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100% whole wheat sourdough bread recipe for beginners (works with fresh milled flour, spelt, einkorn, emmer, khorasan too)
Published about 1 month ago • 7 min read
100% whole wheat sourdough bread recipe for beginners (works with fresh milled flour, spelt, einkorn, emmer, and khorasan too)
This loaf has outstanding flavour and works beautifully either as a pan loaf or a dutch oven loaf. I’ll give instructions and photos for both versions.
The recipe uses a pre-ferment (levain) to bulk up a tiny amount of starter. If you prefer to keep larger amounts of starter on hand, feel free to skip the pre-ferment part of the recipe and just use ripe starter instead of the pre-ferment.
Ingredients for two loaves
For an ingredients table for smaller or larger batches, see the table at the end of this email
550g (2 1/4 cups) water (or 470g (scant 2 cups) for spelt or einkorn)
16g (5 tsp) salt
Method
Mix pre-ferment, ferment overnight Combine all the pre-ferment ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Leave to ferment overnight at coolish room temperature, or for around six hours in a warm room.
Remove starter, Mix final dough Remove some of the pre-ferment to use as the next day’s starter. Figure out what temperature your water needs to be for this recipe. If your kitchen is cold, you may want to use warm water (up to 46ºC/115ºF), if not, just use cold water straight from the tap.
Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until no traces of flour remain. The dough will look pretty rough at this stage.
Rest, stretch, and fold Allow to sit for around 20 minutes, then do a series of stretch and folds by lifting up half the dough, folding it over the other half, rotating the bowl a quarter turn, then repeating the stretching, folding, and rotating, until all four sides have been stretched and folded. Stop this if the dough starts to tear at any point.
Gently pick up one side of the dough
Lift it up
Fold it over the other half
Ferment
Ferment for around three hours, or until puffed up, doing another two stretches, folds, and rests early in the fermentation period if you wish to make a very strong dough.
In cool room temperatures, it may not rise much, so allow it to ferment for up to eight hours if it is showing no signs of rising and then move on to the next step.
Feel your dough at the end of bulk fermentation. Gently press on it, poke at it with your fingertips, and feel if there is any resistance. Does it feel relaxed and like it has air in it? Or does it still feel springy?
Divide, shape, and proof
Grease pan loaves with butter. Divide the dough with a wet flat hand with fingers together, as if you were doing a karate chop.
Using wet hands, take one piece of dough and hold it in both of your hands. Move one hand slightly higher than the other, holding the dough in the upper hand, and using the lower hand to gently support the dough without dragging it.
Allow the weight of the dough to gently stretch itself. It’s better to stretch it too little, than to stretch it too much and risk tearing it.
Mentally divide your loaf into three pieces. Take the bottom third and drag it under the centre of the dough, then repeat for the top third. Alternatively, if the dough is very slack, you can roll it up in a spiral as if it were cinnamon buns.
Place in a loaf pan, seam-side down. Sprinkle lightly with flour and leave to rise for around two hours, or until puffed up and feeling airy when poked (or allow it to rise for longer in cooler temperatures).
Bake Preheat the oven to 210ºC (410ºF).
Place your loaves in the oven and bake for around 60 minutes, or until the top feels firm and the sides of the loaf are golden and it has shrunken slightly in the pan.
For a crusty loaf, cool on a cooling rack. For a soft-crusted loaf, wrap in a tea towel to cool.
For the best taste and keeping qualities, allow to cool for at least four hours before slicing.
To make Dutch oven loaves
Follow the instructions from the previous recipe up until it’s time to divide the dough.
Get a bowl for each loaf, around 20cm (8”) in size. Place a linen or non-fluffy cotton tea towel in each of the bowls, then sprinkle a little flour over each.
In the photos below, the shaping begins in the bowl, with the final tensioning happening in mid-air. You can do all the shaping in mid-air (or in the bowl) if you prefer.
