I’ve been thinking about this recipe for some time, and I’ve been tinkering with it for just about as long. I wanted to create a whole wheat sourdough bread that wasn’t all the way 100% whole grain, but still enough to bring out that assertive wheat flavor, gentle yet complex sourness, and also one that packs a nutritious punch. I wanted it to be light in hand, soft of texture, and be the right starting place for those who might not have had much experience with bread boasting a majority of whole grains.
This recipe is a beginner’s sourdough recipe but with more whole grains than not. A fifty-fifty whole wheat sourdough bread to get you and your family on the whole-grain train without them missing the characteristics of white flour. Typically, bread with a significant amount of white flour is lighter, more open, and loftier.
As you might know, I always like to experiment. To tinker. To change. Even when things are already working well I seem to dig in and just have to adjust. My previous work with whole wheat almost always utilized a stiff levain (around 65% hydration) but here I opted for 100% hydration liquid levain. I made this change mostly to see if the result would be all that different, but also because I wanted to add flexibility to this bread—knowing that I, or you out there, could make it with a stiff or liquid levain just the same. I find there are advantages and disadvantages to both but when it comes down to it as long as you adjust the total water in your recipe you’ll get a great result no matter which type of starter you maintain or levain you use.
Instead of a long levain build period, this formula calls for a shorter time from levain mix to using it in the dough. This is a handy thing to be comfortable with, it means you can get a strong, reliable levain ready to go in a shorter time period (about 3-4 hours instead of 6-7). Nothing groundbreaking here, but I like to highlight it upfront as something to add to your baking toolbox. The ability to adjust your levain to suit your schedule is handy and it means baking can revolve around our busy schedules and hectic weekends.
And finally, I played with baking this bread at a much higher temperature for a shorter period overall—I baked these fast and hot (and you can see that in the image above, a little more color all around and especially on top). Instead of baking on thick baking stones, I opted for a Baking Steel as my “deck,” which gets incredibly hot. More on this later, and before we delve into these things any further, let’s talk about flour.
Flour Selection
My whole wheat selection here is pretty straightforward, just a good quality stoneground whole wheat (and it’s actually the whole wheat flour I use most often here in my kitchen). In experimenting between stoneground and roller milled whole wheat flour I’ve found the flavor of stoneground whole wheat to be more assertive, deep and much tastier overall. Due to the method of milling, stoneground whole wheat preserves more of the bran and germ and these particles are clearly evident when passing the raw flour through your fingers. If you don’t have stoneground whole wheat a roller milled whole wheat (this is typically what you’ll find at the market) will work just as well, perhaps with a slightly different flavor profile and less assertive whole wheat taste overall.
Generally, I prefer the texture of lower protein white flour like Giusto’s or Central Milling Artisan Baker’s Craft (both which are around 11-12% protein). To me, these generally have less of a gummy texture and perform very well for extended fermentation times. If you don’t have access to this flour any “all-purpose” flour would work well here, including King Arthur all-purpose.
Fifty-Fifty Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread Formula
Vitals
| Total Dough Weight | 1,800 grams |
| Pre-fermented Flour | 5.00% |
| Hydration | 82.00% |
| Yield | 2 x 900g loaves |
Total Formula
Target final dough temperature (FDT) is 78°F (26°C).
This recipe is highly hydrated because there’s a high percentage of whole grains, which require more water in the mix (the bran and germ present in the flour can take on quite a bit more). If this is your first time trying this loaf, reserve 100g of the mixing water and only add it in if the dough feels like it can handle the addition.
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 476g | Whole wheat flour (Giusto’s whole wheat) | 50.00% |
| 238g | Medium-protein bread flour or All-purpose flour (~11% protein, Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour) | 25.00% |
| 238g | High protein flour (~12% protein, King Arthur Bread Flour) | 25.00% |
| 781g | Water | 82.00% |
| 18g | Salt | 1.90% |
| 48g | Sourdough starter (100% hydration) | 5.00% |
Method
1. Levain – 12:30 p.m.
| Weight | Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 48g | Ripe starter | 100% |
| 24g | Giusto’s Stoneground Whole Wheat | 50% |
| 24g | Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour | 50% |
| 48g | Water | 100% |
As mentioned earlier, I worked with a shorter levain build for this bread. To adjust for the reduced build time, we’ll increase our inoculation of ripe starter and the water temperature. This gets the whole process moving faster, and by the time you’re ready to use this levain, you’ll notice some significant activity. See my post on the importance of dough temperature for more information.
Build the liquid levain (everything listed in the Levain Build section above) in the morning or afternoon and store somewhere around 78°F (26°C) ambient for 3 hours.
2. Autolyse – 1:30 p.m.
Usually, with high percentages of whole wheat and/or bread flour, I lengthen the autolyse time, sometimes up to 5-6 hours. The two-hour autolyse in this recipe, while not as long as 5-6 hours, helps the high percentage of whole grains fully hydrate and starts the gluten development process without mixing. This will help reduce the total mix time required later in the process.
