100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

This bread is a favorite of mine partly because it's a rich wonderfully flavorful bread, and partly because it breaks so many rules people just know to be true.

We're told you can't make a light bread with all whole-wheat flour, that you have to either add some bread flour or gluten to the dough. We don't do either. We just handle the dough well, and the bread rises. Beautifully. This bread is based on a recipe in Laurel Robertson's "The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book," "A Loaf For Learning". I have converted the recipe to be a sourdough recipe.

Laurel gives exhaustive instructions on how to make a whole wheat bread that will rise nicely. Her book has more than a recipe in it, it has 33 pages of the most clear, informative description of how to bake bread I have ever read. What follows is the Readers's Digest Condensed version. I recommend purchasing her book, and reading the full directions. You may safely assume that each step in the instructions below occupy several pages in the book.

The first step is to convert your starter to all whole wheat if ou don't maintain your starter on whole wheat. I do this so the final bread will be 100% whole wheat flour. I'm not a whole wheat fanatic, but for a sourdough bread to be made with 100% whole wheat flour, it has to be made with a starter that is fed on whole wheat. If you make a bread with a starter fed on white flour, the bread will probably turn out well, but the bread won't be a 100% whole wheat bread.

I have used "High Altitude Hungarian Stone Ground Style Whole Wheat Flour", Rocky Mountain Milling's organic whole-wheat flour, and flour I ground at home with either a KitchenAid GrainMill attachment or a GrainMaster WhisperMill to do this. So far, the home ground GrainMaster WhisperMill flour has been the pick of the litter, followed fairly closely by Rocky Mountain Milling's flour, but the High Altitude flour has the advantage of being available in grocery stores here. You can use any finely ground whole-wheat flour.

To convert my starter to whole wheat, I start by refreshing my regular starter until it is lively and active. Then mix 1 TBSP of the active starter, 1/4 cup water and 3/8 cup of whole wheat flour and whisk them together. Let it sit overnight. In the morning, add 1/4 cup of water and 3/8 cup of whole wheat flour, and mix it well. About 8 to 12 hours later, add another 1/2 cup of water and 3/4 cup of whole wheat flour. After another 8 to 12 hours, you should have somewhat more than a cup of active whole wheat flour that is ready to use.

Remember to save some of your whole wheat starter so you won't have to convert the starter again.

Here are the ingredients for a loaf of the bread:

1 cup active sourdough starter
3/4 cups water
2 1/8 cup finely ground whole-wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1.5 TBSP honey
2 TBSP oil

The original recipe could be made with yogurt by reducing the water used. If you decide to do this, reduce the amount of water by 1/3 cup , add 1/3 cup cold yogurt (plain, of course), and reduce the salt by 1/4 tsp. We didn't notice a lot of difference between the two versions.

Pour starter, into a mixing bowl. Add the water, the salt, honey, oil, and (optional) yogurt. Whisk together.

Add the flour a cup at a time and stir. Make sure the dough is well mixed, feeling it to see if the water has been incorporated through the dough. Yes, this means you should use your fingers to feel the dough, massage it, and look and feel for dry spots where flour has not been moistened. If you find such, mix the flour into the dough and get it moistened.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until it passes the windowpane test, probably 10 to 15 minutes. If you double the recipe, it will take twice as long. Having a scraper handy is a good thing, as you can scrape up the stuff that sticks to the board, so it can be incorporated back into the dough. About half way through the kneading, the dough will get a lot less sticky, even without adding much flour.

Try not to add too much flour. (I usually add about 1/2 cup per loaf in the kneading process.)

Form the dough into a ball, and then, holding the ball in two hands, tuck the surface of the ball into the bottom of the ball, which will cause the surface of the ball to stretch and form a gluten cloak on the outside of the ball of dough. Don't stretch the dough so much that you tear the dough.

Put a bit of oil in the bottom of a bowl, put the smooth side of the dough onto the oil. Turn the bread so it's lightly coated with oil. Cover the bowl, and let the dough rise about 1 1/2 hours in a covered place.

When the dough has doubled in size, gently deflate the dough by pressing your fist into the ball, then fold over the sides of the ball to form it into a new ball, and put back into the mixing bowl. Again, let the dough rise covered in a warm place until doubled, which will about 1/2 as long the first rise.

Again, gently deflate the bread, and form a loaf, and put the loaf into a greased 4 x 8" bread pan. (I use "Baker's Joy" to grease my loaf pans.)

Put the loaf aside to rise, which should be a bit faster than the second rise. Don't let it over-rise!

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Slash the bread with a single slash down the center of the loaf. Pop the bread into the oven. After 1/2 an hour, look at it. If the loaf is quite brown, reduce the temperature to 325 F. If the bread is pale or pinkish, raise the temperature to 375 F. You may want to use those temperatures for your next loaf. If you are at high altitudes, or you use glass bread pans, you may need to adjust the temperature further (see "Baking at altitudes."

Let it continue baking another 15 minutes. Pull the bread out and check it for doneness. I prefer to pop the loaf out of the pan and stick a quick reading dial thermometer into the bottom of the loaf. I think it's done when it reaches 190 F inside. However, at altitudes less than 5,280 feet, I'd probably shoot for 195 or even 200 F. (At 7,700 feet, where I live, the boiling point is 198 F, so trying for more than 200 F is just gonna burn the bread.)

Let it cool, slice and enjoy! I've made about 15 loaves of this bread as I write this and all are light, open grained, and delightful. I'd never have believed I could make a light whole wheat bread if I hadn't seen it!