The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

whole grain sourdough bread book

bobku's picture
bobku

whole grain sourdough bread book

Can anyone recommend a good bread book for whole grain sourdough bread. I have been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabeties. From what I have read whole grain sourdough is the way to go. I have baked breads and bagels before but never attempted any kind of sourdough. I have Reinhart's BBA book and looking for something else for some guidance

jcking's picture
jcking

How about Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads"? Many recipes can use either a pre-fermnet or sourdough.

Jim

Frequent Flyer's picture
Frequent Flyer

Second the recommendation.  The technique used in this book is terrific and produces light loaves.  You have the option of using a biga using yeast or a stiff sourdough starter.   The loaves below use Reinhart's technique in Whole Grain Breads, but the ratios of starter - water - and flour are 1-2-3 by weight.

 

jcking's picture
jcking

Lookin' good FF! Out of all the great bakers I know, you're one of them {:-)))

Another nice whole grain book, not so much sourdough, is; "The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book" by Laurel Robertson.

Jim

Frequent Flyer's picture
Frequent Flyer

Likewise on the great baker tag.  I've used your guidance on developing open crumbs to good effect.  I have the Laurel book also and enoy reading it.  The Laurel's approach is to knead the dough for long periods of time - up to 20 mins or so.  That works, but the Reinhart approach requires much less kneading as the gluten develops during the soaking and biga resting times and allows better flavor development.

FF

Janetcook's picture
Janetcook

Once you are familiar with Reinhart's method it is easy to convert Laurel's formulas so that same techniques can be used - as well as substituting SD for IY.

Look up txfarmer's blog pieces where she uses formulas from that book that she has converted into SD.  The loaves are amazing and very easy to do.

Good Luck

Janet

thomaschacon75's picture
thomaschacon75

One that isn't cropped.

It's a beautiful loaf.

I'd love to see more photos of it.

Frequent Flyer's picture
Frequent Flyer

This shot is a less cropped

FF

thomaschacon75's picture
thomaschacon75

A whole wheat bread that looks like that would fly off the shelves. Beautiful, gorgeous.

Nickisafoodie's picture
Nickisafoodie

Dan Leader's "Local Breads" has a couple of great chapters and a bit of history interwoven too.  Check it out.  Also Hammelman's "Bread"

thomaschacon75's picture
thomaschacon75

I don't know if they've published an errata, but the text is chock full of errors, major ones (ingredient quantities, etc.). Of the ten or so breads I made out of it, half of them failed. I was an inexperienced baker at the time, though; I imagine I'd be able to self-correct the problems now. 

That said, there's an entire chapter at the beginning on the book that's the best troubleshooting guide I've ever seen.

toneweaver's picture
toneweaver

I've also found Mike Avery's sourdoughhome.com and Teresa Greenway's northwestsourdough.com enormously helpful. Good luck, but I have to warn you: sourdough is addictive. :-)

Cheers!
Toneweaver