After all those years, who would have thought, but I ♥ you whole wheat!
Do you need a bit of encouragement to start making a super healthy whole wheat loaf? Awful childhood memories like me of stale and even rancid bread? Get out and buy the best fresh! organic whole wheat you can find and give this loaf a chance! It is nothing like your memories, it is about 1000 times better, or frankly incomparable, with an intense flavor that is the opposite of bland. Close your eyes and you can see the wheat fields gently swaying in the wind.
This recipe is not highly original of course, there are many whole wheat levain recipes and they are all more or less the same. But it is a great loaf to have in your bread repertoire. This is our version of it and the recipe contains the exact details on how we create our loaf. People have told us (and we believe them) that they really work for them so here it is.
We started out by making a 55% whole wheat loaf. Gradually we started making more of this 65% loaf, the one described in this recipe, and people just love it. You can compare the two versions by looking at the first (65%) and second (55%) gallery of pictures below. The thing we love most about the recipe is you end up with a bread still very much crusty and creamy crumb, with a complex, sweet taste, while having this high percentage of whole wheat goodness in it.
For this recipe we are going to make a starter named a poolish. A poolish is a type of wet sponge usually made with an equal weight of water and flour and a small amount of sourdough starter culture or yeast and NO salt. Making a poolish helps bring more taste and strength to your bread.
We use a sourdough culture which is made with 100% whole grain rye flour. A sourdough culture based on rye flour is easier to maintain, does not go into a slurry when you forget about it, is easier to stir because it has almost no gluten and smells very nice, a bit like fruit. It is also very forgiving in the amount you feed it, everything seems to be alright. Normally we only feed it once a week, after our weekend baking we give it a few table spoons of water and rye flour, stir, ready!
Ingredients for the Poolish
65 g whole wheat flour
65 g water
15 g sourdough culture
Making the Poolish
In a bowl stir together the 65 g whole wheat flour, 65 grams of water at room temperature with 15 grams of sourdough culture. Mix it well until you have a homogeneous slurry that looks like very thick batter. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and let the prefermenting begin. After 12 hours at room temperature it should be bubbly, light and ready for use. So if you want to begin your bread making in the morning, you should make your poolish at 9 in the evening.
Ingredients for the Whole Wheat Loaf
makes 1 loaf (approx 70% hydration)
the poolish (145 g total weight)
225 g whole wheat flour
160 g wheat flour or bread flour
250 g water
8 g sea salt
Making the Loaf
Put the poolish starter, flour and salt in your mixing bowl and add 2/3 of the water. Now start mixing and gradually add the rest of the water and let the dough come together. We use European flour which absorbs a few % less water than American type flour. People using American type of flour should add 5-15 ml water to the final dough. Mix for 6 minutes, leave it in your mixing bowl, cover with clingfilm and rest for 50 minutes. The dough should feel a bit wet and even a little bit sloppy or tacky, there should moderate gluten development.
Ideally the temperature of your dough after mixing should be around 24-25 ºC / 75ºF. You should adjust the temperature of the water you add, so the total dough reaches this temperature. For us this means in summer adding cold water to this recipe and in winter (when our little bakery gets much colder then the rest of our house) adding water up to 50ºC /122 F. You can measure the temperature of water and dough with a food thermometer. These measurements are important because they correspond with the proving times in the recipe.
After the first rest take the dough out of the bowl and onto a floured work surface and do one stretch and fold (a full letter fold, left over right, right over left, bottom over top, top over bottom; watch our bread movie to observe this technique if you are not familiar with it). Transfer to the bowl, cover and again leave to rest for 50 minutes. Repeat the stretch and fold (full letter fold) one more time (so 2 times in total) and again leave to rest for 50 minutes. During each stretch and fold the dough should feel firmer and less wet.
