100% WHOLE Grain Starter??

Hello Cleanmommy,

You have come to the right place, I am sure there will be plenty of advice forthcoming.

I would be sure to read SourDoms beginners blogs on this site as a starter even though he deals with white flour recipes a lot of the principles will still be the same.

I would continue feeding your starter on a daily basis for another few days just to be sure and then you could probably go over to storing it in the fridge and only refreshing it when you bake or once a week whichever is the sooner.

Your main difficulty, as I see it, will be baking with 100% wholegrain recipes.  You will certainly need to use higher hydration because of the greater water absorption that goes with whole grain flour.  The strength of the dough will certainly be less due to the presence of bran and germ that will interfere with the continuity of the gluten strands/sheets.  Low gluten flour, such as rye, will have little strength and will almost certainly have to be tinned to get reasonable rise.  There have been some recent blogs here on baking with rye.  There has also been a blog , by Staffo as I recall, on gluten free sourdough.

I know this might sound a bit dire, but the main thing to remember is that it is almost impossible to make something that is inedible and the most reliable way to success is to try, try, try again.

Let us know how you go and good luck with your projects.

Farinam

 I think whole grain starters are easier to take care of than white flour starters.  If your statrer is fermenting and smelling good then you should have nothing to worry about, just keep up the good work.

Hello CleanMommy

From what you have said, you are hot to trot and start making bread.

100% hydration is pretty normal for a starter and, although some recipes call for different hydrations for the starter, there are a couple of options.  You can change the hydration by doing a progressive build from a small amount or you can use your normal starter and adjust the amount of flour and water to give the final hydration for the dough.  I've put up a couple of spreadsheets for doing the calcs.

http://sourdough.com/blog/starterlevain-building-spreadsheet

http://sourdough.com/blog/hydration-calculating-spreadsheet

What I do is keep my stock in the fridge.  The night before I am planning to bake, I take 90g of stock and build it with 45g of flour and 45g of water and leave it on the bench overnight and it is ready for mixing dough the next morning.  I add 45 g flour (20%rye and 80%white) and 45g water to my stock container, mix it in and put the container back in the fridge.  I have gone straight from stock to dough without problems but it is nice just to be sure that things are alive and well.

Look forward to hearing how you go.

Farinam

Hi Mackenzie,

Not a problem.  The flour blend was only what I do.  You keep on with your regime.  At 100% hydration a wholemeal starter will be almost doughy so upping the hydration a bit should give you a more fluid product, but it is not essential. Mine pours out of a spoon slowly and leaves a thick layer behind (5+mm).  Some people work with starter of a dough consistency even just keeping a piece of dough from their loaf prep and using it next time.

There are almost as many ways of doing all this stuff as there are bakers out there.  So don't feel restrained to do something you don't want to do as long as it is sensible.

Happy baknig.

Farinam

 If you find that aren't getting the rise you are looking for in your bread, due to the low gluten, you can always purchase Wheat Gluten and add 15g of Wheat Gluten to every 56 gr of flour. 

A beautiful combination of flours I use is Spelt, Dark Rye, Whole wheat and white.   I take the total amount of flour and divide it by 4.   

Take care

Hope

Hello HopesHope,

That would be an extraordinary amount of gluten to add (about 20%) - surely there is a factor out somewhere?

Farinam

My advice comes with trial and error (1.5 years of baking with my homemade starter) as I have been wanting to make bread that is closer to 100% whole grain.  My starter though is fed with anything I have on hand including white flour, rye flour, etc. I like to vary it as I feel this will help me make any type of loaf with it.  My advice has to do with the liquids.  I love the Home Bread recipe on this site and use the 1-2-3 method (one part starter, 2 parts liquid, and 3 parts flour by weight in grams) as my foundation for any new loaf type and vary it from there.  The big difference for me is that my liquid is not water.  I make the yogurt for my family (no store bought at all) and we love thicker greek style yogurt.  Thus, I strain out the whey.   This is an awesome product full of nutrients, so I do not throw it out.  My favorite use of whey is in our bread.  I do NOT add it to my stock of starter (that I also keep in the fridge).  I simply replace by weight about half the liquid amount. I have done as much as all whey and as little as the tiny bit leftover from something else (I will add small amounts of yogurt at these times).  I prefer at least half.  The crumb is improved, the whole grains seems very happy. The bread is less dense. The dough even seems lighter.  We love it and of course the nutrition is so much improved with the protein in the whey.  The last bake of 100% whole grain, I used a mixture of flours, including wheat and spelt and maybe rye.  Then I took a large mason jar and filled it with a variety of whole grain kernels that I very briefly milled in coffee grinder and just barely covered in plain water to sit for about 18 hours...these grains included millet, maybe rye, spelt, kamut, flax, red winter wheat, maybe regular wheat, oat groats (in the end I recall having 5 or 6 different grains).  I added the whole thing to my bread after a few stretch and folds (given that this likely increased hydration, I did not increase the liquid and still used the 1-2-3 method). I had to use loaf tins due to 100% whole grain and high hydration.  With this method, I had 5 loafs of bread in the end and I believe that the dough began with 600 grams of starter (sorry it was a few weeks ago and I forget to take notes).  The bread is yummy with butter or jelly and so amazing toasted, you may never go back to white bread.