pan Bread?

There’s no way around it, true whole wheat bread is denser than white bread. 

The bran absorbs more water and also cuts through the gluten network, generating a heavier bread with smaller holes.

If you see free form whole wheat loaves, they usually are not as fully risen as a white loaf equivalent.

That is normal. 

If you look at European breads, especially German whole wheat and rye breads, you will see that many are made in loaf pans. 

That is because a loaf pan will help structure the bread and give it more height.

Therefore, why fight it? 

If whole wheat bread performs better in a loaf pan, so be it. 

In my book, the better flavor and nutrition more than make up for the reduction in height.

In addition, the free form loaves typically are aiming for a more open crumb (larger holes) which is not the case with a loaf pan bread. 

The advantage of smaller holes are that condiments are less likely to leak through.

This bread is a great option for open faced sandwiches.

Baker’s Percentage

Baker’s percentage will provide you with the ratio of ingredients relative to the weight of flour.

This recipe is provided in grams because it will more easily allow you to scale the recipe up or down as needed.

For example, if you use 1000 grams ( 1 Kilogram ) of flour and 750 grams of water, the baker’s percentage of water is 75%. 

This recipe is considered to use a rather wet dough because the baker’s percentage is 75%.

A wet dough will more easily allow the gluten strands to align on their own during fermentation to produce a strong gluten network.

The Sourdough Starter

This recipe assumes that  you already have a sourdough starter.

Nowadays, sourdough has become quite popular and it is likely that if you ask around, you can find a friend to share some with you.

If not, it can be purchased for a few dollars online.  

Different sourdoughs have different flavor profiles and it can be fun experimenting.

Last year, I purchased a mild French sourdough on Etsy sold by Sarver Farms which is my current favorite.

If you prefer to make your own, there are plenty of online resources to guide you through the process including this fairly easy one.

But I have a confession to make. 

I have never made my own sourdough starter. 

It just never made sense to me. 

Most starter recipes I found involved discarding large amounts of flour. 

I found wasting precious flour offensive.

Luckily, several years ago, a vendor at my farmer’s market was reselling some spare starter with the distinction of being descended from a region in Italy.

A few dollars to get an ancient starter? 

That felt like a bargain to me and I was sold!

Little did I know that this was the beginning of a long, beautiful, intricate journey with sourdough. 

A sourdough starter that has been refreshed for 12 or more hours gives off an incredible, complex, fermented aroma that is among the most satisfying I have ever experienced.

Besides the flavor, what I love about sourdough is the convenience. 

If you want to take a break from feeding the starter, it can easily stay for several months in the back of the refrigerator and survive. 

If you want to take a longer break, you can dehydrate the starter or freeze it. 

No need to bother with less flavorful store bought yeast.

Whole Wheat

Do seek out freshly milled whole wheat flour. 

Many of the whole wheat vendors I listed in my post on wheat berries also sell freshly milled whole wheat flour.

Try some small quantities out before investing in a mill and wheat berries.

Salt

I typically use Himalayan sea salt in my bread recipes but any non iodized salt will work – from Kosher salt to standard white sea salt.

You should avoid iodine and any other additives in the salt as they are likely to give the sourdough an “off” flavor.

Water

Filtered or spring water is best used in this recipe.

The chlorine in the tap water could give the sourdough bread an off flavor at best, destroy the sourdough cultures at worse.

If you don’t have filtered water, than you can use tap water that you have let sit on the counter 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate.

Stretch and Fold

Gently stretching and folding the dough multiple times during the bulk fermentation stage helps to strengthen the gluten network which is critical to trapping the gas bubbles in bread.

As Jim Lahey showed us with his viral no knead bread recipe, given enough time, the gluten strands in a wet dough will align on their own to form a strong gluten network and produce a well risen loaf.

The current recipe uses a wet dough and takes advantage of both the stretch and fold and the long cold fermentation time to get the gluten strands to align.

The stretch and fold method is a substitute for hand or machine kneading. 

It is very forgiving. 

The current recipe calls for stretching and folding every hour. 

But if you are busy and cannot do it every hour on the hour, not to worry. 

Just aim to have done a total of 4 cycles of stretch and fold within the four hour  period.

Cold Versus Hot Oven

This recipe starts with a cold oven. 

Some recipes recommend starting with a hot oven to get the best oven spring.

The reason I start with a cold oven is that I have found the sourdough yeast will have a little more time to ferment before the bread sets when using a cold oven. 

Since this recipe does not keep the bread out at room temperature for too long, there is less risk of over fermenting and this last boost of fermentation seems to work well in this case.

Equipment Tips

As stated earlier, start with what you have.

Below are some points to consider regarding equipment, key terms and tips.

Poor Man’s Dutch Oven

What is a Poor Man’s Dutch Oven?

Glad you asked. 

Until this year, I had not idea there was such a term even though I was using the technique for several years already.

It was apparently made popular by a Steve Gamelin on his YouTube channel and through his book.

A Poor Man’s Dutch oven consists of two loaf pans with rims.

The bread dough is inserted into one loaf pan and the other loaf pan is placed on top as a cover to contain moisture that evaporates from bread when baking. 

If the loaf pans are lightweight, then binder clips are attached to each rim to tighten the seal.

I started out with very low cost loaf steel pans from Walmart.

While I do have other loaf pans, I find that the Walmart ones work just fine.

I like to stick to my simple steel pans because I usually bake 3 loaves at a time. 

Buying six pans was not a big investment and it allows me to use my oven efficiently.

Scale

While you can start out baking bread with common items you already have in your kitchen, a scale is really recommended to start making consistently well risen sourdough bread.

It need not be expensive.

Small digital scales are available from Amazon or Walmart starting at under $10.

Baking has more in common with chemistry than cooking.

Precision in quantities helps tremendously.

Danish dough whisk

If you continue bread baking for a while, a Danish dough whisk is worth considering.

It makes mixing wet dough easy and thorough.

That being said, a standard size fork or spoon can be substituted, especially in the beginning when you are just starting out.

A couple of good options are:

Dough Scraper

I got my first dough scraper as a bonus when I purchased my bench scraper a few years back.

It has become one of my favorite tools for Stretch and Fold as well as for cutting dough.

Thermometer

A digital food thermometer is helpful in bread baking, especially in the beginning, to make sure your bread is not under cooked.

Bread Knife

Crusty bread requires a good knife to cut well defined slices.

I purchased mine on Amazon 5 years ago and have been very happy with it.

One word of caution – always be careful when cutting anything with this knife – the blade is VERY sharp – don’t ask me how I know.

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