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How to Get an Open Crumb with Whole Grain Sourdough Bread
Several months ago, I began a quest to make whole wheat sourdough artisan bread with an open crumb. As we bakers know, refined flour tends to produce a more open, airy bread, whereas whole grain flour usually makes a denser bread. Now, a tight-crumb bread can be fantastic (pumpernickel, rye, vollkornbrot), but the pursuit of an open crumb is enticing and challenging.
My goal was to find the conditions and techniques that might coax an open crumb out of whole grain bread, but at the same time not be overly burdensome to the baker. For example, I don’t enjoy the process or clean-up of sifting out bran, so I avoided the technique where you remove the bran, boil it, and then reintroduce it into the dough.
So why bake with whole grain flour?
Nutrition and flavor.
On the nutrition front, there are significantly more nutrients in the bran and germ of wheat, which are removed in refined (roller milled, white) flour. You can see how much more vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein are in whole wheat flour vs. refined and even enriched flour in the chart in this article from the Whole Grains Council. The importance of fiber specifically caught my attention earlier this year when I learned about numerous studies connecting high dietary fiber with a lower incidence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and arthritis.
In terms of flavor, whole grain flour adds complexity to bread: different kinds of nuttiness, sometimes sweetness, sometime bitterness — always more character. The wheat is not only a medium for other foods (butter, jam, meat, cheese, tomatoes), but also brings its own flavor into play.
Note: This post contains bread baking concepts and terminology that may be unfamiliar to beginning bakers — particularly after the recipe, where I summarize the testing I did to arrive at the final version. Moreover, the recipe itself may be challenging because shaping a high hydration dough is difficult, especially the first few times you do it. The instructions and photo gallery should help with this, but you can always use slightly less water or more flour in your dough. Most importantly, please feel free to ask questions in the comments section of the blog/forum. The Breadtopia community is a welcoming place for bakers of all experience levels.
During this quest (which will actually never truly be over) I baked sixteen loaves of bread during nine rounds of baking. I looked at many variables: mixing to windowpane, stretching and folding, and cold vs room temperature bulk fermenting and final proofing, length of these stages and more.
I kept the wheat varieties and their ratio relatively constant but I did some loaves with home-milled wheat and others with Breadtopia-milled wheat, and once available, I used Breadtopia’s whole grain bread flour, which has a higher protein content. I used hard red and hard white wheat berries, turkey red wheat flour, hard white wheat flour, and hard red wheat bread flour.
I found the main contributors to crumb openness to be high hydration, spot-on fermentation, and high protein content of the wheat.
In the recipe below, I give the ingredients and instructions for my most successful whole grain sourdough bread – a recipe I repeated to ensure that it wasn’t a fluke.
Then, below the recipe and the gallery, I outline some of my other test bakes with their formulas, photos, and my takeaway from each experience.
How to Get an Open Crumb with Whole Grain Sourdough Bread
Whole grain sourdough bread has phenomenal flavor and nutrition. The character of the wheat comes through with a full range of vitamins, minerals, fiber and protein. The ingredients and instructions in this recipe can help you achieve a tender and relatively open crumb in a beautiful artisan style, naturally leavened whole wheat bread.
Ingredients
*This amount of water, or even more, works well for home-milled wheat (more absorption) and whole grain bread flour (higher protein results in more ability to hold its shape). If you are using other whole grain flours, you might consider less water 20-40g, as your dough will be difficult to handle, though worth the effort if you are willing to wrangle batter. In the instructions below, I will go over strategies for shaping and preventing sticking.
Instructions
Shopping List
My variation on the Rubaud method of hand-mixing dough from Breadtopia’s Whole Grain Spelt Ciabatta Recipe.
Examples of dough growth during bulk fermentation and final proofing
A shaping technique (other methods also work well)
Descriptions and Photos from my Experimental Bakes
Disclaimer: I undertook these experiments with the intention of testing and observing the effects of different techniques and conditions. These results represent the experience of one baker however, and should not be taken as definitive conclusions on any of the subjects. Many variables impact the outcome of a loaf of bread, and I encourage you to engage in, and report on your own testing to add to the body of knowledge that is always evolving in the baking world.
If you’re not familiar with Baker’s Percentages, which I use in the explanations below, you can learn about them here.
Round 1 of experimentation used whole grain turkey red wheat flour and was 90% hydration. This bake involved a flour and water autolyse, and Rubaud hand mixing until both doughs passed the windowpane test. Then, the dough on the right had four rounds of stretching and folding at roughly 30-minute intervals. I believe I fermented this dough too little, and the stretching and folding was done too closely together for a slowly developing dough. As you can see from the photo, the dough (left) that wasn’t touched after mixing is a bit taller and more open than the dough on the right that was stretched and folded.
