What I love most about sourdough is how it can be really easy or complicated. Once you learn how to make natural yeast or a starter, you begin to wonder what you can make it. Perhaps you’ve tried pancakes and the basic white loaf and had a lot of success. Let’s do a really simple no-knead whole wheat sourdough recipe that requires very little effort to make. The only draw back is the waiting. This recipe will also use 1/2 white wheat and 1/2 whole wheat flours but you can substitute for 100% whole wheat. Traditionally, wheat bread is made with at least 1/2 white flour to create a less dense bread. This gives a lighter taste and texture.
You will learn that gluten develops without kneading. This method takes advantage of the natural process by allowing time to create gluten strands for you. The process of kneading speeds up the formation of gluten. Likewise, if you allow enough time, the gluten will develop and then collapse. This is because of the acids in the starter building up and breaking them down. If you’ve made starter long enough, you will see this happen. It will get strong and bubbly, fall and then get to be almost a liquid. As you become more experienced with natural yeasts, you will learn the perfect baking time for your bread.
The pros of this method is the fact you can have bread without a lot of skills or equipment. The cons are you have to wait around 18 hours and it will not rise as tall as kneaded bread. However, the taste is phenomenal and you don’t have to put a lot of effort into the recipe. This no-knead whole wheat bread to be a great introduction to sourdough bread making for the beginner.
As you develop your bread making skills, you can choose to continue this method for convenience and wonderful flavor. Or perhaps you will move on to more complicated recipes. You will soon see some that require fancy equipment such as a dutch oven, banneton or brotform proofing baskets. This will hopefully help you gain confidence to move onto more advanced bread baking.
One note of caution should be addressed when making sourdough bread, especially at room temperatures for more than 8-10 hours. Cleanliness is essential. You can introduce bad bacteria and despite popular beliefs, the starter does not inhibit these growths. Rather, studies have shown the bacteria to grow starting at the 4 hour mark. So please work on clean surfaces and with clean equipment and supplies.
How about we do a visual on what to expect when you create sourdough bread with this method? You will get an amazing bread with little effort, but you will have a few trade offs. So the question becomes: which method do you prefer? Time and practice will tell!
Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ⅔ cups (250g) whole wheat flour
- 1 ⅔ cups (250g) white flour
- 1 ¼ cups (300mL) water
- ½ cup (100g) starter
- 1 tsp (5g) salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, stir together starter and water. Top with flour and salt.
- Using the handle of a spoon or your hand, stir the mixture until a shaggy dough forms and no more flour is sticking to the side of the bowl.
- Cover with clingfilm or a damp towel and let rest overnight on the counter.
- The next day, lightly grease a 9×5 (23x13cm) bread loaf pan.
- Turn out dough onto work surface and fold into a rectangle roughly the size of the pan. Cover with a greased piece of cling film or lightly flour the surface of the dough and drape a clean towel.
- Leave for approximately 2 – 4 hours or until the dough rises close to the top of the pan.
- Preheat oven 400F (200F.)
- Bake 45-50 minutes or until golden brown. Center of bread should read 212F (100C.)
- Cool completely before slicing.
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