2021-04-03 A New Approach(able Loaf)
Hello Breadheads,
As mentioned in a recent Mike's (more or less) Weekly Baking Tips, I'm trying to move more and more to using whole grains. I've been trending in that direction, but have a bit more momentum since my doctor "encouraged" me to avoid refined carbohydrates. So, this is another step along the journey. If you are, or think you should be, on that journey, I hope you'll enjoy today's missive.
When Blair Marvin, the founder of Elmore Mountain Bread in Vermont, visited her kid's school at lunch time, she couldn't help but notice that the kids weren't getting sandwiches made from her whole grain breads. It was white mass-market stuff. This bothered her. She wanted kids to have better breads, and better nutrition! She began hanging out in the grocery store to find out why her bread wasn't selling there. To change this, she had to rethink a number of vows she'd made to herself. When she started the bakery, she didn't want to slice bread, she didn't want to use plastic bags, and she didn't want to bake bread in bread pans - she was a free form kinda person. But those things were exactly what her kid's classmates moms were looking for. As a result, she started making a lighter bread, baking it in pans, slicing it, and selling it in plastic bags. And... it sold! She named her bread for the flour she used to make it, Redeemer, from a wheat that is raised in the north-east. While lighter, it was still 100% whole wheat.
We've talked about The Bread Lab's Approachable Loaf project a few times. Their goal is to make a bread that is, well, approachable for people who are avoiding whole grain breads. They identified a number of customer sticking points and addressed them. They correlate with what Blair found. Here's what the Bread Lab requires of breads in the Approachable Loaf project:
- baked in a tin
- No more than 7 ingredients
- No non-food ingredients
- At least 60% whole wheat, preferably 100%
- Priced under $6 a loaf
- Pay the project 10 cents per loaf to Washington State University Bread Lab to
help fund the project.
The Bread Lab encourages creativity within those guidelines, but they have a sample formula here. And that brings us to Nate Hough of Brake Bread in Minnesota. Nate liked the idea of the Approachable Loaf, but didn't like the name as it implies the rest of his breads, somehow, aren't approachable. It's kinda like calling one of your children, "the good one" which suggests the others aren't good kids. So, he calls his bread Gateway Bread. A gateway to harder breads, I suppose.
More seriously, I've made his bread a few times and like it a lot! His formula is the basis for the formula below. Like many of the Approachable Loaf formulas, this uses whole wheat that was milled in house. We really like our mill and encourage people to get a mill. It may just be our imagination, but we feel grain we mill into our flour ourselves has more flavor. That
might be because we are using heirloom grains, but even when we use plain ol' red wheat we like it better than store bought flour. We evaluated a number of mills and created a blog post about it here. If you don't have a grain mill, you can make this bread with store-bought whole wheat flour. I'll encourage you to get the freshest and best you can find. Looking at the expiration dates on the package will give you a hint as to which is freshest.
One consideration for home millers is there is a lot of variation between wheats, so you should feel your dough and adjust the moisture levels in your dough as needed to make the dough feel "right". The "right" feel is something you learn from experience. In my computer networking days we used to say, "Experience is what keeps you from damaging equipment. Damaging equipment is what gives you experience." Which is to say, it's OK if not every loaf you make is perfect. Take notes and learn from your mistakes. A bad loaf of bread is a much less expensive lesson than a damaged router
or server! (Don't ask me how I know this.)
All that out of the way, let's make a 2 lb loaf of bread.
Mike's Spin On An Approachable Loaf
Start by making a Levain:
Volumetric Measure (Cups) Ingredient Grams Baker's Percentage
1/2 Cup Freshly Ground Whole Wheat Flour 69 Grams 100%
1/4 Cup Water 69 Grams 100%
2 tsp Sourdough Starter (whole Wheat Preferred) 14 Grams 20%
Mix together, cover, and let ferment 12 hours at 75F
If you already have a fresh active whole wheat starter, you may use it and skip the step above.
Now, let's mix the final dough:
Volumetric Measure (Cups) Ingredient Grams Baker's Percentage
1 1/2 Cups Water 370 Grams 72.7%
1 1/2 TBSP Sunflower Oil (1) 20 Grams 4%
2/3 Cup Sourdough Starter (from above) 150 Grams 30%
4 Cups Whole Wheat Flour 510 Grams 100%
1/2 tsp Malt Extract (2) 2.8 Grams 0.56%
2 tsp Salt 11.5 Grams 2.27%
(1) - other neutral oils can be used, such as grape seed oil
(2) - you can get dry malt extract from brewing supply houses and Amazon. You want a light, unhopped diastatic malt extract.
We used a mixer for this bread, you may, of course, knead by hand, develop the dough with stretch and folds, or whatever fills your heart with joy. We mixed the dough for 4 minutes on speed 1, let the dough rest for 5 minutes, and then mixed it for 2 minutes on speed 2. For KitchenAid mixers, use speed 2 and 4. The desired dough temperature is 82F. Cover the dough and let it rise.
