hi everyone that's me I bought a mockmill recently and I'm absolutely loving it up in
grinding my own grains to make my own flour and making playing around with some 100% whole grain
loaves it has created a bit of a challenge for me though the first loaves that I made
I didn't really enjoy the taste too much and I guess the texture wasn't what I was hoping for
either that's one of my first loaves that I made so I kind of went on a bit of a quest really at
that point to see what I could do to improve the texture of my hundred percent whole wheat loaves
that's one of the earlier results that I got from this method that I'm going to show you today I'm
really really pleased with it I've still got a bit of playing around with it I think there's probably
some things I can do but this is a really easy kind of beginner method that you can use to get
a lot more flavor and a better texture out of 100% whole wheat sourdough loaves so the real trick to
this recipe is that you soak the flour and water by themselves before you add anything else in so
this is 450 grams of whole wheat flour not sifted at all and I'm adding to that 405 grams of water
now you just mix these two together and what I've found is I've been getting the best results and
and this method works the best with my schedule is to mix this together the night before I make
the bread so I mix the flour in the water just until there aren't any drive its left and then
I put this mixture into the fridge overnight I guess this is really just an extended auto
lease or a soaking and what this does is it for one it hydrates all of the brand in the flour
really fully before you start any fermentation or add any salt or anything and the second thing is
that the enzyme activity that takes place while the flour is soaking with the water releases some
of the helps convert their starches in the flour to sugars so you get a much better flavor in your
loaf as well so you just cover that and put it in the fridge until the next morning or the next
evening or when when you're starting to mix your dough basically there's 12 hour gap in between
each step so here's my dough the next morning it's really squidgy and very sort of looks quite
solid but actually it's very soft and pliable and extensible so now I'm going to add the starter and
the salt so I just pretty much just spread out the dough this is a hundred and thirty grams of whole
wheat starter that's been fed with the same flour that I milled myself that the dough is made from
so I just kind of put that on there's probably lots of ways that you can do this but this is
just what I have been doing and it seems to work quite well so I spread the starter out and then
just sort of squish it into the dough of it and then fold that over and I put the salt on on that
top layer I'm not sure if it makes any too much of a difference to to keep the salt separate from
the starter but I figure it's better if they're probably not touching each other I don't know
this I don't have any scientific basis for that theory but I just figure it probably can't hurt to
keep the salt and the starter separate just just at that initial part so basically what I've been
doing now is just kneading those two in it only takes a couple of minutes I'm not needing to do
any gluten development development necessarily in this I'm really just kneading in order to mix in
the starter and the salt the gluten development in this style of life really takes place through
that long auto lease or that's pre-soaking that the flour and the water gets and also in the long
bog fermentation so with this method I pretty much it's the same as my look at that dough it's really
nice it's very very smooth and and sort of silky at this point yeah so the gluten development just
takes place through the long fermentation this kneading is just mixing so you know how long
you've got a mix the texture one after a while this dough becomes really sticky once the starter
and the salt salt to start to go through the dough the dough does change texture gets kind of wet you
can sort of see that there it's pretty tacky and wet and sticky and it does become more sticky yet
sticking to my hands there so once you're getting that sticky wet sort of feel and appearance you
know that your your starter and salt are pretty well incorporated I just keep kneading this for
a little bit longer but you could also put this into a stand mixer or some kind of other mixer
if you have one but you I just do it by hand it's really sticky now so what I do then is just place
my dough into my bowl and leave it for the day and just let it do its Bach fermentation I think it's
really important to keep this in a cool place if you're going to leave it all day if you're at home
obviously you can watch the dough and just leave it for as long as it takes to double in size and
become visibly bubbly but you can leave it all day if you keep it in a cool spot in hot weather I'd
use an ice brick and some kind of sq or cooler box so here's my dough in the evening you can see the
bubbles there it's fermented pretty well and what I'm what I do now is just at the end of the day I
do some stretching folds then I shape the dough and then I bake it pretty simple and I really
like this method because it's sort of I can do it any day of the week and it fits around work if I
need it to if I make this bread on the weekend then I could just do it sort of over a short a
period but I like this because I can leave it all day if I need to so that's the first
round of stretching folds I do for over an hour period and this is the second one and basically
the stretching folds just help to give the dough structure and strength you're sort of stretching
the gluten and incorporating air as well gently without knocking out too much of the dough so it
gives you the the lightest possible loaf you try and handle it pretty gently and once you feel the
dough is starting to resist you just stop so don't don't go any further if the dough doesn't want to
stretch this is stretch and fold number three so over this hour I did four rounds so there's
