Home › Recipes › Whole Wheat Bread
Whole Wheat Bread
Formula Hard whole wheat flour, 100 lbs.
Water, 58 lbs. (variable).
Salt, 1¾ lbs.
Malt extract, 4 lbs.
Yeast, 2 lbs.
Milk powder, 3 lbs.
Shortening, 2½ lbs.
Dissolve the yeast and one-quarter of the malt extract in about 3 qts. of water and place to one side. Put the balance of the water, malt extract, salt and milk powder into the mixer and stir to dissolve the ingredients. Add the flour and then add the yeast solution. After these ingredients add the shortening and continue mixing until the dough has been properly developed. The dough should have a temperature of 78 to 80 degrees when mixed.
Fermentation If the conditions of the shop warrant a 3¾ hour fermentation period it may be divided as follows: First rising, 2 hours; second rising, 1 hour; third hour, 1/2 hour.
Allow the dough to rest 15 minutes, when it can be divided. In making doughs for a whole wheat bread, the particles do not adhere together as they do when a patent wheat flour is used, owing to the granular structure of the flour, which prevents the development of the gluten to some extent. The dough will become more tenacious after it is mixed a while and even more after the dough has gone into the trough where it is to remain during the fermentation period. Molasses has a tendency to make a dark crumb, which many bakers believe is desirable in whole wheat bread.
This is a commercial bakeshop formula written in pounds per 100 lbs of flour, meant for a mixer and a dough trough. It converts cleanly to a home batch once you read it as percentages.
- Scale it by percentageTreat flour as 100 and everything else as a percentage of it: water 58, salt 1.75, malt extract 4, yeast 2, milk powder 3, shortening 2.5. For a two-loaf batch use 1000 g whole wheat flour, 580 g water, 17 g salt, 40 g malt extract, 20 g fresh yeast (or about 7 g instant), 30 g dry milk powder, 25 g shortening.
- The fermentation lineThe total now reads 3¾ hours, as printed. "Third hour, 1/2 hour" still stands in the text and should read third rising, ½ hour. The schedule is 2 hours, punch and 1 hour, punch and ½ hour, then a 15-minute rest before dividing.
- Yeast then was compressed yeastTwo percent means fresh compressed cake yeast, which is roughly a third the strength of modern instant dry yeast. Using instant at the stated 2 percent will blow through the three-stage schedule long before the time is up.
- Hydration is deliberately flexibleThe "(variable)" beside the water is the important word. Whole wheat bran absorbs water slowly, so a dough that feels right at mixing tightens up over the first hour; 58 percent is a starting point and modern whole wheat flours often take 65 to 70 percent.
- Malt extractNon-diastatic barley malt syrup is what you want here — it feeds the yeast, darkens the crust and adds the faintly sweet flavour expected of the style. Diastatic malt at 4 percent would be far too much enzyme and would slacken the dough badly.
- Dough temperature is the hinge78 to 80F at the end of mixing governs the whole three-stage schedule. Adjust your water temperature to hit it; a dough that comes out at 70F will not be ready when the clock says it is.
- Mix, then waitThe note about granular particles is sound. Whole wheat dough looks underdeveloped at the mixer and gains strength during bulk fermentation, so resist adding flour to a dough that seems slack in the bowl.
- No oven instruction is givenThe formula stops at dividing because the shop knew its own oven. Pan loaves of this size bake at 400 to 425F for 30 to 40 minutes, to an internal temperature of about 200F.
- The molasses asideMolasses is not in the formula — the closing sentence is a suggestion. If you want the darker crumb, swap part or all of the malt extract for molasses at the same weight.
Trade formulas of this kind were printed in terms of 100 lbs of flour because that is how a commercial shop bought and mixed, and the arithmetic of baker's percentage let any bakery scale a published formula to its own mixer. The presence of a whole wheat formula at all reflects the early twentieth-century market for "health" breads, descended from the mid-nineteenth-century Graham movement, which the wholesale trade had to supply alongside its white pan loaves. The technical notes here — granular bran interfering with gluten development, dough gaining tenacity in the trough, molasses used chiefly for colour because many bakers held that whole wheat bread should look dark — read as the practical knowledge of a working baker. The three-stage fermentation with two punches was standard straight-dough practice of the period, before the long-mix and no-time dough methods that came later reshaped commercial bread production.