See my guide to the autolyse technique for more information on its benefits and why I used this technique in this recipe.
| Weight | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 453g | Whole wheat flour |
| 214g | Medium-protein bread flour or all-purpose flour |
| 238g | High protein flour (“bread” flour) |
| 634g | Water (100g was held back until Mix) |
Mix the above ingredients in a bowl until all dry bits are hydrated. Cover the bowl and store somewhere warm for 2 hours.
3. Mix – 3:30 p.m.
| Weight | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 143g | Ripe levain |
| 18g | Salt |
| 100g | Water (reserved from Autolyse step) |
Add the called for ripe levain to your autolysed dough and using about half of the reserved 100g of water mix thoroughly with your hands. You want the levain to be pretty well mixed through the dough and the added water absorbed.
Let’s mix/knead. I chose to do slap and fold for about 4 minutes, just until the dough started to show signs of a smooth surface and it was catching some air. If you aren’t comfortable with slap/fold method or don’t like it, you can do stretch and folds in the bowl until your dough tightens up and becomes slightly hard to stretch out and fold over. Medium development.
When finished mixing spread the salt on top of the dough and the remaining water to help dissolve. Pinch through the dough thoroughly and fold the dough over itself to help incorporate and absorb the remaining water. When finished transfer the dough to a tub or thick-walled bowl for our first rise, or bulk fermentation.
4. Bulk Fermentation – 3:40 p.m. to 7:10 p.m.
At 78-80°F (25-26°C) ambient temperature, bulk fermentation should go for about 3 hours and 30 minutes. Give the dough 5 sets of stretch and folds during this time, spaced out by 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the dough as it approaches the three-hour mark. It will rise a bit and be quite active! See my sequence of images below to get a feel for how the dough should look and feel during the 3.5-hour rise.
Above is a picture of my dough after mixing and right at the beginning of bulk. You can see how shaggy the dough is, how wet and lifeless—it’s just sitting there in a single flat layer. There’s no rounding between the edges of the dough and the bowl, no bubbles anywhere, and if you jiggled the bowl you wouldn’t see much movement.
Above is my dough after the fifth, and last, set of stretch and folds. Look how strong the dough has become compared to the picture above. It’s holding its shape in the bowl extremely well—this is a sign for me that the dough is now strong enough and no further strengthening is needed. I will now let the dough rest, relax and rise the remainder of the time specified for bulk fermentation.
I called bulk fermentation quits when I saw the dough reach the point seen in the picture above. You can see it’s risen significantly, there are plenty of bubbles on top and just below the surface, and most importantly, the edge where the dough meets the bowl is domed & convex.
If I were to wet my hand and tug on the dough a little I’d feel much more resistance and elasticity—the ability of an object or material to resume its normal shape after being stretched or compressed. It’s gained strength and can hold its shape much more than at the beginning of bulk. These are all good signs your dough is strong enough and ready to be divided.
5. Divide & Pre-shape – 7:10 p.m.
Gently dump out the dough from your bulk container onto an un-floured work surface. Divide in half and pre-shape the dough into two round boules. Let the rounds rest 20 minutes uncovered.
6. Shape – 7:30 p.m.
Prepare two baskets that will hold your dough during its long cold proof overnight. If you decide to shape the dough as two boules (rounds), find two round kitchen bowls, and if you decide to shape it as a batard (ovals), use two bread baskets. Line the baskets with cotton or canvas liners if you have them, clean kitchen towels if not, and dust them lightly with white rice flour to prevent the dough from sticking during the proof.
Moderately flour the top of the dough and flour the work surface. Flip one resting round over, so the floured side is down on the work surface. Fold the dough’s top up and over to the middle and repeat for the bottom (you’ll now have a long slender rectangle in front of you). Pickup the rectangle and rotate it 90º, so it’s now lengthwise facing you. Grab the dough at the very top and fold over a little way, press to seal with the dough’s central mass. Now grab this rolled over the top and gently continue to roll it down towards the bottom, tucking in the dough as you go (imagine rolling down a beach towel). At the end of this, you’ll have a tube that has essentially been rolled downward. Once shaped, transfer each to their floured shaping basket with the seam side facing up.
For an in-depth guide to shaping like this, see my batard shaping guide.
Repeat with the other round.
7. Rest & Proof – 7:35 p.m.
Cover your baskets with plastic and then place them in the refrigerator to proof at 39°F (4°C).
8. Bake – Next Morning: Preheat oven at 8:30 a.m., Bake at 9:00 a.m.
Place your Baking Steel in your oven and preheat for one hour at 450°F (230°C). Once preheated, take out both of the baskets from the fridge and remove the plastic wrap.
You’ll notice my dough has risen somewhat but not a significant amount. Instead, the dough has relaxed to fill my proofing baskets and is perhaps a little puffier (the loaf on the right was a slightly higher final dough weight and will result in a larger loaf).
Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit over the top, place it over the basket, and then place a pizza peel or small cutting board over the top. Quickly invert each basket onto the parchment and peel/board. Using a sharp razor blade fastened to a stick, scissors, or a very sharp knife, carefully score the top of each loaf at a shallow angle to the dough, just deep enough to cut below the top skin created at shape time. I like to score whole wheat loaves with my bread lame at a very shallow angle; this helps the loaf attain maximal rise when in the oven. If you score at a straight 90° angle with the dough, then as the dough rises, it sort of splits open instead of peeling back.
I steamed my oven in my usual way, described here in my post how to steam your home oven for baking. I baked these loaves hot and fast. The goal was to bake the exterior to a nice dark color, and also bake the interior, but take the loaves out before they completely dried out inside. I like my loaves with whole wheat to be much more tender and moist, and I found this baking schedule achieves that.
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the steaming pans from inside the oven. Then, bake for an additional 30 minutes until the internal temperature registers around 206-210°F (96-98°C). Keep an eye on these from the middle of the bake all the way to the end as the prolonged high temperature can quickly scorch the outside of the loaves.
Note: these times and temperatures work well when baking here at a high altitude (about 5280 ft. above sea level) and in my environment. The first time you try this recipe, keep a close watch over the dough in the oven to adjust as necessary.
For an alternative to baking on a hot surface, check out the Challenger Bread Pan, which is a large cast-iron pan able to bake these batards with no problem.
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours. Be sure to store the bread properly to keep it fresh for a week or longer.
Conclusion
With this much whole wheat, it’s always a challenge to get a tall and airy loaf, but the addition of the bread flour, high hydration, and relatively tight shaping have helped achieve that. Along with the nice rise, the soft and tender interior and dark, crunchy crust play off each other to create a balanced bread that is flavorful and light in hand.
One modification I’d love to try is to use white wheat instead of red wheat for the 50% whole wheat portion. White wheat is one of my favorites to use, mainly because of its mild, laid-back flavor, but also I conveniently have a new 25-pound bag of raw white wheat berries sitting in my pantry ready to go (and nowadays it’s almost always used in my weekly sourdough sandwich bread). This change might reduce this bread’s overall assertiveness, but it would be exciting to see the flavor profile difference.
Crust
I love this dark crust, and because of the hot bake, the interior did not dry out in the slightest. Sometimes it can be hard to achieve this, but a minor tweak to the baking schedule really did the trick. I plan to try this in the future with my other recipes. The crust results speak for themselves!
I almost always prefer the batard shape over a boule, mainly because of how the bread slices up (not too wide and a little taller), and this bread is no exception. I enjoy how the crust peels back as the bread opens in the oven. It contributes to that tall loaf with a really pleasing aesthetic.
Crumb
For 50% whole wheat, I couldn’t be happier with the crumb. As you know, the higher you go in whole grains, usually, the denser your bread will be, but I think the relatively high hydration and a mix of flours have helped achieve a really light loaf that has uniform openness throughout.
Taste
This bread has an assertive wheat flavor but not so much that it’s overpowering; it really showcases the stoneground wheat and doesn’t let it play the second role here. There’s a tad more sourness peeking through, but it’s actually a very complimentary flavor to the wheat, adding a touch more complexity and depth. I’m not big on overly sour bread, and for me, this was just right.
If you’d like more sourness, try to proof a bit longer or add even more whole grains, and if you’d like less, do the opposite. Just be wary of the timetable I’ve laid out here when modifying the whole grain percentage. As you know, more whole grains means increased fermentation activity.
I like the idea that this recipe is a starting point for those who might not have a lot of experience working with whole grains (or even if you do!). With this gateway bread, you can adjust the whole wheat percentage up or down to suit you and your family’s tastes. It’s a good jumping-off point with a majority of whole grains and a base formula for our endless tweaking and testing in search of that perfect loaf.
Buon appetito!
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Fifty-Fifty Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
- Prep Time: 24 hours
- Total Time: 24 hours
- Yield: Two 900g loaves
Description
A delicious loaf of sourdough bread with 50% whole grains. This bread is airy, light in hand, and it has a deep, complex flavor profile from the assertive wheat and fermentation flavor.
Ingredients
Levain
- 24g medium protein bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
- 24g whole wheat flour
- 48g water
- 48g ripe sourdough starter
Autolyse
- 453g whole wheat flour
- 214g medium-protein flour (or all-purpose flour)
- 238g high-protein bread flour
- 634g water
Main Dough
- 18g salt
- 143g ripe levain
- 100g water
Instructions
- Levain (12:30 p.m.)
In a small container, mix the Levain ingredients and keep it at a warm temperature for 3 hours. - Autolyse (1:30 p.m)
In a medium mixing bowl, add the autolyse ingredients and mix until no dry bits remain. Cover the bowl and let rest for 2 hours. - Mix (3:30 p.m.)