Now it’s time to shape. Shaping is a tricky subject. It’s something for which everybody develops his or her own technique over time. You can make a batard or loaf shape or a boule (ball). If necessary you can learn more on shaping from a good bread book, like the ones by Hamelman or Reinhart, or the Tartine Bread book. We usually make these whole wheat breads in boule shape and use proving baskets/bannetons made of wicker.
Preheat your oven to 230 ºC / 445 ºF (at what stage you preheat your oven depends on how long it takes for your oven to heat through, some take 30 minutes, some, like ours, with stone floors take a lot longer, up to two hours.
Transfer the shaped dough in a proofing basket or baking pan, cover and leave to proof for 2 hours and 15 minutes (provided your dough has a temperature of around 24-25 ºC / 75ºF). When you think it has risen enough, use your finger to carefully make a very small dent in the dough. If the dent remains, the bread is ready to bake, if the indentation totally disappears, the dough needs a little bit more time.
Now your loaf is ready for the oven. Slash the top of the loaf with a lame or bread scoring knife. To get a nice crust, try to create some steam in your oven by putting a small metal baking tray on your oven floor when you preheat the oven, and pour in half a cup of hot water immediately after putting the bread in the oven. Release some steam by setting your oven door ajar (perhaps with the help of a wooden spoon or oven mitt) 5 minutes before the bread is ready. If you are going to create steam with a baking tray, you maybe also want to turn your oven temperature a bit higher, because you are going to lose some heat in the process.
After 48 minutes of baking your loaf should be ready. Transfer onto a rack and leave to cool. This loaf also keeps very well in the freezer. But please make sure to eat at least some of it while fresh!
Whole Wheat Levain Time Table
day 1 21.00 h Make starter let ferment for 12 hours at room temperature
day 2 0.900 h Make final dough
- Starter + all other ingredients 6 minute mixing
- 50 minutes rest
- Stretch and fold nr. 1
- 50 minutes rest
- Stretch and fold nr. 2
- 50 minutes rest
- Shape
- final proofing 2 hours and 15 minutes
- bake for 48 minutes at 230ºC / 445ºF
PS: A lot of people still believe the a whole wheat loaf should be very dark in color. The darker the bread, the healthier. This is a big misconception. These factory breads are filled with burned malt to give them that ‘healthy’ dark appearance. Don’t let them fool you…Just buy the best fresh flour you can find, take your time to make a good loaf and you’ll never look back!
PPS:Like with all the recipes you find on our website, this one has been tried and tested by us at least 8 to 10 times before we publish it.
Dat ziet er TOP uit !!!
Thanks Rene,
)
Leuk dat je onze site bezoekt en als @steenbakkertje nu ook actief bent op Twitter! Rofco bakers stick together like high hydration dough on a ‘flourless’ surface
Ik mis de “like” knop op dit antwoord
Healthy bread, love the open crumb will have to try it soon. I am in the process of making some rye starter. Question: How long does it take for a starter to mature?
Ann
Hi Ann,
It takes about 5 days in total, but the best thing is to start using it after a week maturation and after that it should get better and better as it matures further. You can read all about it in our posting about how we make and maintain our own rye starter. http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/rye-sourdough-starter-in-easy-steps/
There is much more useful info in the bread baking tips section of our website. They are also being used in a few baking courses.
Hope your starter will be a live and well soon!
Happy baking,
Marieke
I have a very mature 100 % rye starter which is alive and well. I am going to try your whole wheat bread tomorrow. I hope it comes out as beautiful as yours.
Regards,
Ann
PS. My Haussler Bread Mixer is on order.
Oh, that is exiting, hope it will arrive soon and in good order.
Making the whole wheat tomorrow too. Always curious to know how yours turns out. Hope you will like it.
Marieke
My whole wheat bread just came out of the oven, and it was perfect, it was nicely browned with a really good crust, and an open crumb, with lots of holes. I am very pleased with the way it came out and the instructions were very easy to follow. I will be making this again by mid week.