Take each piece of dough with wet hands and hold it in both of your hands, or in the bowl. Imagine there is a dot in the centre of the dough, on the top. Gently stretch the sides of the dough to this dot, or slightly over it, pressing lightly to secure it. You will need to do this for all four sides.
Flip the dough over and continue building tension towards this imaginary dot. Gently stretch the skin of the dough to create a tight surface, quickly working all around the ball to create a tight and shiny surface.
Sprinkle the top of the loaf with flour.
Flip upside down, and place in the towel-lined bowl, seam side up. Sprinkle with a little more flour.
Fold the ends of the towel over the top and leave to rise for around two hours, or until puffed up and feeling airy when poked (or allow it to rise for longer in cooler temperatures).
Bake
Preheat the oven to 230ºC (450ºF) with a cast iron dutch oven (including the lid) on the middle rack. Use one at least 4L (4 quarts) in capacity. Once the oven thermostat registers 230ºC (450ºF), allow it to continue heating for at least fifteen more minutes, to allow the dutch oven to get completely saturated with heat and ready to bake.
Remove the dutch oven and lid from the oven and place them on your stovetop. Gently and quickly hold onto the bowl and tea towel and turn it upside down right above the dutch oven. Quickly place the lid on it and put the whole thing back in the oven.
Bake with the lid on for twenty minutes, then remove the lid.
Bake with the lid off for another twenty to thirty minutes, until the fissures in the top of the loaf are browned on top and golden on the underside, the loaf easily slides around in the dutch oven when shaken, feels firm on the top when pressed, and sounds hollow on the bottom when tapped. If in doubt, bake it a little longer.
Remove the loaf from the dutch oven, and cool it on a cooling rack. If you’re baking a second loaf, return the dutch oven to the oven and allow to heat up for at least ten minutes before baking the other loaf. Bake the second loaf in the same way as the first.
For the best taste and keeping qualities, allow to cool for at least four hours before slicing.
More variations
• Fold in your choice of fruits, nuts, seeds and/or spices after you’ve finished stretching and folding the dough (allow the dough to relax first before doing this, and simply flatten out the dough, sprinkle in the extra stuff, and then fold, stretch, and fold again to distribute).
• Replace up to 15% of the wheat flour with rye flour.
• Replace up to 10% of the wheat flour with buckwheat flour.
• Use a 5 litre (5 quart) or larger dutch oven and bake a double batch boule. Bake for around 60 minutes in total at 210ºC (410ºF).
• Make a white flour loaf by replacing all the whole wheat flour with unbleached white flour and reducing the amount of water in the final dough to 255g per loaf. Make sure to score the top of the loaf with a steak knife before baking, as it will probably spring up a lot.
Beginner loaf troubleshooting
The pre-ferment has sunken in and doesn’t smell right. This probably means it has overfermented. Consider fermenting it for four to six hours during the day instead of overnight, or reduce the amount of seed starter (old starter) used in the feeding, or reduce the temperature of the water used, or ferment it in a cooler place next time.
Dough seems really sticky when stretching and folding. This could also mean that the pre-ferment has overfermented, or that you forgot to add the salt. This is a high hydration dough and it can feel stickier to handle compared to yeast doughs even if the starter and salt are right.
Dough felt fine when first mixed, but keeps sticking and tearing when I try to shape it. The dough may have overfermented during bulk fermentation. Keep a closer eye on it next time, and shape it before it has fully fermented, and/or ferment it in a cooler room.
Crust got huge cracks in it during baking. Some small cracks are to be expected, and give this a pleasant rustic appearance, but huge fissures that make the loaf difficult to cut mean that you’re getting a lot more oven spring than expected. Next time, consider using a steak knife to gently cut a couple of neat scores into the top of the loaf (I’ll discuss scoring in my detail in my next email)
May your home be filled with the smell of freshly baked sourdough bread. Floury regards, Kate
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Weekly sourdough recipes and tips from an experienced baker and homesteader, with a focus on 100% whole grains. Subscribe today to get a free eBook of sourdough discard recipes.
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