Reach for this whole wheat sourdough bread recipe to create a soft and delicious bread loaf that you’ll make time after time! Below you will find detailed instructions and tips for baking the perfect artisan loaf of whole wheat bread with a soft crumb, good rise, and crisp delicious crust!
Whole wheat sourdough bread often has a bad reputation for being dense and heavy, but that doesn’t have to be the case. When I first bought my grain mill years ago, I wanted to come up with a bread that my family would love and used only fresh milled whole wheat flour. What I discovered is that the key to soft, whole grain bread is time and plenty of water. Conveniently, this is also true of a good sourdough bread! Now we love using this whole wheat loaf for sandwiches or to pair with a warm bowl of soup. It’s versatile and flavorful and a great way to begin or expand your sourdough bread journey.
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Why You’ll Love This Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread Recipe
It’s So Good For You
Whether you’re using freshly milled flour or purchased whole wheat flour, this recipe is full of healthy whole grains. Furthermore, using a wild yeast starter breaks down the grains in your bread making them easier for your belly to digest and allowing your body to absorb more nutrients.
Minimal Hands-on time
It takes a day or two to finish a loaf of sourdough bread but the amount of hands-on time is very little. I designed this recipe to work around my life which means long stretches of time when the dough is sitting in a bowl minding its own business. No matter what your schedule looks like, you have time to make great bread!
Simple Ingredients
This recipe calls for four simple ingredients: Sourdough starter, water, salt, and whole grain flour. I’m always amazed by how these basic and economical ingredients can create something so filling, nutrient dense, and delicious.
Flavorful
Most of the flavor and nutrients in a grain of wheat is found in the part called the “germ” which is actually sifted out of white flour. When we bake with whole wheat flour, we end up with a bread that has a much more complex and deeper flavor. Add to this the subtle tang of a bread leavened with wild yeast, and you have something truly special!
Baking with a Sourdough Starter
If you are new to baking with a sourdough starter, you may be surprised. It takes a significant amount of time to make a loaf of bread. My advice is to embrace this, lean on it. While at first it can test your patience, eventually you’ll grow to love how much flexibility this gives you.
You’ll want to make sure your starter is nice and active before making your bread. About 12 hours before you want to bake bread, feed your starter with equal parts water and flour. For example: 100 grams flour and 100 grams water). The final consistency should be similar to pancake batter. Make sure there are no dry clumps of flour. If you mix it together and it seems thin, just add a bit more flour. Too thick, add a bit more water. When feeding your starter, make sure you double the volume. This ensures the natural yeast has enough food to sustain it for 12 hours.
Tips for feeding your Starter
- Always make sure your starter is kept in a container large enough to allow it to quadruple in size. When you feed it, you will double the volume. Over the next 8-12 hours, it will double again in size. I keep my starter in a quart sized, wide mouth mason jar.
- Always add enough flour and water to double the volume of the starter. This ensures your wild yeast has enough fresh food to sustain it for 12 hours.
- Sourdough starter should be the consistency of thick pancake batter.
- If you feed the starter only as much volume as you need for your recipe, your starter will never have to discard. Example: I need 200 grams of starter to make a loaf of sourdough bread. If I feed my starter 100 grams of water and 100 grams of flour, I will have 200 grams to use in my bread recipe and will end up with the same amount of starter that I had before I fed it.
Should I Use a Whole Wheat Starter?
This recipe will work well using a starter that has been fed with unbleached white flour, or whole wheat flour. To make a final bread loaf that is truly made from 100% whole wheat flour, simply feed your starter with whole wheat flour. You might find that your starter is more active after being fed whole wheat flour!
After 8-12 hours the starter should have doubled again in size and be nice and bubbly. Now you’re ready to bake!
Mixing the Ingredients for Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
This whole wheat sourdough bread recipe contains four simple ingredients: an active sourdough starter, flour, water, and salt. I love that no special tools are required. You can make an amazing loaf of bread with just a mixing bowl and your hands! I start by adding my starter to a large bowl and then pouring in the water. Using a fork, Danish Whisk, or my hands, I mix the two together until the starter begins to break up. Add the salt, give it a stir, and then add the flours.
Mix everything together with your hands until the flour is fully incorporated. Freshly milled flour is very thirsty, so the dough should feel pretty wet. If the dough feels tough, or there are dry bits of flour, add an additional splash of water. Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and set the dough aside for one hour. As it sits, the flour will continue to absorb water and the dough will become more pliable and elastic.
Side note: If you do not have a kitchen scale, I can’t recommend one enough. When you weigh out your ingredients, there are no measuring cups to fuss with or wash, everything simply goes in one bowl to be mixed together. While I try to keep my kitchen knick-knacks to a minimum, I love investing in solid pieces that I will rely on every day and a kitchen scale falls into this category.
