My First 100% Whole Wheat Bread -- suggestions to improve?
Hi everybody!
About a week or so ago, I posted asking about making a lean 100% whole wheat sourdough. I got a lot of good feedback, and was recommended this recipe. Because I normally bake on a somewhat different schedule, I used the same formula but tweaked it for my normal baking schedule. (Not to mention scaling it from 4 kg to 1.25 kg)
The tweaks were re-doing the levain so it'd be ripe after 12 hours or so, and omitting the retardation (instead, I did a longer bulk with 4 turns). Also, I used commercial flour (KA whole wheat) and brought the salt to 2%.
This was the result:
(NB: The "shagginess" in the crumb isn't from gumminess -- it's from me having a terrible bread knife.)
I'm pretty happy overall with the result. I was kind of surprised at how much oven spring I got. I probably could've done a better job keeping in gas while shaping and letting them proof longer, but they came out great. The flavor is awesome -- it has wonderful sweetness and wheatiness and a bit of tanginess from being a sourdough. It doesn't have any of the bitter, grassy flavors that sometimes comes out in whole wheat bread. Flavor like this is why I wanted to start trying out higher levels of whole grains in my bread. I actually think this is the best-tasting whole wheat bread I've had (though I haven't had a whole lot of artisan whole wheat bread before).
Aside from the obvious stuff like shaping more gently and proofing longer, what else could I do to improve this? I noticed that the dough felt pretty stiff to me -- even though it's at 88% hydration. Is there something I could do to improve the extensibility? Would a longer autolyse help?
Thanks for any suggestions!
First, that is great looking, and it tasted good, so you are on the right track.
I can't help with any specific suggestions other than to say stick with the general recipe, it looks like it is turning out fine, and do subtle tweaks . Also, keep good notes, try increasing the water a little and then if that doesn't help, try decreasing it a little.
It looks like you used a normal store bought whole wheat flour, which may have been from red spring berries. That recipe was for winter white berries, which is the same as White Whole Wheat , which would give much less of a grassy flavor and react differently than red spring berries.
For a bread knife, you can't do much better than this https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TPA816/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Nice bloom for 100%!
I enjoyed the link and readup on the recipe you based your loaf on- PiPs is excellent! There are some differences between his recipe and yours that may affect the outcome of your loaf. PiPs used all freshly ground (as in only minutes old) whole wheat flour to feed his levain and use in his loaf. Amazing but not practical for most bakers.The freshness of the milling can definitely affect the hydration of the dough and perhaps even the extensibility. His recipe is starting out with inherently more moisture.Your flour could be drier and it would be favorably affected by a little more hydration and more time to absorb it. Increase the water and add to the autolyze time and see where that gets you.
I just need to decide weather I want to work on improving this bread this weekend or if I want to go for my normal sourdough (which is only ~20% whole wheat).
I was was super impressed with how it came out, so I think I might try this one again. I’ll probably autolyse a bit longer and up the hydration a tad.
Thanks for the tidbit about fresh flour having more water -- I didn’t know that. I was wary to change the hydration of a recipe I’d never some before, which is why I didn’t add any more water, despite the dough feeling like it needed it.
I did this bread today with a loner autolyse and more water. I bumped the hydration up to 91% instead of 88%. I also started the bake at 470° instead of 450°.
The bread was a lot more extensible than last time — but still had the issue that the gluten became very tight after only a little stretching. It was a lot better than last time though (last week, it was hard to do stretch and folds because the dough would seize up right away). I guess I just need to practice handling whole grain flour more.
The loaves came out great! The flavor is awesome (once again), and the crumb is a bit more open than last time. I also got really nice ears on the loaves. I think I got more bloom than last time — the slices are almost the size of my smaller white loaves.
I’m very much a fan of this bread. I’m going to keep tweaking it, but it’s pretty great as is. I’ll post some pictures eventually. I think I might try a long, overnight autolyse in the fridge next time to add extensibility. Either that or a liquid levain. I think this hydration level is right though.
I know this is a slightly old thread, but I had also been working on baking a 100% whole wheat bread based on Pips post. I was using red spring wheat ground in a nutrimill. I found that a very long autolyse, like overnight, made the dough very extensible even with 75% hydration. I was pleased with the bake in terms of crumb and flavor - all kinds of grassy and malty notes.
How did 90+% hydration and long autolyse work out?
Glad it is working for you. A mistake I often make is to try a recipe once, then abandon it, instead of trying it over and over, and keeping notes, to see how small changes in timing and hydration can change it. It is my favorite recipe for WW since it lists all the timing and temps, even for how long he wants the starter to develop before adding to the bread ( most recipes say just add starter) but we still have the variable that he is using home milled organic white wheat, unless we used the exact same berries, our results will be slightly different, and of course, his starter may act slightly differently then yours or mine.