I am new to this forum. I was recently diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. I have discovered that I can eat breads and cookies that are made with whole wheat pastry flour and my sugar doesn't spike. My question is have any of you used this flour for sour dough starter. I love sour dough and have been keeping a starter that my father gave to me in 1966. It is still going strong. I am just asking for some help in this arena.
Thanks,
X-RING
Replies
I have started baking with sourdough about 6 months ago and am still learning.
I decided to bake with wholemeal from the start as I didn't want to bake white bread at home.
I have had no trouble maintaining a wholemeal sourdough starter and converted it to gluten free at one point to do some Christmas baking for a Gluten Free friend.
I can't see any reason why you couldn't convert your starter to wholemeal, or start a new wholemeal starter from scratch.
It is necessary to adapt recipes however and that has taken some time to work out.
Much of the advice/recipes on the internet sites does relate to baking with flour which has a high proportion of white flour in it and you need to keep this in mind, as the techniques often don't work with wholemeal flour.
Wholemeal flour absorbs more water, and needs a higher hydration level.
It also absorbs water more slowly and presoaking the flour does help.
The dough is wetter and it takes practice to manipulate it. Using wet hands works better than using flour to stop sticking.
Baking needs to be done at a lower temperature for longer as there is more moisture in the loaves.
Initially I was adding a little gluten flour to my loaves to make them a bit lighter, but as I am getting more experienced, I am finding this is unnecessary a lot of the time.
Good Luck with your Wholemeal Sourdough Baking
Hello X-RING
I don't see a problem with using that sort of flour. The yeasts and bacteria aren't particularly fussy where their food comes from. What could be more of a problem is making a strong enough dough with only that flour. You can but try it and see how you go and if you can't manage a free-form loaf then you can always use a tin.
Good luck with your projects.
Farinam