Ann
Thanks Ann, for the feedback! That is a wonderful result. And with your new mixer it will be an even greater feast to make this dough! Hope you don’t have to wait too long…
Happy mid week baking
Marieke
Marieke/Ed,
When baking breads with high amounts of whole grain flour ie: whole wheat…. do you ever supplement your mix with vital wheat gluten flour in order to get more lift/raise?
Bob
Hi Bob,
We do not have any experience with this, we never use it. We usually have a combination of whole grain (mostly whole wheat) with lighter wheat flour (maybe called bread flour by you) which we think gives the bread the right balance of airiness, texture and taste. We use 35 to 50 % of the bread flour depending on the bread mood we are in…
Just discovered your blog via Twitter, it’s fabulous! Love the step by step guides and your loaves look wonderful. Will definitely be coming back again soon
Hello little loaf,
Thank you so much, also for the twitter follow! Have you checked out our little bread baking movie? http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/baking-bread-the-movie/
You might recognize the song
Happy (weekend) baking!
Marieke
Heb na heel lang niet gebakken te hebben weer aan de bak gegaan.
Met het desempje die ik van jullie heb gehad er 3 broden van gebakken met wel een iets andere samenstelling meel en gebuild meel (80 % ) bloem had ik niet had het natuurlijk wel kunnen zeven maar daar had ik even geen zin in.
Het is in iedergeval prima gelukt .
Heb een vraagje hoelang kneden jullie het in die blauwe Haussler min of 3-4 of …
Hallo Rene,
Fijn weer aan het bakken en met goed resultaat! Kneden in de Haussler is 5 a 6 minuten met dit recept.
Trying to work out the timing to bake in the morning (and have a fresh loaf for lunch!). Would a final proofing overnight in the fridge be an option? (9/10 hours)
Love your website!
Hi Claartje,
Yes that is very well possible. The retarding of the final dough is something that is done by many bakers. We have not tried it with this recipe ourselves (never enough fridge space) so we cannot help you much with what the exact outcome will be, what times and optimum amounts of culture would produce the best bread following this method. Usually you will see some blistering on the crust of the bread. Funnily enough American bakers view this as an asset, French bakers find it a defect. One tip we can give you is to put your proofing basket inside a big plastic bag and inflate it, so the dough has no contact with the plastic and it does not dry out.
Maybe you will be so good as to let us know how the method turned out for you.
Lots of (retarded) loaf,
Marieke & Ed
I tried this one after a failed attempt with another sourdough recipe (from another site). I have to say I didn’t expect much because this recipe calls for only a small amount of sourdough starter. The one I tried earlier needed a lot more and it was still very dense and brick-like.
The dough didn’t rise that much during the final proofing so I was expecting the same result as before but I decided to pay extra attention to creating enough steam in the oven for any oven spring that might occur and try it anyway. The first few minutes didn’t really do much (I camp out in front of the oven during the first 5-10 minutes because I love to watch the oven spring!) but then the natural yeast kicked in and it sprung up. The bread has huge airpockets, a great crumb and is very tasty to boot. Succes! This one is definitely in the running to become our daily bread.
I also tried the Pain Rustique (so I would have a back-up if this one didn’t work out) and I loved that one too but I prefer more whole wheat for daily use.
Hi Kirsten,
Great to hear your success story! The steam definitely plays a big part in the bread being able to expand during the first part of the baking. Also fun to use different percentages of whole wheat and see how it changes the end result.
Happy baking and happy New Year!
Hi,
Quick question on this bread…should the dough double in size between the initial mixing of everything and the final shaping?
Hi Kevin,
During the bulk fermentation phase of 150 minutes you should definitely see good growth in dough size (double in size is a tricky subject, we are busy doing a posting on that topic). Just make sure your dough temperature is around 25 degrees Celsius so the timing corresponds with the timing in the recipe to get the best result.
See also our tips on this subject: http://www.weekendbakery.com/posts/a-few-tips-on-dough-temperature/
Good luck and happy baking,
Ed and Marieke