If you’re looking for a kitchen scale, this scale is awesome and, best of all, it’s so thin and easy to store!
What’s so great about Fresh Milled Flour?
The most obvious but important reason to bake with fresh ground flour is that you know exactly what you’re getting. When using a home mill, you take the whole wheat berry and mill a fine fresh flour that retains every component. Grains in their complete form contain many vital nutrients as well as fiber for belly health.
When you purchase conventional flour from the store, the bran and germ of the wheat kernels have been removed taking much of the fiber and nutrients with them. Even whole wheat flour is often made by taking white flour and adding bran back in. During the commercial milling process, the oil that is found within the wheat berry is removed in order to extend the shelf life of store-bought flour. Often preservatives are used as well. Just like with anything you make from scratch, there’s security in knowing how food is created from start to finish and milling your own flour gives you this knowledge.
Additionally, home-milled flour has a complex flavor profile that’s a little sweeter and a little nuttier than the grains you find on a store shelf. Compare freshly ground wheat berries to coffee beans. You can understand how time can make them a little stale. For the best flavor, it’s best to use fresh milled wheat within 3 days but it can last on a shelf for 7-10 days.
Purchasing Wheat Berries
Anymore it is very easy to find whole wheat berries to use in a home grain mill. I’ve purchased wheat berries in bulk from Amazon and from bulk food suppliers such as Azure Standard and Pleasant Hill Grainery. Choose a wheat that has a high protein content that will make it suitable for bread baking. My go to is fresh flour from hard white wheat berries. It has a more subtle wheat flavor than hard red wheat and will allow for strong gluten development.
Always grind your wheat berries on the finest setting of your grain mill. The end result will be a softer bread and a better crumb. If you aren’t planning on milling your own bread flour, don’t let that stop you from using this recipe! Any whole grain flour will work great!
Looking for a great homemade sandwich bread to make with your own wheat? This Whole wheat bread recipe with instant yeast is a perfect place to start.
Stretch and Fold Method
Stretching and pulling the dough is an efficient way to activate and strengthen the gluten and is so much easier than kneading! To do this, start with one side of the dough. Grab the edge of the dough working with wet hands, and stretch it up towards you. I like to anchor the dough with my left hand and pull it up with my right. Stop pulling if you feel like the dough is about to break. When working with whole wheat flour, you may not be able to pull very far before your dough feels like it’s about to tear but that’s ok! Fold the dough back over and press it into itself. Turn the bowl a quarter turn and repeat this process for a total of 5-6 times.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and allow your dough to rest at room temperature for thirty minutes. You will perform this series of stretch and folds twice more every thirty minutes. Each time you’ll notice that the dough becomes a little smoother and more pliable and by the last time you’ll have a beautiful and supple dough.
Bulk Fermentation
After your last stretch and fold, your dough is ready for the first rise which will take 7-10 hours, or until it has doubled in size. This long rise time is what allows this recipe to fit so nicely into my daily routine. Most of the time I will mix my dough after the kids go to bed and let it rise overnight. In the morning I can shape it and have it ready to bake before breakfast. Another way to do it is to mix the dough in the morning and let it rise all day. Then it can be shaped and baked in the evening.
You’ll know your dough has completed the bulk rise when you see air pockets forming under the outside of the dough. It should be about doubled in size and feel light and full of air. Over-proofed dough will rise and then collapse, and your final loaf will turn out dense and overly sour. Personally, I think it is much easier to under proof during this phase than to over proof. If in doubt, maybe let it go a bit longer. When I first started baking sourdough, I always let it proof for the full 10 hours. At that point I didn’t feel like I had a good idea of what a well proofed loaf looked like, and it was easier to lean on the recipe than on my non-existent experience. This worked pretty well for me, and I slowly developed the ability to read my dough.
Temperature and Rise Time
The temperature of the room will have a big impact on how your bread dough rises. I like to let my dough rise in an environment between 68-72 degrees. This is pretty easy to do in the winter, however in the summer you may notice that your dough wants to proof more quicky. Either anticipate that your dough will be done proofing after 7 hours or find a cool place to store it. If you want to speed things along, you can place your dough in a warm place and check on it a little earlier.
Shaping your Whole Wheat Loaf
When you’re ready to shape your dough, dump it out of the mixing bowl onto the kitchen counter. You’ve just spent ten hours trying to incorporate air into your dough, so we want to be very careful that we don’t squash that air out as we shape it! Gently pat the dough into a rough rectangle on your work surface and shape your loaf using four folds. I start at the back and carefully lift with two hands and fold the back edge 2/3rds over the dough, like and envelope fold. Gently press the edge into the dough to seal. Repeat this with the left edge, then the right edge.