To the mixing bowl holding your dough, add the levain and a splash of water. Mix thoroughly and strengthen the dough for about 4-5 minutes. Add the salt, another splash of water, and mix until incorporated. Strengthen the dough further if necessary until it’s elastic and smooth. Transfer the dough to a bulk fermentation container and cover. - Bulk Fermentation (3:40 p.m. to 7:10 p.m.)
This dough will need 5 sets of stretch and folds during bulk fermentation, at 30-minute intervals. After the last set, let the dough rest for the remaining time in bulk fermentation. - Divide and Preshape (7:10 p.m.)
Lightly flour your work surface and scrape out your dough. Using your bench knife, divide the dough in half. Lightly shape each half into a round shape. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes, uncovered. - Shape (7:30 p.m.)
Shape each piece of dough into a round (boule) or oval (batard) and place the dough in proofing baskets. - Proof (7:35 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. the next day)
Cover proofing baskets with reusable plastic and seal shut. Then, place both baskets into the refrigerator and proof overnight. - Bake (The next day, bake at 9:00 a.m.)
Preheat your oven with a baking surface or combo cooker/Dutch oven inside to 450°F (230°C).When the oven is preheated, remove your dough from the fridge, score it, and transfer it to the preheated baking surface or combo cooker. Bake for 20 minutes with steam. After this time, vent the steam in the oven or remove the lid (you can keep it in the oven or remove it) and continue to bake for 30 minutes longer. When done, the internal temperature should be around 206°F (96°C).
Let the loaves cool for 2 hours on a wire rack before slicing.
If you use this recipe, tag @maurizio on Instagram so I can take a look!
646 Comments
Hi Maurizio! Thank you so much for this recipe. I tried making it last week (my first foray into using this much whole wheat in a recipe), and it seemed like everything was going well during the dough formation, but it didn’t turn out well when I baked it. The end result was very dense and had very uneven crumb–large holes in the center, with very small, barely perceptible holes everywhere else. I’m wondering what I could have done wrong. I shaped the dough into two batards and tried steaming them in my oven. I don’t think the steaming worked that well (I am pretty sure I had too much water in the pan, and I didn’t have lava rocks), but the dough did rise. I’ve made several loaves in the past and never had this issue before, but I always baked in a dutch oven + was using mainly white flour. Thank you so much!
I had a similar problem with my white sourdough. I think my problem was too low of a temperature (70F-ish) during bulk fermentation, so it was under-proofed. Did you check your dough temperature throughout the process?
No, but that could be it! Will remember for next time!
Wonderful, Jim! I love the Italian flour usage as well, of course since you’re there that’s what you have 🙂 Thanks for the feedback as always, and a little color on the crust isn’t a bad thing in my book! Happy baking.
I tried this recipe and it was surprisingly not enough water for where I am (San Francisco)! Seriously the whole wheat flour is so strong. I’m trying it again today with 88% hydration. Fingers crossed.
I used Giusto’s Organic Whole Wheat High Protein Flour and some generic bread flour, not sure what brand.
I’m very interested as to why everyone else seem to experience the dough being over hydrated. Last time I made it, the dough felt dense and strong (stronger than when I used the “best sourdough” recipe), and the loaf came out of the oven looking very bouncy, just tasted a bit dryer than I liked.
It’s always very, very dependent on the flour you’re using. I too have used Giusto’s WW and always have to increase the hydration, it’s a thirsty flour! But that’s how it goes with baking bread, almost every flour is going to need some measure of adjustment, and what you’re doing (increasing the hydration) is exactly what’s needed 🙂
Hey Maurizio!
I had a quick question about how you time your feeds for this bake. I feed twice a day (morning and evening) and I’m not sure how to get a ripe/mature starter for the midday levain build.
My starter typically peaks after 10 hours, so I either end up with a super ripe starter (~14h) from the previous evening or a young starter (~6h) if I feed it early in the morning. Would you recommend feeding in the morning or not? How do you time things up for this bake?
Cheers!
EXTRA QUESTION – You mention increasing the water temperature for the levain build – what sort of temperature do you suggest?
Hey Ian – just read your note re starter and i have tried a bunch of different things with this recipe and thought it might be of interest. What Ive found that works best for me is to make the levain with my unfed starter in the morning (I feed it the night before). My levain takes longer than Maurizio’s to double in size and just begin to taper off so I have been mixing the levain at about 8.30 or 9am. I don’t autolyse until my levain has risen by about 1/3 and then the 2 hour autolyse is usually enough time for it to finish rising and be at its peak before deflating again. I found I had to time my bread making around this reading of my levain. If it is not quite peaked (meaning it is still a little rounded at the top but with bubbles coming through and mostly doubled in size) I go ahead. Today I had to push my autolyse to 2.5 hours as the starter wasn’t quite there. I moved it to a lightly warmer spot and it did the trick.
Thanks for the tips Robyn – I’ll keep a close eye on the levain next time round!
