Coarse wheat in sourdough bread.

( I’m currently working on an article about why I started making sourdough bread back in February however it’s taking me a while to write and I wanted to start posting my progression. )

This week I’m using coarse wheat instead of the standard wheat flower you get at most stores. Not being familiar with coarse wheat I wasn’t sure what to expect and there isn’t very many people talking about it in any forums. The most I learned was that I might have to knead a little longer then usual.

Here is my process.

Here’s my levain (100% hydration) after 15 hours of fermentation to which I then added 602g of bread flour and 85g of coarse wheat and 397g of water. Coarse wheat is new to me so this will be an interesting experiment.

20 min later and I’ve added 2 1/2 tsp of salt. Then I kneaded it for 15 min by hand. Usually this only takes 8-10 min however the coarse wheat takes longer to form gluten so I gave it a few min more. I couldn’t get the dough as supple as I would have liked but I feared over kneading it. I gave it the window pane test and it’s formed it’s gluten nicely. It’s now sitting in it’s bowl for an hour to rise.

Took the dough and folded it at 90 degree angles and now it’s rising for another hour. I was happy with the way it looked after the first rise. A bit smoother and less sticky.

The dough has risen again and I have pre-shaped them. The texture has smoothed out considerably. Now they set for 20 min.

Took the dough and gave them their final shaping. Then I flowered my baskets and set them up for proofing. I’ll be back to check on them in 2 hours.

I allowed the dough to proof overnight in my fridge for about 17 hours. Scored it and placed it on a pan. It’s now time to cook it at 450f for 40 min.

It’s baking!

Here’s my first loaf. Because I used a countertop oven it gets a little dark on top. This can’t be avoided. Luckily it doesn’t get burnt. Just dark.

Last loaf is scored and in the oven.

Last loaf is done! This one did get a little crispy on top but that can’t be avoided because of the heating elements on top of the countertop oven. This also prevents me from getting a good bloom from the scoring as it cooks the top faster then it does the center.

Here’s a few pics of the crumb. It looks perfect to me. It has a very nice chewy feel. Tastes great. However it doesn’t have a strong sourdough flavor like the last time I baked. Which is odd. The only difference was that my levain didn’t have wheat like the last time. I only added the wheat after. That could have caused the fermentation process to be reduced.

I was very happy with these loaves. Although I didn’t get the flavor I wanted I’m happy with how everything turned out and I feel like my skills are improving. Right now my biggest limitation is using the countertop oven. Which is just a glorified toaster oven. I’m hopping to get a new range/oven in the next few months. Then I can expand my skills to things like sandwich loaves.