Freshly Milled Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread

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If you haven’t attempted whole wheat bread yet because you’re afraid you’ll end up with a dense sour loaf that none of your family will eat, then let this be the recipe that opens your eyes to the world of whole wheat, and that making beautiful, and soft whole wheat bread is possible. I make this loaf at least four times a week, we use it for sandwiches, toast, or as a side at dinner. It only has four simple steps, mix, shape, rise and bake. But first, it’s important you understand whole wheat, and what type you’ll need for this recipe.

A brief history of flour.

We all know whole wheat is healthier for us, but why? I plan on writing a more in-depth post answering that question and going into more detail soon, but here’s a small breakdown. All baking began with whole wheat but people would have to take their wheat to the millers to get it ground to flour, and they had to do it on a regular basis as whole wheat would go rancid faster. It wasn’t until the late 1800s that sifting the bran out and producing fine white flour became industrialized, producing a soft white flout that made baking easier and gave it a longer shelf life. Unfortunately people started getting sick on this fine white flour, and they realized the bran actually provided vitamins and minerals vital for vibrant health. So instead of putting the bran back in, they added synthetic forms of those nutrients. That’s why when you buy a bag of white flour it says “fortified white flour” and then lists everything they added.  

Buying whole wheat flour.

Now before you go stock up on whole wheat flour, you have to remember what I said about whole wheat flour going rancid faster. God designed seeds (like wheat, nuts, and other seed forms) with and natural preservative that would allow it to keep for years in storage. They have pulled wheat out of tombs in Egypt and sprouted them! Unfortunately, once you crack open that seed (any type of seed) it starts to go rancid, and loses its nutrients over time, so the fresher the whole wheat flour the better. If you’re serious about getting the maximum amount of nutrients out of your baking then I highly recommend investing in a grain mill, but if you’re just not there yet and want to get comfortable working with whole wheat, then buying whole wheat flour will be just fine. Try to get the freshest possible though.

Types of whole wheat flour for bread.

Bread flour, pastry flour, and all purpose flour… what’s the difference? I never use to pay attention until I started milling my own wheat and had to buy wheat berries. The answer is actually the type of wheat the flour is made from. Believe it or not, there is probably hundreds of verities of wheat and they are constantly breeding new ones, but for this post, I’m only going to cover two types and those are Hard and Soft. Hard and soft is not referring to the density of the wheat berry, but actually the protein content it the wheat. The higher the protein, the higher the gluten content. Hard wheat has a higher protein content therefor making it ideal for bread where you want to build that beautiful web in your crumb that all bakers desire to achieve. This is your “bread flour” you would buy at the store. I have used both hard red and hard white and they both work well, but hard red is a little cheaper and I just really like the results I get from it so that’s what I use. Hard white has a slightly lower protein content than hard red, and will give you a lighter colored loaf, so that might be a good option if you need to win your family over to whole wheat bread.

Soft wheat is your wheat for cookies, cakes, biscuits, or any recipe that would call for “pastry flour.” It will give you a more crumbly texture in your baking. Mix these two types of wheat together and BOOM, all purpose flour.

Now that you know all this, be sure you are using the right type of wheat flour for your bread.

Milling Wheat

We bought the Komo Classic wheat mill back in 2022, and aside from making croissants and danishes on occasion, our family is 100% whole wheat. It’s definitely been a learning curve, but I’m starting to understand it more and more, and have way more confidence working with it now. I purchase all of my grains from Azure standard. It’s great quality and probably the most affordable out there.

Method

I have a confession to make… I use a bread machine to mix my bread doughs. I know, I know, it’s terribly un-homaker of me, but they probably accused the first women who got washing machines of the same thing and now we all have one. It’s just so convenient for me to throw everything into my bread machine canister, pop it in the bread machine, and come back an hour later to a perfect ball of dough. But using a standard mixer with a dough hook will work just fine. It took a lot of trial and error to nail down the shaping, but I’m super happy with this method. Place your dough on your work surface and roll it out into a rectangle. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Then fold it like a letter -this fold is to make it more even for rolling up- and roll it out again lengthways about 16-18 inches long, and 6-8 inches wide. Lastly, roll it up lengthways and pinch down the ends of the roll so they don’t split open while baking. If the dough resists, let it sit for about 15 for the gluten to relax and try again. Then place the dough in a greased loaf pan (find my favorite loaf pan here ) and cover with a plastic bag and leave out in about a 67-70 degree room. It typically takes a full 24 hours from when you started for it to rise completely. It should almost be the same size as what the finished product will be when it’s ready to bake. Keep an eye out that it doesn’t start over proofing though! Use the poke test if you’re unsure.