You could try delaying that feed the night before an hour or so, then in the morning let your levain run a little longer before using it when ripe. Alternatively, you could leave just a little less starter in the jar the night before to lengthen the time it takes to ripen, buying you some time (this is the approach I’d take!).
I’d say warm your levain water to 78F (25C), that way when you mix it up it’ll end around that final dough temp for the levain.
Thanks for the advice Maurizio – I’ll give this a shot!
Hi Maurizio.
Im just a very beginner with sourdough . I’ve started this recipe yesterday, and started to bake today.
My dough was very wet and I used your technique for kneading, slapping and 5 sets of folding. After that still the same but with rising bubbles.
I have put it inside the fridge into a bannetom and left it there for 14 hours. It didn’t rise and it was difficult to manipulate the dough.
I really don’t know what was my mistake, but i probably didn’t knead properly because the result is a super flat bread. Didn’t rise.
Also the temperature is cold at 14°. I would like try this recipe again because I love wholemeal bread and this recipe looks so amazing. Would you like to give me some advise that could help me the next time. Thank you so much.
Ive been enjoying my sourdough adventure reading your posts and trying different recipes. The Higher Hydration recipes with our local milled flour yielded mixed results but now Im having good success with the 50/50 Whole Wheat using some of Giustos Organic Bread flour and our local stone ground whole wheat…which is very course but delicious. My only issue is the loaves are bursting at the base. Not enough to ruin the loaf but annoying. Im baking the cinnamon raisin loaves this morning and the same thing happened to one of those. (other wise delicious). Im testing for proofing with the finger test and my levain takes a little longer than yours but I just start earlier. Any idea what might be causing this? I am also using a bit less water in the 50/50 Whole Wheat – 77% hydration – because my flour seems to be happy with that and Ive had flat loaves before. I tried scoring more deeply this morning and it still happened. Im baking boules with a cross score pattern.
This has become my go-to bread recipe – I make it once or twice a week, and often give away the second loaf, which has made me very popular at work. Thank you!
The unavailability of whole wheat flour during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic sent me temporarily over to your 100% AP-flour recipe (also delightful), but now I’m back and notice that the recipe is very slightly modified. It seems to come out wonderful this way too, but this got me wondering about the small changes. What I noticed?
1) Slightly different flour quantities.
2) No diastatic malt (you explained this in another comment)
3) Higher baking temperature throughout – in the former version you started the oven at 500 F and dropped it to 450 F immediately
I’m just curious about the motivation for the changes – was this just continued trial-and-error and you liked this outcome better? I’m trying to learn to think like you, not just copy your instructions slavishly, although straightforward duplication has certainly worked well so far. Is there any chance you’d explain your thinking? Thanks so much!
Baking near sea level, my baking times seem to be consistently quite a lot shorter than yours. I’ve done 20 minutes covered and 10 uncovered at 500 F, and then the crust is quite dark after only another 5-10 minutes at 450 F, not the 18-22 minutes you’re describing. I’m guessing this is an altitude effect?
Hey there! Yes, I did tweak this formula a bit, and you called it, after years of making this bread I’ve slowly evolved things to reflect improvements made here in my kitchen. I updated this recipe to reflect all those changes (mostly small changes, but significant impact on outcome).
I removed malt because it isn’t really necessary in this formula given the high percentage of whole grains (which will have plenty of amylase enzymatic activity and so adding malt not necessary). I dropped the bake temp to make it more consistent for bakers not at almost 6k ft elevation, but also, 450F is more than enough and helps reduce burned bottoms. I dropped the salt just a bit as well, high percentages were not really necessary — there’s plenty of flavor and fermentation is perfectly stable with this bread.
Adjust the bake times and temps as needed for your oven and location. Like you found, it is almost always necessary!
Hope this helps 🙂
Hi Maurizio
I love your site and have been experimenting with various degrees of success, though finding that I’m having to reduce hydration levels – maybe something to do with UK climate and flours?? I do have a question about Levain which has me slightly confused. In your recipes for “Levain Build” you seem to refer to different states of starter. Sometimes you use: “Mature Starter” sometimes “Ripe Starter” You also talk about “mature liquid starter” These terms are getting me slightly confused. I have the following understanding – Mature Starter is an active regularly fed starter, Ripe starter is at the peak of its activity and will pass the float test.
My question: In the Levain Build, should I use a starter that has reached its activity peak or should I use a starter that needs feeding?
Many thanks
Ralph
Hey, Ralph! Yes, from my experience, and in talking with other bakers, most UK flours need a reduction in hydration compared to USA flour. The flour here is generally higher protein and able to take on quite a bit more water — but it’s not a problem, hydration adjustments are almost always necessary. Just hold back water during mixing and add it in slowly as the dough can handle it. I usually recommend starting at the low end, perhaps 70% hydration for you, then hold the remaining water back and add slowly during mixing as needed/desired.