In Round 2 I used my Mockmill to mill hard white wheat and I used Breadtopia’s turkey red wheat flour at close to a 50:50 ratio, 85% hydration. These doughs had Rubaud style hand mixing, and then spent about 24 hours in the refrigerator, followed by one stretch and fold and 11 hours at room temperature. The final proof was at room temperature for 1.5 hours and in the refrigerator for about 9 hours. This bread turned out quite well, I believe in part because of the extended fermentation.
Round 3 was designed to learn the differences between Mockmilled flour and Breadtopia-milled flour. I used 60:40 red to white wheat, 85% hydration, Rubaud hand mixing, and one stretch and fold when transferring each dough to a clean bowl. The bulk fermentation was both room temperature and cold, and I believe spot on. However, I pushed the final proof very far in hopes of seeing a more open crumb. The loaves were flattish, and the crumb okay but not open. In addition to finding the too-far point of the final proof, I learned that the home-milled flour needs more water to feel the same hydration as the Breadtopia-milled flour, and that the home-milled is sweeter, all other factors being equal.
Round 4 again involved a Breadtopia-milled flour (turkey red and hard white) and a home-milled flour from hard red wheat berries and hard white wheat berries. This time 70:30 red to white wheat, 85% hydration for the Breadtopia dough, and 87% for the Mockmilled dough. For the homemilled flour, which came out of the mill at 90F, I used colder water to even the dough temperatures. These doughs were hand mixed Rubaud style and had one round of stretching and folding. They bulked 9.5 hours, final proofed for 15 minutes at room temperature and 12 hours in the refrigerator. They came out attractive on the outside and adequate on the inside. This is about when I started to think I needed to increase the hydration of the dough.
For Round 5, before upping the hydration, I wanted to again test one more time the gluten building techniques of aggressive hand mixing, and stretching and folding, vs. leaving the dough alone. Using Breadtopia’s flour, I gave two doughs an autolyse of flour and water, followed by Rubaud hand-mixing the dough while adding the starter and salt. At this point in time, I also mixed a third dough, all ingredients in at once, just until the ingredients were incorporated. All three doughs were 60:40 turkey red to hard white wheat, 85% hydration.
The bread on the right had the autolyse, Rubaud, and four rounds of stretching and folding. It had the best oven spring and bloom to the crust.
The bread in the middle only had autolyse and Rubaud, and it spread more in the baking vessel, but had a similar crumb to the bread on the right.
The bread on the left was all-in and leave alone, and it had the most open crumb. It was also baked in a different shaped baker, so the experiment was flawed, but I still took away from this experiment the possibility that handling whole grain dough during fermentation is not helpful to open the crumb.
By Round 6, I was ready to push hydration in pursuit of an open crumb. Doing this with whole grain flour is more challenging than refined flour because the dough tends to spread and stick rather than hold its shape. This test bake was 70:30 hard red to hard white wheat and 93% hydration. I used a stand mixer with the dough hook on low speed for 2-3 minutes with 2 pauses to scrape down the sides of the bowl. I let the dough rest about 5 minutes, and then mixed on medium speed for another 2-3 minutes with 2 pauses to scrape. The bulk fermentation was about 8 hours. The final proof was 70 minutes at room temperature. The crumb was indeed more open, but the exterior of the bread suffered from a lack of tension (minimal bloom).
During Rounds 7 & 8 I applied what I learned about hydration to a mix of Breadtopia’s new whole grain bread flour (hard red wheat) and hard white wheat at a 73:27 ratio. This bake became the final recipe that is at the beginning of this blog post. The 93% hydration of the recipe is a splitting of the difference in the hydration levels I used in these two bakes. I mixed by hand as described in the recipe above, and then noting the good gluten development in this higher protein dough, I did three rounds of stretching and folding, but fairly spread apart. Both doughs had some refrigeration during the bulk fermentation, and none during the final proof. I used rice flour in the banneton in the oval loaf, and bran flakes in the round loaf. Although both doughs were relatively strong, Round 7 spread on the parchment when I scored, so for Round 8, I scored after lifting the dough into the hot baking vessel.
BONUS BAKE “microlevain”
70% home milled hard red wheat
30% home milled hard white wheat
95% water
1% starter (5g)
2% salt (10g)
Mixed all at once, bulked for 20 hours at room temperature. I didn’t track the final proof time (room temperature). See this thread in the forums for more information on this technique.
How to Get an Open Crumb with Whole Grain Sourdough Bread