Learn How To Make Whole Wheat Sour Dough Bread Made With A Starter

One of my proudest moments in the kitchen was baking up my very first loaf of bread completely from scratch. When I pulled that freshly baked loaf from the oven, I felt like I’d achieved a major accomplishment in my life. Let’s face it, the aroma of freshly baked bread is one of the best smells on planet earth. It actually has the power to draw my teenager out of his room! That’s a miracle…a major super power…right???

Is baking bread something you’ve always wanted to master? I know it can be challenging when you’re a working mom to find the time to bake a loaf of bread. It’s not a difficult process, it’s actually quite easy, but it does take a lot of time, and time can be a precious commodity when you are working and raising a family.

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My bread baking journey started when I got my feet wet a few years ago by learning how to bake artisanal loaves using the Artisan Bread in 5-Minutes-A-Day process. The technique produces a lovely loaf of French bread in just a little over an hour, with a soft fluffy center and crunchy crust with a good chew using a commercial yeast. It’s more like the sweet French bread loaves you see in the bakery section at your local supermarket. It’s an easy method that works great when you are pressed for time. You can learn How To Bake Bread using the 5-Minute-A-Day bread baking process if you are new to baking bread. It’s a great, quick and easy method to familiarize yourself and get comfortable working with dough and how yeasts perform. It will help immensely to take the intimidation factor out of baking bread. It’s a great recipe and easy technique to start you on your bread baking journey.

Baking bread using a sourdough starter isn’t really any harder to make, it just takes a lot longer. Commercial yeasts react much, much quicker than a sourdough starter does. So baking up a loaf of sourdough bread using a starter as the leavening agent requires a lot more time than a loaf made with commercial yeast. It’s perfect for a weekend when you are hanging out at home on a rainy day with some time on your hands and want to bake up something truly phenomenal tasting.

If you think about it, our grandmothers probably baked bread almost every single day, and they didn’t have access to any fancy equipment or high end ovens either. Yet they were able to bake fresh bread, which for many families was the staff of life that kept them fed. There were no commercial yeasts that were readily available; each home cook had a starter used for bread baking. If our grandmothers could bake bread with the primitive equipment they had access to, surely we can do it much more easily with all the modern conveniences we now have, right?

Using a starter instead of yeast produces a loaf of bread that has that fabulous sourness that makes sourdough bread so stinking good! There are a couple ways you can get your hands on some starter. You can ask a friend to share some with you, pick some up from a local bakery, or make a starter yourself. Again, it’s not a difficult process but it does take some time and regular attention to make your own starter. If you are interested in making your own starter you can read the step by step instructions for how to do it here.

The hubs and I recently made a trip to the coast and while we were there we found a fabulous little bakery right on the ocean where we picked up a freshly baked loaf of sourdough bread to bring home from our trip. I noticed that the bakery also sold their whole wheat starter, so I grabbed one. Starters pick up naturally occurring yeast spores in the atmosphere and that’s what gives each starter its unique tangy flavor. There is something special about the air along the coast of the San Francisco Bay; the sour dough bread baked there is like none other.

Good to know: You can change a regular all white sourdough starter into a whole wheat sourdough starter by feeding it with equal amounts of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour.

All right, enough of me blathering on about starters and bread and yeasts and the rest. Your head is probably spinning by now! Let’s get started baking a loaf of sourdough bread! I recommend you read through this entire post so you have a good understanding of the entire process. It will seem like a lot of information but if you follow along, step-by-step you will see that it’s not hard to do at all.

I’ve included several helpful tips and things I’ve picked up along the way, plus I’ve included loads pictures too help you as well. It’s really not difficult to do, I promise you can bake up a beautiful, tasty loaf of sour dough bread on your own. Pick a day when you are not pressed for time and relax. Remember, your grandmother was able to bake bread using pretty much the same method, using much more primitive equipment. So take and deep breath and take the plunge…you got this!

Feed Starter:

Begin by feeding your starter. For best results use a kitchen scale to measure out 50 grams all purpose flour, 50 grams whole wheat flour, and 100 grams of water. If you prefer a regular sourdough loaf, weigh out 100 grams of all purpose flour instead of 50/50 whole wheat and all purpose flour. 

TIP: Once you feed your starter, place a rubber band around the outside of the jar so you can see how active your starter becomes.

Stir ingredients to combine. Allow starter to activate for at least 4 hours.

There are a couple of factors that will effect how active your starter is. How long it’s been since you last fed it, and the temperature in your kitchen will both effect it. If your starter is cold because it has been hanging out in your fridge and it’s been a while since you fed it, you will want to feed it the night before and then feed it again first thing in the morning to make sure it’s really good and bubbly and active. Feed it and leave it out on your counter overnight. The more bubbles, the lighter and airier your loaf will be.

Also, if your kitchen is on the colder side, your starter won’t be as active. The goal is a good bubbly, active starter. Those gas bubbles are what produce those lovely air pockets in your loaf of bread. Without those air pockets, your loaf will bake up into a dense, heavy brick; not good. I typically place my starter in the oven, with just the light on, and the door closed. It produces the perfect cozy, warm conditions that gets the starter nice and active, and all happy and bubbly.

A few things to note about starters. If you are going to be baking bread regularly, say a few times a week, leave your starter out on the counter. You will need to feed it everyday. If you are only going to bake bread on the weekends or once in a while, you can store your starter in the fridge and only need to feed it once every couple of weeks. Storing it in the fridge put’s it on hold, kind of like it’s sleeping. Once you bring it out of the fridge and want to activate it for baking, feed it and place it on your counter. As the starter warms up, the food you gave it will “wake” it back up. I store my starter in the fridge and I get the best results when I feed my starter twice before baking a loaf of bread; once in the evening the night before I plan to bake a loaf, with a second feeding first thing in the morning.