Sorry for the confusion on terminology there, many ways to refer to the same thing! I’ve slowly been changing my terminology to be more consistent here to remove confusion. I actually refer to “mature” as meaning when a starter is ready for a refreshment (feeding) that day. Lately, though, I’ve been referring to this as “ripe” instead — and I’ll do so from here on out.
For your levain, always use it when it’s at its peak activity — what I call now call “ripe.” The same goes for your starter, use it to make a levain when the starter is ripe (peak activity), and then use the levain when ripe to mix into a dough.
Hope this helps!
Ok! Thanks for quick reply – exactly what I needed to know. The main thing that its helped clarify is that I use a ripe starter to do my levain builds.
Thank you also for your comments about the hydration. I have actually started reducing the hydration but still not enough it seems. Even on this recipe I reduced to 75% and the dough slumped. The flour selections were a bit different but the general proportions were more or less fifty fifty.
The dough felt great and shaped really well but slumped in the fridge. Also our oven has a max of 230 degrees so am baking a little lower temperatures than you. I am about to order some Canadian 14% protein flour and see how I get on with that. I have had good results with other recipes using much lower hydration and they have worked really well. But am striving to produce breads with high wholemeal and rye content that has great spring and an open crumb… maybe in holy grail territory!
Hey Maurizio! My girlfriend and I have moved in together and moved to an entire country altogether. I managed to transport an offshoot of my starter by freezing the little guy and then feeding him at 12 hour intervals once we were settled in. I am super happy to report that she (the offshoot’s name is Rose) is as bubbly as active as ever.
3 questions:
1. How would you adapt the recipe for baking in a dutch oven? I’ve not bought baking steels for pizza yet (cost management given everything going on) but I picked up a budget dutch oven from IKEA which I’m hoping will tide me over in the meantime.
2. As for when I do pick up a proper dutch oven/steel. Are you still rocking the lodge combi? Any recommendations steel wise?
3. Now that I’m only baking for 2 people as opposed to a family, I imagine that scaling this recipe down for one batard would be as simple as dividing everything by 2 correct?
Thanks in advance!
That’s awesome to hear, Mark!
1. You can bake this without much change straight away in a Dutch oven. See my post on baking in a DO for more tips on that process.
2. Yes, I love the Lodge! It works very well and is not super expensive. You could also look into a Challenger Bread Pan if you want to do larger loaves. I still love my Baking Steel!
3. That’s right, just divide everything in half and you’re good to go.
Happy baking and congrats on the move!
Hi! Unfortunately I ended up with a really flat loaf with this recipe. I did end up adding a bit more water during the autolyse step as I felt the flour was a bit dry (should it be?), and during shaping my dough was very slack and did not hold its shape. Do you know what I could do next time to get a better rise?
It sounds like your dough is most likely over hydrated. Try reducing the hydration by 10% and give it another go — the reduced water should bring a lot of strength to the dough and you’ll feel it immediately. Once you find a suitable hydration, you can try to push it back up, but as you do, take note of how the consistency of the dough changes: the dough will start to slacken out as you add more and more water, this means you’ll likely have to mix more upfront or add another set or two of stretch and folds during bulk fermentation.
Try to keep everything else as consistent as possible and let me know how the next attempt goes!
Hi, I tried this recipe and didn’t manage to get any oven spring. I’m not sure where my main issues lie. I used 50% all purpose flour instead of bread flour, because that’s all I could find, but my 50% whole wheat flour (King Arthur) had a high 14% protein content, so I figured that would help. To compensate, I lowered the hydration from 84% to 80%. I also only managed to fit in 3 coil folds before the bulk fermentation was done, so I might not have gotten enough gluten development. When shaping the batards, they didn’t really hold their shape well, and even after a 16 hour cold proof, they could barely hold their shape. I’m worried I might have degassed them somewhat during shaping because they kept sticking to my hands, but the bigger issue is the lack of strength.
Maybe lowering the hydration to 70 or 75% could make this easier to manage?
Sorry to hear that, Ian. Yes, I’d drop the hydration a bit more and see if you can give it a bit more strengthening upfront after mixing everything together. You can do folds in the bowl, slap and fold, or do a more vigorous stretch and fold for that first set in bulk fermentation.
Hi -I love this recipe. I baked it last weekend and it turned out amazing! As it’s getting hotter, I was wondering if you have a recipe that requires an evening bake? Or if there’s part of this recipe I can adjust to a summer schedule. Thank you!
You could do this as a same-day bake: instead of proofing it in the fridge, proof it on the counter for 1-2 hours until ready to go into the oven. You could also shift the entire schedule so the loaf goes into the fridge for the proof later, and then the next day, let it stay in the fridge until the evening to bake — that should work well!
Was looking through the comments for this, thanks Maurizio! I usually feed my starter before bed so it’s ready early in the morning, so mixing the levain at 12:30 is too late for me! Same day bake for this is perfect.
