Living in a place where you can't buy whole wheat flour, I finally got a good way of making whole wheat sourdough bread.
"Wheat Middling"
For some reason, we translate this as semolina even though it's just filtered out remains from milling normal white flour, not durum wheat. We use it mainly to make traditional desserts. I suppose you can replace it with raw wheat bran.
First the sponge which doesn't exactly turn into a sponge.
Mix 40g of starter, 60gm water and 80g of wheat middling. If you're using plain bran, add a bit of white flour as well.
Leave for a few hours from 4 to 8 depending on how active your starter is at the moment.
Obviously you won't see as much bubble as you would with normal flour. It will be slightly frothy.
The purpose is to soften up and hydrate the tough bran as we make our sponge which really contributes to the texture of the resulting loaf.
Make the dough
The sponge should make the bran soggy and soft by now.
Now mix in 200 g of water to the sponge and mix well.
Add 320g of bread flour and 8g of salt and mix until lumpy.
Rest for 1 hour
Kneading and first ferment
After 1 hour, knead the dough anyway you like it for 10 to 20 mins. I just knead it in the bowl since it's a fairly stiff dough.
After that cover and ferment for 4 to 8 hours depending on your room temperature. Mine took 4 hours at 26C room temp.
Shaping and proofing
After first ferment, the dough should rise a bit for about 30%.
Take the dough out on the surface and shape into anyway you want. Mine was a batard.
Put seam side down into banneton and retard for 12 hours.
Scoring and Baking
Take the dough out of the fridge and let it return to room temp for 2 to 3 hours.
Preheat oven to 250C. Score the loaf and bake for 15 mins at 250C.
If you have dutch oven, use it for steam. I don't have 1 so I spray with water every 5 mins into oven for a total of 4 times.
Reduce heat to 220C and bake it further for 25 mins.
Wait to cool and serve.
Baker's percentage
Bread Flour - 80% (If using plain bran instead, use 85%)
Wheat Middlings - 20% (If using plain bran instead, use 15%)
Starter - 10%
Water - 65%
Salt - 2%
The resulting loaf is crusty and fairly crumbly because of low hydration. You can adjust hydration to your liking.
I guess the idea is to avoid long autolyse with whole wheat flours for better textures by making a sponge with bran.
Hope to hear your opinions.
Cheers!
Well, that looks good! So I guess you've found a solution to your problem of no whole meal flour available where you are. :)
How was the taste? You could probably use beer in place of the the sponge water for more flavour if you like.
Wow, I could try that. Thanks.
The taste is quite good with just enough sourness, at least for my taste buds. My mother seems to quite like it toasted with butter. I should try high hydration for future loafs.