Yecora, Scout and Khorasan (mixed wheat) Whole Grain Sourdough Bread
This is a lovely and simple 100% whole grain sourdough bread recipe made with some of the finest organic, biodynamic and sustainably grown whole wheat grains available in Australia.
In this recipe we used a combination of one third each of Yecora hard red and Scout hard white wheats from Burrum Biodynamics in north-east Victoria, along with one third Khorasan wheat (an ancient wheat grain, also known as 'Kamut') from Bio-Oz in Parkes, New South Wales.
Check out the photos below, if you look closely you can see the three wheats mixed together. Scout is the short, pale, creamy coloured grain. Yecora is the slightly longer, slightly darker pink-tinged-creamy looking grain, and Khorasan is the long, golden grain with an almost translucent look to it.
Aren't these grains fantastic!? We are so honoured to be able to bring this produce to Australian home bakers and millers, and to bake with them ourselves at home!
Back to the recipe...
This recipe is very flexible, and in all honesty, flexibility is the most important aspect of whole grain sourdough baking! Many home bakers are daunted by this style of bread recipe, as whole grain flours, especially when freshly milled, can ferment with such vigor! But their flavours, aromas, nutrition and taste are second to none, so we encourage you to try this type of baking at least once if you’re new to it.
This recipe employs a technique called the ‘fermentolyse' where all ingredients, except for the salt, are mixed together and the dough is allowed to rest for a period. This allows the natural enzymes in the flour to break down some of the starch molecules, resulting in a more developed gluten structure and a naturally sweeter tasting bread.
Don’t have a mill or not into home milling? We do sell a number of pre-milled organic 100% whole grain flours on our site, mostly produced by our friends at Wholegrain Milling in Gunnedah, NSW.
Ingredients
200g of each grain (Yecora hard red, Scout hard white and Khorasan, 600g total) milled together to make a fine flour.
450g/ml cold water, plus another 30g/ml little bit for later. Cold water is important if the flour is freshly milled and warm.
100g/half cup of whole wheat, spelt or rye sourdough starter (any healthy sourdough starter will do).
11g salt
Method
Mix together the flour, water and sourdough starter in a large mixing bowl. There is no need to knead the dough, just mix it until no dry flour remains.
Cover and rest the dough for 30-60 minutes.
Add salt to the dough along with a splash (about 30ml) of water and squish, squeeze and fold the dough in the bowl with both hands until the salt is mixed in. The dough will be sticky and quite a mess at this stage, but don’t worry, it will improve!
Cover the dough bowl again and leave the dough to ferment for 4-8 hours, depending on the room temperature of your kitchen. This is the challenge of sourdough - learning to read the dough and not the clock! The fermentation time will vary from season to season and according to the temperature of your flour, water and sourdough starter.
While the dough is fermenting, every now and then (about 3 times during the first few hours is ideal), wet your hands to prevent them sticking to the dough, grab the dough from the side, pull it up and fold it over the rest of the dough. Turn your bowl a bit and repeat this ‘stretch and fold’ manoeuvre until you’ve stretched and folded all the dough. Cover the dough again in between each ‘stretch and fold’ and leave the dough for at least 30 minutes between folds.
TIP: This YouTube video has a demonstration of the stretch and fold method with 100% whole grain sourdough.
Once the dough is starting to rise, it can be shaped ready for proofing. This is another challenging moment for whole grain sourdough, as the temptation is to let the dough ferment until it’s doubled in size and very well risen (as you might expect with regular yeast baking). But with whole grain sourdough, it’s important to shape the dough when it’s only risen by about half of its original size.
Looks can be deceiving with this style of bread making, you want to see bubbles inside the dough (glass bowls are handy in this case) but don't look for an extremely dramatic rise, as this could overferment the dough leading to breakdown of the gluten structure and a more dense loaf.To shape the dough, gently tip it out of the bowl (use wet hands to gently scoop it out) and fold into thirds from the outside in, then roll up into a log shape.
Place the rolled up dough into a well greased baking tin (a medium sized tin that holds 1-1.5L will do) and proof until the dough has risen again by about 2cm (again, not a dramatic rise).
Preheat your oven to 220°C and bake the loaf for approximately 40-45 minutes or until the crust is very dark golden brown, this will ensure it is adequately cooked inside.
Cool for at least 2 hours before cutting, if you can leave it that long!
💡 Tip for an extra nice rise and bubbly crumb:
Once shaped, place the dough onto a piece of dampened non-stick baking paper and gently lift into a loaf tin or other loaf shaped container or basket, to hold it while proofing. Then, preheat a similar or slightly larger sized bread tin or clay/ceramic baking dish in the oven and transfer the dough (use the paper to lift) into the preheated pan for baking. The shock of the extra heat will give your dough a greater oven spring and improved, lighter internal texture, as per the loaf in our photo.
We hope you enjoy this recipe, make sure you visit our main recipes page for more of our favourites and visit the pulse and grain shop page for ingredients.
Please leave a comment below, share your thoughts or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you!
Recipe and post by Elly Emmett