Perhaps you’ve mastered your white flour sandwich loaf and are keen to start baking with other flours. Or did you try baking a wholemeal loaf only to find the result dense and quite flat? If so, watch the video below for my top three tips to help you bake a great wholemeal loaf at home. You can also read more in the blog below – just scroll down.
What is wholemeal flour?
Putting it simply, wholemeal flour is formed when the whole grain – of wheat, barley, rye or whatever cereal grain being used – is crushed into flour.
White flour is formed when the starchy interior of a grain – the endosperm – is crushed or milled into flour. To form wholemeal, either the bran from the outside of the grain is added back in to white flour, or the whole grain is crushed up together.
Wholemeal flour can often appear coarser in texture than white flour. It will be creamy in colour and be flecked with brown pieces of bran. Most of the nutritional value of grain is found in the bran too.
Top tip 1: Add more water to your dough
Any flour that has more bran in it – brown or wholemeal flour – will absorb more water. In fact, in the video above, I demonstrate with a dough made with water at 80% of the flour weight. So for every 100g of flour used, I’m adding in 80g water.
That’s quite a high percentage of water for any bread dough. With white flour, this would produce a very sticky, hard to handle dough.
But as you can see in the video, the dough is relatively firm and easy to handle. This is because the bran in the wholemeal flour has soaked up lots more water.
So, if you want to make a wholemeal loaf, don’t just use the white flour recipe you used before and substitute in wholemeal flour for white flour. The dough will turn out very dry and tight – and this is the first step to baking a brick, not a loaf!
Tip 2: Use a pre-soak method
Don’t worry, this has nothing to do with your laundry!
A pre-soak is simply mixing the flour and water from your wholemeal recipe and leaving them to soak for at least an hour. You could leave the mixture overnight.
As already discussed, the bran in wholemeal flour absorbs a lot more water.
In addition, as flour absorbs water, gluten starts to form in the dough.
Gluten is a stretchy, elastic protein that provides support as your dough rises. The bran in wholemeal flour can cut through the forming gluten network, removing some of the support for the dough and resulting in a flatter dough.
Using a pre-soak gives time for the gluten network to form without any mixing with and interference from the bran. Once completed, you add in the rest of the ingredients and continue to make your dough.
Tip 3: Add some sweetness to your dough
I always say that you don’t need to add sugar to your basic breads – and this is an optional tip too!
But adding a tablespoon or so of brown sugar or honey to a wholemeal loaf can help balance out the flavour of the flour. It will also give the yeast a boost as it rises your loaf. So why not try it in your next wholemeal loaf?
Used any tips from this blog to bake great bread at home? Do let me know in the comments.
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This simply did not work. I was left with a soggy mess on the work surface which resembled a frisby and glistened with moisture. I know my measurements were correct. Repeated resting and kneading with added flour failed to recover the situation.
Thanks for commenting – which part of the blog were you trying out with your recipe? Sorry to hear that the dough was too wet and the bread didn’t turn out as expected. Definitely try again and adjust one thing each time to see what can work – add less water, check your yeast is fresh, leave the dough to rise longer if it’s a cooler day. You’ll find what works with your ingredients and kitchen and I look forward to seeing the bread you bake.
Having accidentally added too much water to my most recent bread I found this while looking for the perfect ratio of water to flour. I’m happy to give the 80% water a go but I use dried yeast and I am not convinced it is going to blend into the prepared water/flour mix. You say make sure the yeast is fresh but do you mean ‘within date’ dried or are you using live yeast?
Thank you for watching and I’m glad this was helpful. You do need a lot more water for wholemeal flour. With dried yeast, you do need to re-hydrate it in water before adding it in so you could keep some water back to do this and add it later in the process. And yes, check your yeast is in date!
i dont understand the idea of the pre-soak so the bran shouldnt cut into the gluten strands when mixing?
when mixing the water from the recipe with flour as a presoak you are already
mixing and the bran is already cutting in to the gluten? how is it preventing?
Gluten only forms once the flour has absorbed water (or other liquid), so once you’ve mixed the flour and water, the bran will be soaking (and softening) and gluten will be forming. You’re not mixing the dough at this stage, so it gives time for the bran to absorb water and soften. Hope that helps – what sort of bread do you like to bake at home?
Thank you so much, at last I have found someone willing to share their secrets to breadmaking, not many want to give that kind of help !
Thanks for watching, I’m glad this was helpful. Do you usually bake wholemeal bread at home? What other breads would you like to bake?
… works for me … I use Wholemeal 300g – Wholewheat 300g (+9g VitalWheatGluten) and Rye 150g flour … added 85% water
I pre soak for 1 hr and other times overnight in the fridge … dough is moist but workable with a little bit of extra flour shaping
Thanks for commenting, your loaf sounds delicious too. Do you usually bake wholemeal bread at home or what other breads do you like to bake? Rhiannon.
I’m using a Mockmill 200 to mill wheat (with a protein level of 13%) grown next to my house I don’t seem able to produce anything other than a brick loaf unless I mix the dough with strong white flour other than presoaking is there any else I should consider
Thanks for reading the blog, that’s great to hear that you’re milling your own flour. Definitely try each of these tips, especially adding more water for wholemeal flour. You can also bake along step-by-step with my online course on baking the best wholemeal loaf – find out more here: https://thebakehouseclub.com/register/wholemeal-loaf/
Hi
These tips look really helpful, thank you.
I have 2 questions I hope you can help with.
1) Can I use the presoak method with the yeast and salt added, then retard it in the fridge overnight to prevent it overproofing? I use instant yeast.
2) If I use 50% white to 50% wholemeal, would I be hydrating at 70 to 75% per 100g roughly to get a softer loaf?
Hello, thank you for reading and commenting, I’m glad this was helpful. Yes, you could rise dough overnight in the fridge, you may wish to use less yeast if you do this. And, if you use 50% white wheat flour, you could drop the hydration a little. Enjoy baking and please do let me know how your loaves turn out.