Finish by folding the bottom edge all the way across the dough, flipping it seam side down in the process. Use the edges of your hands or a bench scraper to gently pull the loaf towards you in a circular motion, to seal the seam and create more surface tension. The more surface tension you can build, the better the oven spring will be. Continue until your dough has a nice round shape. Now you have a sourdough boule!
For the final proof, line a medium sized mixing bowl or proofing basket with a tea towel or cloth napkin and dust with rice flour or whole grain flour. Transfer the dough to the bowl flipping it in the process so that the seam is facing up. Cover and allow to rise for 1-3 hours. You will know your dough is ready to bake when it passes the poke test. When you make an indention in the dough with your finger, it should spring back slightly. If the dough springs back all the way, it is under proofed. If it collapses under your finger, it is over proofed.
Baking your Rustic Sourdough Bread Recipe
Place a Dutch oven or a heavy-lidded pot in the oven and preheat it to 475 degrees. Baking your bread in a preheated Dutch oven or heavy-lidded pot will trap moisture during the beginning half of your bake. This keeps the crust from forming before the bread has a chance to fully rise in the oven. It also allows for a crisper, more artisan crust.
When you’re ready to bake your bread, you’re going to lay out a piece of parchment on the counter and dust it lightly with flour. Flip your shaped boule out onto the parchment so that the seam is facing down. Now you can score your bread with a sharp knife however you like. Feel free to experiment with detailed and artistic cuts, but you will want to make sure you score it once from top to bottom, about 1/2 inch deep, to ensure that your loaf doesn’t “pop.”
Note: I recently purchased this reusable baking mat for a Dutch oven to use in place of parchment paper and I absolutely love it! It’s so easy to place your dough into the pot and remove it without parchment tearing!
Carefully remove the pot from the oven and use the parchment as a sling to place the dough carefully into the pot. Replace the lid and bake covered for 20 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to bake for 15-25 more minutes. I always use an instant read thermometer to make sure that my bread is baked to 200 degrees. The loaf should be dark in color and feel light when you remove it from the pot.
A Note on Baking with Fresh Milled Whole Wheat Flour
There are so many advantages to baking with and enjoying whole wheat flour. However, understand that the end product is different than if it was baked with white flour. It’s impossible to replicate the rise and spring of bread baked with white flour, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. However, don’t be afraid to try this recipe with a 50/50 mix. Or adjust the ratio to what best suits your family.
It’s so important to remember that if you and your family don’t really love the bread you’re baking, they’re not going to be excited about it and it’s going to be harder to stick with it. Enjoy this 100% whole wheat sourdough or find whatever middle ground works for you. Remember that there is something so valuable in gifting your loved ones with the nourishment of homemade bread and the value of the time it took you to make it! Whatever type of flour you choose, keep baking!
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100% Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
- 200 g active sourdough starter
- 375 g cool water
- 12 g salt
- 500 g whole wheat flour
Instructions
- Into a large bowl, measure your active starter and the water and mix together with a fork or Danish whisk. Add the whole wheat flour, and use your hands to mix everything together until the flour is fully hydrated and there are no dry bits. If needed, add a little water.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and allow the dough to rest for a full hour to give the flour time to fully absorb the water. Preform a series of 4-6 stretch and folds, then cover again and set aside.
- Wait 30 minutes, and preform another series of 4-6 stretch and folds. Repeat after an additional 30 minutes for a total of 3 stretch and folds.
- Begin the bulk rise. Allow the dough to set at room temperature for 7-10 hours or until the dough has doubled in size and looks puffy and full of air. It should jiggle when shaken.
- Dump the dough onto your work surface. Gently pat the dough into a rough rectangle and shape your loaf using four folds. I start at the back and carefully lift with two hands and fold the back edge 2/3rds over the dough, like and envelope fold. Gently press the edge into the dough to seal. Repeat this with the left edge, then the right edge. Finish by folding the bottom edge all the way across the dough, flipping it seam side down in the process. Use the edges of your hands to gently pull the loaf towards you in a circular motion, to seal the seam and create more surface tension.
- Place the formed dough upside down into a mixing bowl or proofing basket lined with a floured tea towel. Allow to rise for 1-3 hours until it passes the poke test. Press down on the dough with your finger, it should spring back slowly but not collapse under your finger.
- Preheat oven with a Dutch oven or heavy-lidded pot to 475 degrees.
- When ready to bake, set parchment on the counter and dust with flour. Flip the bread onto the parchment and score as desired with a sharp knife or lame. Us the parchment to transfer the bread into the pre-heated pot. Bake with lid on for 20 minutes. Remove lid and bake an additional 15-25 minutes, until the bread has a dark golden crust and registers 200 degrees with an instant read thermometer.
- Let your sourdough loaf cool completely before slicing. Enjoy with good butter!
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