Fresh Milled Sour Dough Bread

My weekly grind! I love making fresh milled whole wheat bread. I started my sourdough starter 5 years ago, before the world fell apart. I started with organic flour that I was purchasing but soon after discovered that I could mill my own flour from wheat berries! Wow, game changer.

My husband purchased me a grain mill for my Kitchen Aid Christmas two years ago. Being new to milling grains I made due with my Kitchen Aid mill. It honestly worked well for two years, well the first year it was awesome but the second year we adjusted the mill because it wasn't grinding as fine. Even with the adjustment we made I was having to grind the fresh milled flour once more using a coffee mill. Worked well. However, I just purchased a NutriMill Classic (I wanted this type instead of a stone mill).

Game changer!

I always use hard red wheat plus another type of wheat berry mixed in. Either hard white or spelt. (I just ordered Emmer. My favorite place to buy wheat berries is Azure Standard.)

It took me a few different recipes plus YouTube videos before I came up with a recipe that worked consistently week after week. One thing that was hugely helpful was weighing out the ingredient.

Sour Dough-Fresh Milled

1st - Feed Starter the day before

Mill- Flour

250 grams Hard Red Wheat berries (Azure Standard)

250 grams Other type Wheat berries (Azure Standard)

Mix flour ingredients in bowl then add 

450 grams of warm water (use filtered)

Autolyse (this means to let the fresh milled flour, mixed with the warm water, sit in covered bowl for about 2 hours)

Incorporate into the bowl of autolysed flour the following

100 grams starter

9 grams salt

1 tsp lethicin (I use sunflower)

Then stretch and fold every 30 minutes for 2 hours (about 4 total. This doesn't, at least 4 can be more)

Bulk rise on counter for 6 hours (I do all the stretch and folds and rise in a glass bowl that has a lid. That prevents the dough from drying out.)

Shape tightly into banneton overnight in refrigerator. (Cover banneton. I find that shower caps work great!)

Next day-

Bake in a dutch oven covered with lid, preheating oven with-empty dutch oven- 450º first, for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake another 6 minutes. Check internal temperature 190-200 (I like it closer to 200. But try lower temp to see if you like the results. I bake in a gas oven.)