Hi! I’m very new to sourdough bread or baking in general and absolutely love your recipes. I’ve baked 4 batches (2 loaves each) in 8 days 😀 Just a quick question though, I’ve baked this on Tuesday and I swear the recipe was a little different, mainly it called for diastatic malt powder, and I’m preparing to make this now and the recipe changed?! Am I losing my mind or did you update the recipe?
I thought I was losing my mind too! So happy you said something…I wrote the recipe down last week and it definitely had diastatic malt in it.
Glad to know that I’m not completely crazy lol. I went everywhere to find diastatic malt, eventually found it at a Korean grocery store, so I really want to use it!
I also thought I was losing it when I didn’t see the diastatic malt there! Very confusing that it was changed without commentary…I ended up using the notes above from Natalie but my levain was with the new measurements- hopefully it’ll still work!!
See my reply on why I removed it, above, Sophie! Sorry about the confusion.
Thanks so much for your reply Maurizio! Did the levain instructions change as well? I notice Natalie’s post has different amounts of flour than the new recipe. If so- why did that change too? I used the new levain instructions but Natalie’s post with old flour amounts and I’m a bit concerned it won’t work.
Yes, because I removed the malt the entire formula changed in response. So sorry about this! Just be sure to use the levain when ripe and it should work out just fine, though. Next time I’d switch over to the formula as listed here in this post.
I thought I was going mad!. I have my note book with the original
recipe so nver really check the www now for ingredients so when I
checked the process noticed the ingredients were different..But it was
too late by then and I used my notebook reference which I can see now is
the “old version”. So where is your reply Maurizio explaining why you
removed it please ?
Yeah, it was 10g I beleive added for the autolyse. I’m interested to know why he changed it.
I followed this recipe and they came out beautifully but I’d like to know if he posted the old version somewhere or anyone has the measurements.
In my notes for the previous 50/50 recipe I have:
For Levain:
40g Starter
40.3g Giusto’s Stoneground Whole Wheat
40.3g Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour
80.6g H20
For Dough:
466g Giusto’s Stoneground Whole Wheat
244g Central Milling High Mountain Bread Flour
222g Giusto’s Artisan Bread Flour
805g H20 (this is for 86% hydration, recipe stated this was very wet and to experiment with 78%-80% hydration, 730g-750g if you were not comfortable with high hydration)
10g Diastatic Malt
21g sea salt
132g Levain
Hope this help!
Thanks for posting that, Natalie!
See my reply above, Karl!
Sorry about that, Andrea! Yes, I removed the diastatic malt after baking this loaf so many times for so long — it’s really not needed given the high percentage of whole grains. Sorry about the confusion, I should have added a note in the post!
No worries! I just thought I was losing my mind and somehow copied down the wrong recipe 😂 thank you!
Hi there! Question. When you say in the dough formula, that the formula is the final dough and does not take into account the levain.
That is very confusing. Do we subtract the Respective flower and water weight of our levain from the final dough formula, or do we make the final dough formula and then add the levain to it?
Sorry for the confusion, I’ve been meaning to come back and update that to be more consistent with my latest recipes. Just mix everything in the recipe listed as-is, no deductions or subtractions are necessary.
Thank you! I’ve made this loaf several times and love the flavor. I have a hard time getting a good spring though.
I retard during the final rise for about 24 hours. I’ve had horribly under-proofed cavernous loafs, and good but fairly flying saucer shaped loafs.
I’ll give it a few more attempts and play with the bulk fermentation time and final rise time. I added <1% malt to help the structure.
Sounds like perhaps the dough was under hydrated! This dough has quite a high hydration, it shouldn’t have dry lumps at all 🙂
Made half recipe just to test. My starter wasn’t ready in time so I did the autolyse overnight. Did not do the shape step in the fridge just let it rest for 30 mins. All came out fine. The dough was not sticky as long as I used wet fingers , which is how I used up the reserved water. Also when incorporating the salt I just put it in my finger water rather than sprinkle. Hope this helps someone to combat sticky dough. Longer and cold autolyse I believe is required.
Dissolving the salt in a bit of the mixing water will definitely help it incorporate more easily!
I missed pre-shaping the dough is that ok?
Totally fine, just be sure to shape a little tighter and/or take extra steps shaping if necessary.
Why does this always turn out as a sticky sloppy mess at stage 5? Even with 50g less water!
Sounds like over hydration, as you guessed. Try dropping the water even more, perhaps 150g, and see if that helps. It’s all very dependent on the flour you’re using 🙂
Hi! I’ve baked this loaf a couple of times in the past – it’s always great! The one thing that I can’t seem to get right though is my dough consistency, post autolyse. I often find that even after the addition of levain, water, salt, the dough is already pretty stiff. I feel like it ought to be more slack than it is, especially at such an early stage. I often have to pull my do apart for each turn. I don’t think I’m overdoing the slap and fold, but full disclosure, I’ve been using AP flour instead of bread flour. What do you think?
