hi everyone welcome to my very first whole grain sourdough bread recipe for my new channel
i'm really really happy to be here and sharing this with you all i'm not an expert in whole grain
sourdough baking but i'm really experimental and i love it and i'm really dedicated to baking with
whole grains so i'm really keen to just share my adventures really with you on this channel
this loaf i did put a fair bit of thought into what i was going to do for my first
recipe video on my on this channel i decided to go for a loaf that is quite simply made
and it's baked in a tin and it's just a regular old 100 whole wheat sourdough loaf it's a kind
of an everyday loaf and for those of you who know me you know that that's kind of my style um but
there was a bit of a backstory to this when i went to the grains gathering in trenton victoria last
year so in october 2019 i went to that and i had such a wonderful time hi marie if you're watching
i was really inspired by one of the keynote speakers there steve jones
steve jones is a geneticist and a wheat breeder from the united states he heads up the bread lab
at washington state university and he has been you know him and his colleagues and students
i imagine have been very instrumental in promoting the use of whole grains and whole wheat
in commercial bakeries and bakers in in the states steve and some of the other speakers talked about
this idea of the approachable loath and while it's something that they're aiming towards
commercial bakeries and bakers to encourage them to consider making breads for their consumers that
have a high proportion of whole grain flours in them as a home baker it's something that really
appealed to me too and i think it's really in line with my kind of everyday bread philosophy
for me bread making actually soap making all the things that i'm interested in for me they have to
be approachable and accessible to everybody i'm trying to do things that help people who haven't
done it before or i would like to get into making their own bread give them some experience and give
them some examples of how it can be done simply without it being overwhelming and using a really
lengthy complicated process that takes your whole day because you know some of us do have a lot
of time but not all of us do and some of us just want to have a really good tasty super healthy 100
or high whole grain bread without going to too much trouble to make it so the criteria for an
approachable loaf is that number one it has to be baked in a tin and sliced number two it has to
contain no more than seven ingredients and that's easy with mine it's just wheat water salt and some
seeds on the top so it's very simple it has to contain no non-food i'm not exactly sure how
they define non-food but i'm pretty sure my recipe that i'm sharing doesn't have any non-food in it
it has to be at least 60 whole wheat so mine's fine mine is made of 100 whole wheat
i use this lovely um organic whole hard white wheat from demeter farm meals in gunadar in
new south wales and i just ground this up in my mock mill which you're going to see
um straight before i mix the bread so really fresh 100 whole wheat
it has to be priced under six dollars a loaf so i'm not selling my bread i'm not a bakery but
for me it costs probably around two dollars a loaf to make so that's fine that's australian dollars
anyway uh and 10 of every life sold in from the bakeries is to be returned to the bread lab to
support their further research so i'm sorry bread lab you won't be getting 10 cents from my life
but i understand that it's a it's an initiative aimed at commercial
bakeries and bakers so i think that's great i love that you're supporting the community but you're
also asking the community to support support you back to further the research in this area
so that's pretty much it for the intro i'll get into the recipe now it's a really simple one
but i hope it encourages you to just have a try if you really want to have the health benefits and
the flavor of 100 whole wheat sourdough loaf this is the kind of method that you can get
started with it doesn't have to be intimidating there's just a few tricks that you need to know
with whole grains and you do have to adjust your expectations a bit because a whole grain loaf is
never going to look like a refined flour loaf it's just a different thing but if that's what you're
wanting to do it can be done and it doesn't have to be difficult so here's my example to starting
off with a simple everyday approachable loaf hope you enjoy it so i start off this recipe
by just weighing out my wheat you can use 500 grams of whole wheat and mill it yourself or
just use 500 grams of whole wheat flour make sure that it's not sifted and it's a hundred percent
whole wheat flour um this is my mukmil 200 that i use and you can see that i've got a bit of a
funny technique i don't use the dial at all i just pull it down until it starts that ticking sound
and then i put the wheat in and that gets the finest grind possible i do think that it makes
a difference having really fine flour but you know there's debate about that some people prefer
coarser flour for their whole wheat breads but i like mine really fine
this is that nice demeter whole wheat grain i'm not exactly sure what variety it is you often
don't get told what the varieties are here in australia but things are changing so that's good
so i just use this flower really fresh straight out of the mill which you can
see and it is a bit warm it's not super hot but because it's warm i use cold water in my bread
and that just helps to counteract the warmth in the flower because in our especially in
here in brisbane in our sub-tropical summers if i use warm flower and tap water or you know room
temperature water it would be too warm and the dough just wouldn't come together and it would
over ferment so i use 450 grams of water for this which is quite a lot it's about 90 hydration and
to be honest with you it's too much i have used other flowers from my queensland grown kyla wheat
and it is super thirsty and it can take this much water but this is the first time i'm using
the demeter wheat for a while and i forgot that it doesn't quite take as much but that's okay
this is an approachable loaf it doesn't have to be a perfect loaf it still came out really good
but yeah maybe you guys try 400 grams of water instead of 450 i think that might be a safer bet
so you just mix up the flour and the water and leave it to rest or auto lease for one hour and
the order list you can see there it really changes the texture of the dough quite dramatically i've
made so many of these without that orderless and i tell you it really makes a difference
