The Magic of Wheat Berry Flour in Sourdough Bread

Food for the Ages has discovered the The Magic of Wheat Berry Flour in Sourdough Bread. We love artisan bread, you know, the hand-made sourdough loaves with the rough, crusty outside and tender inside? Fine for a couple’s special meal after a hard week at work, but at the normal rate that the family consumes bread, who can afford it at $6+ loaf? Why not make use of healthy organic wheat berries that can be made into flour?

With a little time on your hands, and with the help of your trusty Vita Mix high-speed blender, you can’t afford not to at least try making your own flour, your own sourdough starter, and ultimately, your own sourdough bread. And remember, sourdough bread may be healthy and inexpensive but it takes painstaking detail to attention and time for successful results. But once you have it down it’simple maintenance, and you can make a few loaves once a week or so and enjoy the fruits of good health and delicious bread!

Sourdough, or fermented wheat flour, is the oldest form of leavening for bread and was around for thousands of years before other forms of leavening were discovered. And as we are discovering again, fermented food is good for you. Many folks who are gluten-free report they can comfortably consume sourdough bread – the fermenting process pre-digests much of the gluten, and in turn provides good probiotics considered optimal for balanced health.

It’s funny that many people have decided to become gluten-free. Gluten intolerance is a specific disease (celiac disease) or allergy and most people don’t have it. Unfortunately, gluten-free everything has been popularized as a food fad at the expense of whole families avoiding nutritious breads, such as the wheat berry sourdough recipe below. Though it contains gluten, it also delivers many key minerals, important vitamins and loads of dietary fiber, the hallmarks of our multi-billion-dollar supplements industry. Would you rather take a pill or toast a slice of bread? Your gut needs the real deal!

In this recipe I blended wheat berries in my Vita Mix to get very finely ground wheat flour and then added a teaspoon or so of whole wheat berries to the flour for crunchiness.  I used Great River Organic Milling’s Hard Red Spring Wheat for this recipe.

I am thoroughly impressed with those artisan bakers who avoid modern yeasts and sugars to make their sourdough bread from the ground up but here I am interpreting Patricia Kendall’s advice from her book High Altitude Baking for making your own Starter and Basic Batter using yogurt, potato water or commercial yeast. But don’t you worry, this recipe is for all altitudes.

I will share some links at the bottom of the recipe to two groundup sourdough and yeast-making websites that do a good job explaining how to do it.

Step 1: Make the Sourdough Starter

Make one of the following starter recipes in a glass, crockery or plastic container with a lid that can be tightened and make sure that there is plenty of room for the mixture to expand. Do not let a metal lid or metal utensils come in contact with the starter; use a wooden or plastic spoon to mix.

Mix ingredients for the chosen starter and let it sit at room temperature, covered with a dishcloth, for 48 hours, or until it has a pleasantly sour odor. This only makes enough for the starter pot. The potato water recipe makes enough for the starter pot and the first basic batter. Cover tightly and refrigerate or proceed to Step 2 below.

Step 2: Make a Permanent Starter Pot, a.k.a., “Your Insurance Policy”—Optional but a good idea if you are planning to make more than one sourdough loaf, cookies, pancakes, etc.

1 cup Yogurt, Yeast or Potato starter from above

1 cup wheat berry flour

1 cup lukewarm water (80-85⁰F)

1 teaspoon sugar

Combine all ingredients in a 2-quart glass or plastic container and allow to sit at room temperature loosely covered for at least 12 hours or overnight before using to make the Basic Batter.

When removing 1 cup of starter to make the basic batter, replenish the starter by stirring in 1 cup warm water (105-115⁰F), 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 cup wheat berry flour. Stir with wooden spoon and let sit at room temperature, loosely covered, for 12 hours. Then tightly close and refrigerate. When you take it from the refrigerator to use it, let it sit 6 hours at 80-85⁰F to reactivate it.

