I discovered last week that the local IGA supermarket has 12.5 kg bags of wholemeal flour, so I got a bag to see what sort of bread it makes, and have been impressed. Normally I use white bakers flour, and add other flours in a 3:1 ratio, as the other flours aren’t ‘strong’ high protein bread flour and dilute the cohesiveness of the dough. I also thought that 100% wholemeal would be too heavy – I’m sure I read that somewhere. But this flour is rated for bread making and the loaves have turned out very well. Although they are a little serious for jam for breakfast, if you know what I mean, they go well with honey, cheese or anything savoury. In both my two tries so far I have been impressed by the evenness of the crumb compared to white flour.
Now that the inlaws Jen and Neil have also moved to Uki I’ve doubled my baking batches so I can give them a loaf. It’s minimally more effort and no more time consuming.
These all-wholemeal sourdough loaves were 8 cups (2 L) of flour, 700 mL water, 2 tsp (10 mL) salt, and 2 generous tablespoons of sourdough starter.
As for my standard method I reserved 2 cups of flour, kneaded the dough in the stand mixer for 7 min, then mixed in the final 2 cups for the final 3 min, on low.
For raising 2 loaves together I’ve been putting the shaped loaves side by side on a floured tea towel, with the towel pulled up between them. They rise in a lidded 7 L plastic box, which is just the right size. I thought that getting them both on the baking stone in the hot oven might be tricky, but it’s not, I just load them both on my wooden slide over a little polenta and they shoot easily onto the stone together.
Also I finally remembered to buy a new spray bottle, so was able to give these a good spray of water before baking. It brings up much better colour and crispness to the crust.