15 minutes break in between so you just wet your hand grab the dough pull it up and sort of fold it
over on itself it's a really nice method to get a lighter life especially with this whole wheat
flour and you can see that that dough is pretty extensible it's letting me stretch stretch it
like that and that's you know big part of that is is that long auto lease in the fridge so that was
the fourth stretch and fold and I think by this point I've decided I'd had enough stretching and
folding and I wouldn't wanted to get the loaf ready for baking so I'm just using my trusty
non-stick baking paper method here that you've probably seen in my other other video and you
know if you've got really good do handling skills and shaping skills then you can use a bonnet on
you can pretty much handle this dough however you like you could put it into a baking tin and bake a
loaf style but I'm just doing a really basic easy version so my shaping is really just a final round
of stretching folds I don't do any other shaping of this dough I just do one round of stretching
folds and just tip it out like that and then I gently sort of tighten up the up the round just
with my hands and that's all I've that's all I do I've got a I've got to be a bit more development
to do in my shaping but you know this works for me and it's really quick and easy and it's a
good a good method for beginners too and you get a pretty good result so having the table dry at this
part is really handy you probably saw me wipe the table dry it just helps the dough to stick while
you're pulling on it tightening this with hands I just put this dough into a Benetton obviously
I'm not using it for its intended purpose but it does make a handy little bowl shape just to hold
the dough while it proves and I do get my spatula and just press those little creases in the baking
paper that just stops them from sticking into the dough and and putting little creases in it
which I don't quite like it just keeps it nice and neat and tidy and doesn't miss me you know
put your dough out of shape this is my proofing setup that I use quite a fair bit of the time
actually if you're in a hurry at night or you want to just speed up the process a little bit
it was a pretty cool day when I made this bread I just put a cup of freshly boiled water into
this big old roaster that I've got with my dough and that acts like a bit of a proving oven and
helps to speed up the final proof a bit so you can't really get a sense of the time with this
section of the video but I'm pretty much going back every half an hour or so and checking the
dough I give it a bit of a wobble and just watch it as it rises every now and then I use a timer
and just go back and check this proof was 2 hours in total it's really important though
when you think your dough is getting close close to being ready I'm just touching it there I don't
bother with the poke test it doesn't really work for me I tend to go by the wobble test
yeah so when you think you've got about half an hour to go don't forget to preheat your
oven I'm going to bake this loaf in a in a pot a casserole pot yeah pre-heat your oven to 230
degrees Celsius so yeah this was after 2 hours the dough is ready enough for me I probably could
have let it proof a little bit more but it made a really beautiful loaf I was pretty happy with it
just get my setup ready and then I get my baking pot which is really really hot too
soon just make sure you're really careful with this stage this is just a ceramic casserole bake
oh you can put your doing anything you like as long as it's oven safe and I just lift out the
dough with the paper and put it into the pot I do spray this with water part of partly is
so that the spatula and the dough don't stick to each other when I get rid of those bumps in the
paper again but also I do tend to have a habit of spraying my dough with water just to create
extra steam in the baking which helps with you know getting a nice a nice ovens you know a nice
oven spring that's not hindered by any crust sort of developing early on so that goes into
the oven and I baked that for 25 minutes with the lid on and here it is after the initial 25
minutes its risen up pretty well you'll notice I didn't score this loaf I just decided to let
it go to a decent sort of proof and not score it I put it back into the oven and here it is after
a further 15 minutes with the lid off so that loaf is done now it's a beautiful golden color
this video doesn't really do that color justice I've got some photos you'll see a little bit at
the end of the video that show how gorgeous and golden the loaf is tap it yep it's all good I
pretty much bake my leaves until they're almost burnt that way they're there I know that they're
done that loaf was just gorgeous yeah really happy with that I don't take any internal temperatures
on my loaf I just cooked them till they're done and here it is the next morning really sorry to
say that this this little section here is out of focus but once I hold the slices up you'll
be able to see just this cutting part is out of the crust has lost its crunch overnight it was
actually a really humid rainy weekend that I make this dough so that a lot of moisture in the air so
there's no where that crust was staying crunchy but the the bread turned out really beautiful
with a reasonably open crumb which can you know can be hard to achieve with a hundred percent
whole wheat loaves and there it is I have to say too that the flavor in this bread is really quite
different to bread that hasn't been through that initial soak I'm really happy with that it's just
really gorgeous bread so I really encourage you to give it a try you probably get more practiced
at it than me and make make lovely loaves but yeah this is a good little trick a good little
starting place I guess for a hundred percent whole wheat loaves these are the nice photos that I took
of the bread it's it's just a gorgeous loaf beautiful color and the crumbs reasonably open
and the flavor is absolutely outstanding really really good and there's the final shot thanks
for watching everyone I really do appreciate your support I've got more info below thanks