95% wholemeal sourdough

I have to call this a 95% wholemeal loaf because I used a white wheat starter but it could easily be made 100% wholemeal by using a rye starter or a wholemeal wheat starter. Some adjustment may, as ever, needed to be made to the quantity of water. As always, the wetter the better.

I prefer my bread a little softer than a traditional crusty white Sourdough so I often add a lump of hard fat - butter usually or, as in this recipe, a hard vegan alternative such as Naturli. Hard fat seems to help keep the rise, while oil will soften the texture but the rise may be lessened. 

Wholemeal can have a slightly bitter taste, too, so I also like to add a sweetener to take the edge of that. Here I've used maple syrup but you could use honey, barley malt extract or brown sugar.

So.....

I started the pre-ferment the previous night

100g white wheat starter (100% hydration)

100g wholemeal flour

100g water

Leave covered at room temperature overnight.

In the morning, add:

450g strong organic wholemeal flour

270g water

30g hard fat (vegan block or butter)

20g maple syrup or honey

10g salt

Mix and leave to stand for 30-40 mins

Give the dough a short initial knead, it really needs no more than a minute. Then place in an oiled bowl and cover.

Prove at room temperature for about four hours. Do Stretches and Folds periodically.

I always find it hard to judge when the dough has doubled in size, and much depends on how active your starter is, but by the end of four hours you should feel the dough has grown considerably.

Handle it carefully as you cut it into two pieces and prepare for tin.

I used a long loaf tin but you could use two small tins.

Final prove approximately two hours

Preheat oven to Gas Mark 9/475°F/245°C

Bake under foil for 20 minutes.

I bake under foil to maintain moisture in the early baking period, then remove the foil to allow the crust to caramelise and crisp.

Remove foil and bake for a further 25 minutes.

Kombucha and the art of bread making

Here's a thing...

At the shop, (Beanies) we were recently sent some samples of Kombucha - a lightly effervescent drink made from fermented sweetened tea.  It came in different flavours so I picked a ginger one and unscrewed the cap only to have the contents of the bottle explode all over me and the desk.  (Keep it chilled is the advice - this one was at a warm room temperature!)  After I'd cleaned up and enjoyed the beery flavour of the ginger tea I got to reading the bottle and thinking a bit about it.

Kombucha is made from a live ferment known as a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeasts) and this one seemed particularly lively.  I just wondered whether it would be possible to use the kombucha to start a sourdough culture.  I know this isn't always possible - some fermented products simply don't have the right mix  or varieties of yeasts and bacteria.  But nothing ventured, nothing gained as they say...

So I took a bottle of the original unflavoured kombucha home and used 150ml added to 150gms of strong white flour.  (The photographs are my second attempt where I've used strong wholemeal simply because I've run out of white - I tend to use organic white flour for sourdough starters as they prove more stable: wholemeal starters have a tendency to separate and go mouldy if a careful eye is not kept on them - keep them in the fridge.)

150g wholemeal flour

150g kombucha

So, basically...

150g kombucha
150g flour

Mix together in a plastic tub - cover lightly with a lid or cloth and put aside for 24 hours at room temperature.

By then end of the overnight fermentation the starter was sufficiently bubbly for me to feel confident to move straight to mixing a starter dough.





I added
100g white flour
and a little more water to create a slightly stiffer dough than the original mix.

This I again left overnight, covered and the following day was very happy with the fermentation.

So for the final loaf I added
400g wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt - (I don't use a lot of salt (you might prefer more) partly for health reasons and partly because sourdough bread has good flavour anyway.  Salt does have an effect on both the texture and shelf life of the finished bread though so I do use some.)
1 tbsp Extra Virgin Rapeseed Oil - but you could use Olive or sunflower
More water  - (I must admit I didn't weigh the water I used to create the final dough - fool! - but the final dough ball weighed about 1200g so I must have added about another 150 - 200g.  It was a reasonably firm dough.  Don't let it get too wet but obviously the old mantra stands - The Wetter the Better!

I mixed this final dough at around 8.00am.  Kneaded for 5 mins and then left it to stand, covered, until about 12.30pm by which time it was just starting to fall back ready to be degassed and shaped.  (If I'd been around during the proof I would have stretched it a couple of times, but I wasn't so I couldn't.)

Anyway dough weighed to 900g, (leaving 300g for a quick pizza for lunch) then shaped and tinned up for a final proof of about an hour.  Into the hot oven (Gas Mark 7 - my oven is quite fierce) for half an hour, turning the gas down to Mark 4 after twenty minutes...

Final result...

My conclusion is that - yes!  Kombucha can be used to raise bread very effectively!  As a shortcut to a sourdough starter I think it's great.  Of course once you've got your live kombucha you can keep it alive too... but I don't quite know how t do that yet... time for a little research, methinks.

I'd be fascinated to hear whether anyone else has similar experiences.