A simple four ingredient whole wheat sourdough bread, made with purely whole grain flour. It’s a delicious, flavourful, and wholesome loaf!
While we have a 25% whole wheat sourdough already on Baked, and our sprouted grain sourdough is made with over 40% whole grains, this pure whole wheat sourdough is a first. And it’s good.
Using all whole wheat flour makes for a nutty, ultra flavourful loaf, and one that can really hold up to any toppings you can throw at it. Strong cheese, spicy jams, cured meats – anything that might overwhelm a white-flour loaf.
This loaf isn’t as light and airy as an all white flour sourdough bread, due to the bran content cutting the gluten strands. If you like a slightly denser loaf, with a tighter crumb (great for sandwiches!) this is your bread.
Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top of the post, or scroll to the bottom of the post, to see the full recipe card with ingredient measurements and instructions.
Ingredients
Method
Two Nights Before
Make the levain: Take out about 1-2 tbsp of your starter from the fridge and mix it with 50g of room temperature water and 50g of flour (sifted bread flour, whole grain, spelt, or a combo – whatever you prefer as long as the flour to water ratio is 1:1).
Cover the bowl with a plate and leave it on the counter to ferment overnight for approximately 8-12 hours.
One Day Before
Once your levain is ready, combine all of it with 350g of the water. Add the flour to the water mixture and, and using your hands, mix to combine.
Once the dough is mixed, cover with a tea towel and let it sit at room temperature for 40 minutes to rest.
After the elapsed 40 minute of resting time is up, add the salt and remaining 25g water. Mix well until combined then cover with the tea towel and let the mixture sit for 30 minutes.
Do the first fold: To do this get your hands damp and reach under the dough on the opposite side of the bowl from you. Pull the dough up and over towards you. Here’s a whole post on how to stretch and fold sourdough. Complete 6 more folds (one fold every 30 minutes) for 3 hours total.
Shaping the dough: Begin by taking the dough out of the bowl and letting it rest on the counter for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your banneton by dusting it with flour, or layer a clean tea towel in a medium mixing bowl and dust liberally with flour (50-50 wheat flour and rice flour is a great dusting combo).
Shape your dough making sure you get as much surface tension as possible without tearing the outside of the loaf. Once shaped, turn the loaf into the lined and floured bowl or banneton (top-down, seam side up). Gently flour the top (previously the bottom) of the dough before covering with the edges of the tea towel. Set in the fridge overnight.
Day of Baking
The next day, your bread should be almost doubled in size. Place your dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 260°C (500°F) or as hot as your oven can go, but no higher than 500’F. After the oven has come to temperature, let the dutch oven continue to preheat for another 30 minutes.
Once the dutch oven has been preheated, take your bread out of the fridge. Gently invert the dough onto a piece of parchment paper that will be large enough to lift your bread into and out of the dutch oven. Gently score the bread with a sharp knife or bread lame.
Using oven mitts, carefully remove the dutch oven from the oven, take off the lid and then carefully lift the dough into the pot using the parchment paper.
Using oven mitts, carefully place the lid back on the dutch oven and put the entire dutch oven back into the heated oven. Reduce the heat to 230°C (450°F) and bake for 25 minutes.
Carefully remove the lid (be careful of steam) and bake for another 20 minutes with the lid off. Remove the pot from the oven and carefully lift out the loaf using the edges of the parchment paper and let cool completely on a wire rack.
Tips and Notes
As with any sourdough bread, it must cool completely before slicing to avoid gumminess. With whole grain recipes, this is even more important, and we encourage leaving the loaf for at least 12 hours before slicing.
This recipe isn’t more difficult or advanced compared to a purely bread flour sourdough, but it will result in a different loaf. There won’t be as a great of an oven spring and the bread won’t be as tall – these are typical for whole grain loaves and definitely not a bad thing. As mentioned below, if this is an issue, you can sub a higher gluten flour.
You can also bake this in a bread tin. Follow this recipe, but using the directions for our pan loaf, if you don’t have a dutch oven or prefer a square slice.
Substitutions
If you don’t feel confident with all whole wheat flour, you can certainly sub in some all-purpose or bread flour to the mix. We love red fife wheat flour here, for a really excellent flavour, but any kind of WW will work. Use up to 250g of white or bread flour for an easier to work with loaf.
Try adding some nuts or dried fruits to the mix after you’ve made the loaf once or twice. Cranberries, raisins, walnuts, anything like that is great with the more complex flavour in this recipe!