after that hour has passed add your salt i use eight grams which is about one and a third
metric teaspoons and then you add your starter i just use my starter old starter from the fridge
honestly i don't make a lavan or do anything fancy i just use about 120 130 grams of starter straight
from the fridge and mix that in i don't know whether i'm lazy or i'm just really efficient with
my time there's debate about that too but i just love the simplicity of not having to plan for my
breads just love to be able to take that starter out of the fridge and mix up a loaf any time
so i am just using my beautiful dough whisk that my dad made me hear thanks gary um
and just mix that together it's a bit hard to do on the bench usually i sit on a chair
and i put the bowl in between my knees and i use two hands on the dough whisk
um but it comes together you're just really wanting to incorporate the starter and the salt
i like to scrape down the sides of my bowl as well just to make it a bit easier to clean up
later if there's no dry dough on there and i just started to give this dough a little stretch and
fold straight away it is so extensible and like i said probably over hydrated but that's okay we're
not into perfection here we're just trying to make a good loaf of bread um yeah it's a really
soft lovely dough i can tell it's going to be pretty good so i'll just cover that then um and
next i feed up my starter this is how i manage my starter i use it straight from the fridge
even if it's been there for four or five days and then i feed it up with about 70 grams each of
flour and cold water in this case i mix that up and then i just leave this jar to for the
starter to kind of reactivate and ferment during the day while my bread is bulk fermenting and then
it just goes back into the fridge for next time i know it's it's a bit of an uncommon way to do it
but honestly i'm quite happy with the breads that i make using this method i'm sure they'd be better
if i used fresh starter but the convenience of this for me far outweighs any benefits
of doing any other pre-planning so anyway many ways to do it there's no right or wrong
so what you do next is really just bulk ferment the dough my bulk ferment took about five hours
and through that period just do a few stretch and folds you can see how sloppy and extensible
this dough is it's really doesn't have a lot of strength at this point but the stretching and
folding will will give it more strength and will yeah stretch up the gluten and um give it more
structure if you didn't do that it would have a different texture and still be bread and still be
okay but yeah do a few stretch and folds i think i did about four sometimes i do three sometimes i
do more depends on how busy i am really um even one is better than none so just do what you can
i think this is number three you can see that the dough is starting to ferment it's getting
quite sort of soft so but every time you stretch
and fold it you bring back that strength into the dough
and here's another one just you can see that the dough is starting to ferment more it's getting
more slack and starting to get a little bit gassy you really just want to watch the dough not the
clock when you're bulk fermenting it you're wanting to see like about a 50 rise um this
one went a bit further than i probably would have liked it to have gone but that's okay i
was doing other things and it was a fairly warm day too but it's okay i just do one final stretch
and fold here and you can see i'm handling it quite gently and i use that as a way to get the
dough out of the bowl as well i learnt that trick from trevor j wilson he's a clever man
um so i just give that dough a final rest for about 10 minutes and then i just do the final
shaping and i've got my tin ready with a bit of non-sticks um baking spray in it
um i forgot to spray my bench with water so the dough stuck a little bit i never use flour i'm
too much of a neat freak and it's just a pain in the neck and it's a bit messy so i tend to just
spray my bench with water but basically just kind of fold your dough up roll it into a log shape and
get it in the tin you don't have to be too precise about it as long as it's got a bit of tension
to it the rolling method works really well and just pop it in the tin uh i'm adding some black
sesame seeds here and also some white sesame seeds i think they just make it look really
nice and they add beautiful flavor to the crust which is delicious especially when it's toasted
and just cover that up so my final proof for this dough was 90 minutes but again yours will
differ you might only leave yours 30 minutes or it might be longer it just depends on the
temperature and the ferment of your dough so many factors and there's my starter it just
goes back in the fridge once it's activated so it's just back in the fridge for next time
here's the dough ready to bake after that 90 minute proof i do bake mine
inside this roaster but you don't have to you can just pop it in the oven without a cover as well
the covered roaster just does help create a bit more steam around the loaf so you get a
bit of a thinner more crispy crust um and nice even cooking and a bit kind of slightly better
oven spring as well with the steam so i baked this loaf for one hour at 220 celsius or 430 fahrenheit
and it comes out really nice i do like my breads to have quite a dark
crust i think you get so much flavor from the crust yep and it's cooked um that's just my little
knocking test that i do a bit old-fashioned but it works and yeah it's gorgeous lovely golden
caramelized crust honestly i've made breads in the microwave with no crust just as a just for
fun and they have no flavor there's so much flavor in the crust anyway here's the bread
the next day i'm really really happy with this loaf like i said it's not a perfect life
it's an approachable loaf and i definitely use too much water in it but it's okay
i eat most of my bread fresh kind of the same day or the next day for sandwiches and then after
that it's toasted anyway you can see how it's leaving a little bit of gumminess on the knife
but it's a gorgeous loaf of whole wheat bread and it's really simple to make and it's just
a nice easy way to get the bread done um i have a bit of a taste test here it's
nice it's got kind of a moderate sour but a lovely sweet wheat flavor just good just great
thank you very much for watching everybody i hope you enjoyed the video i look forward to doing many
more interesting videos to come hopefully learn a few things along the way myself i'm sure i will
i appreciate all of your support especially all of you who've subscribed already before
me even sharing any um bread videos thank you thanks everyone see you in the next one bye