Step 3: Make the Basic Batter:

1 cup Starter

2½ cups wheat berry flour

1 Tablespoon sugar

2 cups lukewarm water (80-85⁰F)

Combine all ingredients in a 2-quart glass or plastic container and allow to sit at room temperature loosely covered for at least 6 hours or overnight. Makes about 4 cups. Cover tightly and refrigerate if you are not using right away. When you take it from the refrigerator to use it, let it sit 6 hours at 80-85⁰F to reactivate it.

 Sourdough Wheat Berry Bread

Makes two large loaves

 

2 tablespoons butter

¾ cup milk

1/3 cup honey

1 tablespoon yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ – 2 cups wheat berry flour

3 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour

3 cups Basic Batter

Melt butter, then add milk and honey in small pan and stir until dissolved. In a large bowl, thoroughly mix yeast, salt and 4 cups of flour. Add milk mixture and basic batter to flour mixture and stir with a large wooden spoon until well combined. Gradually add up to 1 more cup of flour, kneading in as much as possible. Continue kneading until dough is smooth and elastic, about 8-10 minutes by hand or 2 minutes by mixer. (If you use mixer, start out with only 2 cups of flour and gradually add the flour until you have a stiff kneaded dough.)

Put dough in lightly greased warm bowl and let rise for between 40 and 55 minutes at 80 to 84⁰ F until it doubles in bulk. Your next steps depend on your altitude:

Below 5,000 Feet: One-rise bread is possible and you can skip the second bowl rising. Simply punch the dough down after the first rising, shape into loaves and place in greased loaf pans. Let rise until doubled in size, about 25-30 minutes then bake as directed.

Above 5,000 Feet: You will need to do the second bowl rising. After the first rising, punch down and let rise again. Don’t panic, the second rise only takes between 20 and 30 minutes (less time for higher altitudes). Then punch down, and for the 3^rd rising, in the pan, rising time is between 25 and 35 minutes.

Shaping (shape following 1^st rise or, if you are above 5,000 feet, shape before 3^rd rising): For rectangular loaves in loaf pans, shape dough by rolling it out into a 10 x 6 inch rectangle, forcing out any gas bubbles as you roll. Beginning with the 6-inch edge, roll the dough toward you and push the roll into the dough as you roll to prevent holes from forming. Seal the edge by pinching the edge and the roll together, then seal the ends by pinching them into the roll.

I wanted a round, artisan-looking loaf, so, after my second rising, I kneaded the dough slightly and tucked it under into a circle and pinched the ends together underneath. I then set the dough on the cookie sheet and pulled the sides up and pinched them together twice in the center. Then I lightly floured the top, covered it and let it rise another 25 minutes or so.

At 9,150 feet, I preheated the oven to 400⁰F with a metal cookie sheet with sides set on the bottom of the oven and the shelf just above it. If you have a nice baking stone for the baking of your bread, use it, and make sure to preheat it along with the oven and follow directions for placing your loaves in the oven on the hot stone.

I used a cookie sheet for my loaf and as I opened the door to the oven and placed the loaf in the preheated oven, I threw one cup of ice water onto the metal cookie sheet and quickly shut the door as the steam rose–this gives it the rough exterior crust you are looking for. I baked my loaf at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes although at lower altitudes 375⁰F should be fine.

 

Links to

• Make Natural Yeast from Scratch: I highly recommend the well-explained and copiously detailed instructions from the Bread Geek for making your own yeast.
• Bake Sourdough Bread Without Using Commercial Yeast: The Viking Food Guy provides simple instructions for baking bread without using commercial yeast.
• Buy Natural Sourdough Starter: If you are worried about failure, which is common in making your own yeast or sourdough starter from the whims of wild yeast, you can purchase sourdough cultures from Sourdo.com to improve your outcomes. The interesting thing about homemade sourdough starters is that they catch the wild yeasts that are native to wherever you live and each region has its own sour taste, thus San Francisco sourdough, etc. Cool!