More Great Sourdough Loaves
Everyday No-Knead Sourdough Bread
Cinnamon Raisin Sourdough Bread
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Gluten Free Sourdough
If you make this recipe, let us know by tagging @baked_theblog + #bakedtheblog on Instagram! We love to feel like we’re in the kitchen with you.
Recipe
Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
A simple four ingredient whole wheat sourdough bread, made with purely whole wheat flour. It's a delicious, flavourful, and wholesome loaf!
Ingredients
- 100g levain or active sourdough starter
- 500g wholewheat flour
- 375g water, divided (20°C/68°F)
- 10g salt
Instructions
TWO NIGHTS BEFORE
- Make the levain: Take out about 1-2 tbsp of your starter from the fridge and mix it with 50g of room temperature water and 50g of flour (sifted bread flour, whole grain, spelt, or a combo - whatever you prefer as long as the flour to water ratio is 1:1).
- Cover the bowl with a plate and leave it on the counter to ferment overnight for approximately 8-12 hours.
ONE DAY BEFORE
- Once your levain is ready, combine all of it with 350g of the water. Add the flour to the water mixture and, and using your hands, mix to combine.
- Once the dough is mixed, cover with a tea towel and let it sit at room temperature for 40 minutes to rest.
- After the elapsed 40 minute of resting time is up, add the salt and remaining 25g water. Mix well until combined then cover with the tea towel and let the mixture sit for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, it is time for the first fold.
- Do the first fold: To do this get your hands damp and reach under the dough on the opposite side of the bowl from you. Pull the dough up and over towards you. Repeat this so the side closest to you folds over to the side away from you and the side on your left folds towards you right, and your right folds towards your left. Think of it as wrapping a package. Then, scoop your hands under the ball of dough and flip it over completely. This completes one “fold”.
- Complete 6 more folds (one fold every 30 minutes) for 3 hours total.
- Shaping the dough: Begin by taking the dough out of the bowl and letting it rest on the counter for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare your banneton by dusting it with flour, or layer a clean tea towel in a medium mixing bowl and dust liberally with flour (50-50 wheat flour and rice flour is a great dusting combo).
- Shape your dough making sure you get as much surface tension as possible without tearing the outside of the loaf. Once shaped, turn the loaf into the lined and floured bowl or banneton (top-down, seam side up). Gently flour the top (previously the bottom) of the dough before covering with the edges of the tea towel. Set in the fridge overnight.
DAY OF BAKING
- The next day place your dutch oven in the oven and preheat to 260°C (500°F) or as hot as your oven can go, but no higher than 500'F. After the oven has come to temperature, let the dutch oven continue to preheat for another 30 minutes.
- Once the dutch oven has been preheated, take your bread out of the fridge. Gently invert the dough onto a piece of parchment paper that will be large enough to lift your bread into and out of the dutch oven. Gently score the bread with a sharp knife or bread lame.
- Using oven mitts, carefully remove the dutch oven from the oven, take off the lid and then carefully lift the dough into the pot using the parchment paper.
- Using oven mitts, carefully place the lid back on the dutch oven and put the entire dutch oven back into the heated oven. Reduce the heat to 230°C (450°F) and bake for 25 minutes. Carefully remove the lid (be careful of steam) and bake for another 20 minutes with the lid off.
- Remove the pot from the oven and carefully lift out the loaf using the edges of the parchment paper and let cool completely on a wire rack.
Notes
• If heat makes it too difficult to extract the dough and parchment layer safely, just let the loaf cool in the Dutch oven—don't risk burning yourself.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 157Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 325mgCarbohydrates: 33gFiber: 5gSugar: 0gProtein: 6g
This is an approximation of the nutrition offered in this recipe, and is created using a nutrition calculator.
Laurie Douglass-Wilson says
I’m experimenting with sprouting grains (trying for something akin to Ezekiel Bread) in a sourdough loaf. Do you know if I would need to adjust the hydration if I subbed some of the whole wheat with say 1/4 c. lentil flour, 1/4 c. kidney bean flour, and 1/2 c. spelt flour? Thanks!
Sophie Mackenzie says
Hi Laurie! Yes, spelt flour usually requires 25% less water than wheat flour, so you might want to cut down the hydration. I’m not sure how much water the bean flours will need, but you will be replacing a gluten containing flour with a lot of gluten free fours, so I think that much bean flour could drastically affect the structure of the loaf. If you want to try some sprouted loafs, we have a spouted wheat berry loaf that is great or you can try this manna bread recipe