Making the loaf:

In a large bowl, mix together (measure it out with a kitchen scale for best results) the whole wheat flour, the all purpose flour, 200 grams of the activated/fed starter, and the warm water.

Getting the water temperature right: Use an instant read thermometer to make sure the temperature of the water is around 100 degrees. If your water is too hot, (above 110 degrees) you risk killing the “live yeasts” in your starter.

Stir everything together until completely incorporated.

The dough will be quite sticky and shaggy and should look like this ⤵️

Cover the bowl with a dish towel and let it rest on the counter for 30 minutes. If your kitchen is on the chilly side, place the bowl in the oven with just the light on and close the door.

1st kneading: After 30 minutes, wet your hands with some water, sprinkle the salt over the dough in the bowl.

Pull and stretch the dough from the outside edge to the center, turning the bowl a quarter turn each time, do this 4 times. Don’t over work the dough.

Cover the bowl with a dish cloth and allow the dough to rest for another 30 minutes. 

2nd kneading: After 30 minutes, wet hands with some water, pull and stretch the dough again, 4 times, being carful not to over work the dough.

Cover the bowl with a dish cloth and allow the dough to rest for another 30 minutes.

3rd and final kneading: After 30 minutes, pull and stretch the dough again, 4 times, turning the bowl a quarter turn each time, being carful not to over work the dough.

Cover the bowl with a dish cloth and allow the dough to rest for another 30 minutes.

Lightly flour your work surface and your hands. Tip the dough out onto your work surface.

Use your hands to shape the dough into a round ball, stretching the dough to get good surface tension. This helps to stretch and develop the gluten in the dough. 

Stretch the dough from the outside toward the sides and underneath turning the dough sightly until you have a nice taught round ball of dough. Don’t overwork the dough or you will remove the bubbles that have formed in the dough. The goal is to maintain those air bubbles so the loaf bakes up light and airy in the center and stretch the glutens so the crust has a good chew when baked. 

Place a clean cotton dish towel in a mixing bowl. Sprinkle the dish towel generously with flour. 

Place the dough ball in the bowl, seam side facing up. Pinch together the seam with your fingers if desired.

Sprinkle the loaf with a little more flour. This will prevent the dish towel from sticking to the dough.

Fold the corners of the dish towel over the loaf to cover it completely.

Allow the loaf to rest for one hour.

Make ahead option: At this point you can place the dough in the fridge overnight and bake it the following day. Refrigerated dough is less sticky and a little easier to work with. Take the dough out of the fridge when you start to preheat the oven and allow it to come to room temperature so the dough isn’t ice cold when it goes into the oven.

Baking the loaf:

Preheat the oven to 475°F. 

Place an empty Dutch oven pot in the oven while the oven is preheating for a good 45 minutes to an hour for both the oven and Dutch oven pot to get really, really hot. Yes this seems like a long time, but this step is very important. The goal is to have a screaming hot Dutch oven pot and very hot oven.

When ready to bake the loaf, fold back the corners of the dish towel.

Place a sheet of parchment paper over the bowl.

Set a cookie sheet or cutting board on top of the parchment paper.

Turn the bowl over and onto the parchment paper.

Carefully peel off and remove the dish towel.

Use a sharp knife to score the loaf with the design of your choice.

Remove the Dutch oven pan from the oven and remove the lid, being careful not to burn yourself. The pot will be very, very hot!

Grab the four corners of the parchment paper and carefully place the loaf of bread into the preheated, very hot Dutch oven pan. 

Cover the pan with the lid and place it back in the oven.

Reduce the oven temperature to 430°F.

Bake the loaf, covered, for 35 minutes. 

After 35 minutes, remove lid and continue to bake the loaf for another 10-20 minutes until the loaf is a rich golden brown.

Tap the loaf with your finger, if it sounds hollow when you tap it, it’s done.

Use the four corners of the parchment paper to carefully lift the loaf out of the Dutch oven pan.

This very important and probably the hardest part of baking a loaf of sourdough bread! Allow the loaf to cool completely on a wire rack for a minimum of 45 minutes before slicing it. It’s so very tempting to cut into a hot, fresh out of the oven loaf of bread. Resist the temptation!!! Cutting into the loaf while it’s still hot will result in gummy, sticky, dense bread. The loaf needs to cool so the steam that’s inside has a chance to dissipate. Once the loaf cools you can slice into it and enjoy it. Trust me on this, the first time I made bread we cut into it while it was still hot and it was extremely disappointing. So be patient and allow your loaf to cool completely. Considering all the time and effort you put into baking a loaf of fresh bread, giving it another 45 minutes is well worth the wait.

This whole wheat sourdough recipe produces a tangy, nutty flavored loaf. The inside is soft yet hearty with a lovely sour and nutty flavor. The crust is chewy with a great bite. If you enjoy hearty breads with a sour, nutty flavor you will love this loaf!

Please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions and I will be sure to get back to you with an answer. And remember, your skill level will go up with each loaf you bake. You will become more and more comfortable with the process and know when the yeasts in the dough are behaving properly, and you will learn from you mistakes more than anything else. Once you perfect baking a good loaf of bread you will never, ever want to purchase the loaves at the market again. You may become a certified bread snob, but that’s not a bad thing…right?!?!?!

A HUGE SHOUT OUT to my bestie Iesha, for the hands on teaching session. She answered so many questions that helped me perfect my sourdough bread baking skills!!! Girlfriend you are amazing and I love that you are willing to share your expertise! Love you girl!!! I’m so very thankful God brought you into my life.

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Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

John 6:35

Remember…Jesus ❤️’s you!