After 50 minutes, stretch and fold it.
After another 50 minutes give the bread another stretch and fold.
After another 50 minutes (2 1/2 hours), divide and preshape the dough.
After 15 to 30 minutes, shape the dough, putting it into bread pans. Fill the bread pans about 2/3 full. Cover the pans.
Allow the bread to rise for 18 to 20 hours at 39F.
Preheat your oven to 475F/250C, bake the bread 35 minutes. It should have steam for the first 3 to 5 minutes, then vent the steam. After 20 minutes, rotate the bread in the oven and complete the bake.
Because this bread is fairly dense, check the bread temperature after the time has elapsed and make sure the bread is fully baked - that is, sounds hollow when you thump the bottom of the loaf, or has an internal temperature of 205F/96C. (That may vary based on your altitude.)
We have REALLY been liking this bread and have made it with a variety of home milled whole wheats.
Next time, we'll look at an all whole grain spin on a rye bread. Until next time, may your dough always rise, no matter what kind of flour you are using,
-Mike
Hi Mike,
The links to your reviews of the mills and the conclusion do not work. Thought you would like to know.
I have a Mockmill 100 that I use most of the time, but it does heat up the flour, which needs to be taken into consideration. I also use a burr grinder which attaches to my mixer that does not heat the grain at all. The burr grinder is handy for crushing hard kernel corn or crushing wheat or rye into a coarse flour to use for making a “starter.” My last new starter took only 4 days from start to finish using this crushed grain. The Mockmill heats up the grain too much and kills off the little critters.
I think folks need to understand that you are making home milled Whole Grain bread and the stuff at the store might be marked whole wheat but it is definitely NOT whole grain. Your comment regarding hydration is right on as the “store bought” whole wheat is going to use less water because it is missing most of the good stuff (that absorbs water) and that goes rancid quickly in just a couple of weeks if not stored properly. The only reason I bring this up is I had many failures learning how to make bread this way. Following recipes based on store bought flour and then using my home milled flour was a challenge to learn over the past few years. So nice to see you are heading in this direction, so newbies have some place to start if they are home milling.
All of the typical marketing to me is a play on words. Is not Wonder Bread (that white gooey stuff we had as kids) made with wheat…………… all whole wheat? No other grain like rye, barley or oats in it?
I attempt to bake mostly 100% (or close to it) home milled, whole grain, organic, heritage or ancient wheat. Except for Einkorn the hydration rates are well above 85% normally and have baked some at 105% as trials to see how well I could handle the sloppy dough.
-Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for commenting on the links. The links in the menu worked, but not the ones in the main article. Now they do. When we moved the website to WordPress, we missed a few links.
If you look at the conclusions to the Grain Mill article, ALL the mills heat up the flour, the only question is how much. Grinding flour takes energy, and energy applied to something creates heat. A grain flaker disturbs the grain less and will produce less heat, perhaps so little you’ll have trouble measuring it, but even a flaker will heat the grain. In any case, I’ve started several starters with flour from my MockMill, so I don’t think it heats the flour excessively.
Legally, in the USA, if a flour mill advertises a flour as being “whole wheat”, it must contain everything that was in the grain that the mill started with. All the bran, all the endosperm, all the germ – everything. If they don’t they are violating a number of laws. If you feel a mill is not doing this, please report them to the FDA. The whole wheat flour in the market has aged more than your home milled flour, and that makes a difference. How much of a difference is another question. When starting a starter, I suggest buying the freshest organic whole grain flour you can find, and that has always worked for me.
Have fun with your gloppy, sloppy dough!
Mike
I love the recipes I have found here. I recommend this site to everyone who talks to me about sourdough. Thanks so much for this resource!
That said, this recipe confuses me a little. Do you knead AND do stretch and folds or do you choose one? I am new to stretch and fold, so that may be part of my confusion.
Hi Justine,
I wish I’d been a TV watcher when Fr. Dominic Garramone, the Bread Monk was on TV. One of his favorite aphorisms was, “It’s only dough, it will forgive you!”
As long as you’re getting the results you want, you’re doing it right. I’ve made this bread using only a mixer, kneading by hand, or using stretch and fold. They all work. My usual approach is to mix the ingredients until they are just combined so all the flour is wet, and then start doing stretch and folds.
The total amount of time is about the same. You can have a short mix using a machine or kneading by hand followed by a long first rise. Or a short mix followed by a number of stretch and folds. The stretch and fold time takes the place of some of the first rise. The total time, and the results, are about the same…. the bread doesn’t care.
I have a page on how to knead dough, as well as one on how to do stretch and folds. The way I suggest kneading by hand is very gentle and even people with carpal tunnel issues have told me it works well for them with no discomfort. Still, stretch and fold is easier on one’s body and lets one make larger amounts of dough. When we were active in farmers markets, I’d make 220 to 250 loaves a night using stretch and fold – there’s no way I could have kneaded that much dough by hand!