That’s interesting. If it’s overly stiff usually increasing the hydration will help and decreasing the amount of strengthening done as well. I’d say try increasing the hydration slowly, perhaps just 25g the first time, and see how that goes!
Hi: I’m confused about the levain amount. The levain build adds up to 150g, but the dough formula lists 132g “Mature, liquid levain”. Should it be 150g or is there a reason for its being less? Thank you!
There’s a little extra levain built into this recipe, use only 132g called for in the mix!
Would love to see a video of your mix for this recipe. I have tried it several times and reduced the hydration to 78 percent but even then it is a very sloppy mess when adding the extra water with leavin and then again with Salt. I end up doing more slap and folds after the salt and water addition. Should it be that soggy then? Will adding the extra slap and folds after the salt mix in mess with the process? Thank you! Loving this blog!
I was wondering the same! I found myself making 50/50 white/wheat after flour shortage due to Covid. Bread flour was short in supply. My usual SD recipe was not as good as usual so I went to find a more wheat suitable recipe and found this. The autolyse and high hydration produced a much better loaf than my usual. However, like other folks, I have a hard time when I get to the water/salt addition, and I feel like I’m doing something wrong with the soggy mess. I’ve made this recipe a few times, and I usually just keep slap and fold until it comes together. But the instructions say to slap and fold for 4 minutes. Which I do to incorporate levain, but after adding water and salt, I go way past 4 minutes and wonder if perhaps I overwork the dough. Just now, I did the stretch and fold in the bowl method, and after adding salt and water in last step, definitely left it a little soggy. I trust that the following 5 stretch and folds will help it come together. I’ll let y’all know tomorrow morning if it’s better than last time. I’m also using my Alaska gold rush starter this time which is just a bit more active (it’s a beast) than my homemade which is about 5 years old, but not quite as bubbly, and earthy smelling, as my Alaska.
This is definitely a wet dough, and it might be even more so with your flour (it’s very dry here and I typically add a bit more water to my mixes). You can certainly add in more sets of slap and fold as necessary to strengthen the dough, but I’d say drop down to 75% hydration and see if that helps first! It’s definitely ok to do a second round of slap and fold after adding the salt. The dough will break apart a bit, but it will eventually come back together and accept more strengthening.
Alternatively, you could omit that second set of s/f and add in more sets of stretch and folds during bulk to finish strengthening.
Thanks so much Maurizio for the amazing and detailed recipes. I was a bit confused about—if I am making this recipe for 50/50 whole wheat but using a dutch oven instead of a baking steel—whether I should follow the baking temperatures and times in the dutch oven baking guide (475–>450?) or the temps and times in this recipe (500–>450). But, I experimented and did both, starting with the 500–>450. It was delicious but a bit dark on both top and bottom, so on the second loaf in the dutch oven I went with 475–>450. Oddly it didn’t seem to make any difference. Both were very dark and took the same amount of time to cook.
I used 50% stoneground whole wheat and 50% AP flour. No bread flour. My mixture definitely seemed too moist at the slap-and-fold stage so I added some more flour. Next time after reading a lot of comments I see that I should probably have withheld some water when going with AP flour instead of bread flour.
Not sure what happened but ended up with a sloppy wet mess for step 7. Couldn’t get a neat boule for the proofing basket at all. That’s after the 5 stretch and folds and 5.5 hours of bulk fermenting. Any thoughts?
I’m also new to bread making but I did read (and have noticed in my own baking) that too long a bulk can over ferment the dough and it basically turns to shapeless glue. My somewhat-amateur advice would be to keep on eye on the dough rather than the clock to make sure you’re not over-fermenting.
Hi Maurizio! I’ve been reading your columns for several months and have been a sourdough baker for about 20 years. My standard process has been Peter Reinhardt’s San Francisco sourdough, with a barn starter and intermediate firm starter; overall a three day process. Final loaves beautiful but relatively fine crumbed.
Lately I decided to try your technique and recipes, and have shared my starter with my adult son, who is now “hooked”.
I am loving the process and the results!
The stretch and fold process works well for my son, who doesn’t possess a $700 mixer like my Kitchen Assistent. And I told him he’d burn up his KitchenAid if he tried to knead sourdough bread in it.
Anyway, I just made your 50/50 whole wheat, using KA organic bread flour and Stone Buhr whole wheat. The results are outstanding.
Open, moist interior, mild sourdough flavor but the nutty “sweetness” of the whole grain.
I’m converted to this type of baking!
I’m trying to add a photo, maybe a second email following.
Thank you!
Judy Force, Grass Valley CA
Hello Maurizio! Thank you so much for all your information and videos! I’ve been making sourdough bread since two weeks and been learning a lot. But I have the problem that my dough is always kind of watery and it is really hard to pre-shape and shape. And once I cook it it rises but it doesn’t have the huge holes of sourdough bread. thank you again and greetings from Chile!