Hi, my name is Martha Levi and I want to talk to you about whole-wheat sourdough bread and share a tip or two.

Because we make it a lot and we learned that there are some things you should do and you shouldn’t do. I want to share those tips with you because if you’re trying to make whole wheat sourdough bread,  it can be difficult until you get the hang of it. 

We first started making sourdough bread with a mixture of 70% white flour and 30% wheat flour. That was really easy to manage. The dough was beautiful it was bubbly and awesome.

Then we thought, “You know we really want to do whole wheat bread for the nutritional benefits.  Right? It’s better for you it’s got more nutrients.  So let’s just do it.”

We tried to look for recipes and for instructions. There really wasn’t a lot out there. The main book that we learned from, which is Tartine Bread by Chad Robertson, he had a whole wheat recipe, or he had a wheat bread recipe, but it wasn’t 100% whole wheat. It was 70% wheat flour and 30 % white flour. We wanted the whole thing to be wheat.

So we just did it and said, “Well, we’ll just do it!” But it didn’t turn out very good.

It was super dense as whole wheat can be. Part of the reason that whole wheat bread is denser than white bread is because of the bran and the germ. White flour has the bran and the germ sifted out. That’s why it’s more white.

The germ is the little nugget of nutrients in the middle and the bran is the dark outside part of the wheat. That has all been sifted out; those parts are heavier. Also when you grind it up the bran has these jagged edges. so as the bread raises its pops the bubbles constantly. That’s another reason that it’s denser. It just can’t be light and fluffy with the bran popping everything.

Tip #1

The bran and the germ absorb more water, so what we needed to do was change the hydration level.  Our hydration level for our wheat bread is way higher than it is for our country loaf because it just absorbs so much water. So that’s the first thing you need to do, add more water than you do for your other loaves of sourdough bread.

The hydration is the amount of water you use per flour.  The hydration level for our wheat bread is 79%. I know some people that do 85% but  we like 79% because I don’t like huge holes in my bread—the peanut butter and jam fall out. But if you want to have more of that gourmet look, then increase the hydration and you’ll get the bigger holes.

Higher hydration was the first thing we had to learn.

Tip #2

The second thing that we didn’t realize is that there are millions of more bacteria in whole wheat flour than in white flour. More bacteria means processing (fermenting) faster. When we came in after leaving our dough overnight, the white country loaves dough would be great. They’re just ready to bake. At the same time, the wheat would have fallen and was completely over-processed; thought, ” What’s going on?”

But with that much bacteria, (so much more bacteria), it’s gonna process and eat all of the gluten up faster. So you have to treat it differently than you treat your white flour loaves. 

Actually we had one time when we came in and the weather had changed. It went from spring to summer, really fast, practically overnight. So it went from being cool at night to being really warm at night. I stuck my hand in the dough and the dough fell through my fingers. There was no gluten left in that dough at all.

At that point, you can basically use your dough as a starter or you could put it into a pan; maybe try to bake it and get some flatbread out of it. I don’t know, we just threw ours away. It was very discouraging, but we realized that we have to make our wheat dough colder or we have to let it ferment for a shorter amount of time.

Now, because your bulk ferment is the magic of your sourdough, you will want to give it that long time. That way the bacteria can process everything. You don’t necessarily want to shorten it. You want to ferment it in the fridge or we found a better option is to make your dough colder from the start so that it can sit longer.

Cold water or cold air makes the bacteria work slower, whereas the heat makes it work faster. So if you do colder or for a longer period of time, it’s easier to manage it and to see when it’s starting to get over-processed. That way you can see when it is ready. 

Those are some tips for working with whole wheat sourdough bread.

Have a good day,