However you get there, enjoy the bread and enjoy the trip to get there,
Mike
Hi Mike,
I am confused about the statement “Allow the bread to rise for 18 to 20 hours at 39F.” Is that in the refrigerator?
Thanks!
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
Where you let the dough rise isn’t as important as the temperature. You could use a refrigerator, a freezer with an add-on temperature control, a wine cooler, your garage during some parts of the year in some parts of the world.
Hope that helps,
Mike
Hi Mike:
I’m a retired NP who has suffered from IBS for decades. When I became aware of lectins and how they affect my gut, I began to see some improvement. In a simple nutshell, lectins are sharp-edged food molecules that your gut doesn’t digest. However, as the gut processes these molecules through it’s length, the sharp edges begin to damage the inside gut-lining, which can either slow everything down or speed it up (or both alternately), and eventually they can break through the gut lining in various places and create leaky gut. Leaky gut is believed to be the cause of many auto-immune type disease processes. A big source of lectins in the American diet is unprocessed food staples: whole wheat, brown rice, raw beans, tomato skins, much of what we’ve been led to believe is more healthy. (There’s a reason the Asian countries have used white rice for eons.) Anyway, “food” for thought. I know I’ve seen improvement in my gut and with arthritis since I switched back to white rice and white unbleached flour. (Beans are OK if you boil them instead of overnight soaking or use canned beans, and I now buy skinless canned tomatoes.) I still love an occasional slice of good brown bread, but I do notice my gut reacts afterward. And know that not all lectins are bad, but thankfully for bread the sourdough process seems to destroy the worst ones! A calorie-conscious real food diet leading to weight loss helps cardiac health more than anything.
As for me and my house, we are no longer afraid of white sourdough bread!
Hi Suzanne,
Everyone has to find out what works for them. One thing I’ve learned over the years is no matter what one expert says, there’s another expert waiting to tell you the first expert was wrong. So, I tend to use caution, operating on the assumption you only get one body so you need to be careful with it.
Best wishes,
Mike
Mike your going to know I am a novice baker when I ask you how you got the color in the loaf? I buy my whole wheat flower from a local mill here in Oklahoma. All the grain is grown locally it is off white in color and called hard red winter wheat flour. I never get that color unless I add some sourgum or something to help it change. I noticed in your recipe that there where no ingredients that I thought would change the color. Would you mind shedding some light on that for me?
Hi Tom,
I wrote that article almost 2 years ago, so I am not sure which wheat I used. Still, a whole wheat flour should give you good color without needing to add molasses or sorghum. You might ask the mill if the flour is bolted or sifted, either of which would remove some germ and bran which would lighten the flour’s color as well as the bread’s color.
Sadly, I can’t find any flour mills in Oklahoma using Grinder Finder, so I can’t comment on the flour. Hard red winter wheat could cover quite a few varieties of wheat. I probably used Rouge de Bordeaux from Barton Springs Mill in Austin, Texas – they are great people to deal with!
All that said, there’s nothing wrong with using some sorghum or molasses to make the bread you want!
Happy baking!
-Mike
Good day Mike
I’m so happy to find your version of an Approachable loaf without yeast. I’m making this recipe for the second time so I questioned myself, after baking the first loaf, for not allowing the panned loaf to proof on the counter for 30-45 minutes before going into the fridge. My results without the warm proof was ok but wondered if a short warm proof would have given me more oven spring. Your opinion please.
Thanks so much
Jeanette
Hi Jeanette,
One of my email signatures reads, “And on the other hand, you have more fingers!” Or, there’s always another way to do bread related things.
When we were running a bakery, I’d made 10 or more different kinds of bread every day. Each off them wanted to be treated slightly differently. Most got some time to rise at room temperature, which we called “floor time”, before going into the cooler for a long slow overnight rise. (We never did any of the very long rises some people are fond of these days, like 3 to 5 days. I should play with that!) Some breads went into the cooler as soon as they were loafed, and some were never cooled at all – our sourdough whole wheat rose overnight at room temperature. Every bread was a prima donna and wanted things done its way! When you are doing production baking that can be a plus as it lets you juggle rise times and oven times to make sure no breads were going beyond fully risen as they waited their chance to go to downtown ovensville.
In a home environment, the pressure points are different, you just want to know how long to let the bread rise. Do I have time to get the kids from school? Do I have time to go shopping? Do I have time to go to work? Sadly, these are questions i can’t answer for you. Each recipe is different. Each kitchen is different. My usual advice is to make the breads the first time on a day off. Time things. Then you’ll know what to expect next time. The caveat there is the manufacturing engineer’s mantra, “It takes a consistent process to make a consistent product!” In our world, treating the starter the same way each time you use it so it is consistently active is a major step in the right direction, as is temperature control.
All that brings us back to your excellent question. I usually start by letting a shaped loaf have a few hours of floor time before putting it in the fridge. I shoot for around 40 to 50% rise in the first, or bulk, rise. Once I see how it works, I adjust the process to get the loaf I want in the time frame I want.
Hope this helps,
Mike