Once I started using my grain mill on a daily basis, sourdough fell of my radar for a while. I was so captivated by wheat berries, mills, fresh flour, and fresh milled bread, that my sourdough starter became neglected.

A coincidence? Maybe. 

Once I got a handle on fresh milled flour with commercial yeast, I slowly added sourdough back into my life, with the nutritious addition of fresh milled flour.

But honestly? I gave up a few times. There’s just a steep learning curve with fresh milled flour + sourdough.

But we’ll master it together.

And it turns out that a huge help is to actually start a new sourdough starter, from scratch, with fresh milled flour. Sometimes starters used to commercial flour don’t like being switched over to fresh flour.

Why combine fresh flour and sourdough?

So, if it’s difficult, why bother? I’m glad you asked.

Sourdough is using natural yeast and natural fermentation to make bread. While this process is commonly seen as a more nutritious way to make bread, that’s only half true. You see, sourdough bread is long-fermented, which means that it’s easier for our bodies to digest in the end. It’s already started to “digest” through it’s long, natural fermentation process. That’s a good thing.

What’s not good is that long-fermenting bread made with traditional commercial flour (store bought flour is essentially just highly-processed starch, missing 2/3 of the natural wheat), is simply a missed opportunity. (Learn more about the effect of sourdough fermentation on fresh milled flour.)

Fresh milled flour + sourdough? A long-fermented powerhouse of nutrition, digestibility, and flavor. It’s truly the best bread you can eat. 

Sourdough with fresh milled flour: getting started

If you’re new to milling flour, let’s get started.

You’ll need a good grain mill. You have three options–a stone mill, an impact mill (steel blades), or a hand-crank mill. I personally choose an on-demand style stone mill, but to each his own. Not sure which mill you might want or need? I wrote an entire guide to choosing a grain mill that breaks down everything you need to know.

Next, you need some wheat berries. It can get confusing with tons of variety, but if you’re starting out with fresh flour, you’ll most likely want to stick to either hard white or hard red for making bread like sourdough.

Then you’ll need a sourdough starter (if you’re making sourdough bread, that is). Good news; you’re in the right place! We’ll cover the whole process of making a fresh milled sourdough starter from scratch, right here.

It’s that simple!

Wheat berries for sourdough starter

Wheat berries can be confusing.

But, when it comes down to it, most wheat berries (ground into flour) can be used to feed your sourdough starter. Just be sure to keep in consistent so your starter knows what to expect. However, my personal preference is to use fresh milled rye flour to feed my starter on the daily. This is for two reasons: 1) my starter is happier, bubblier, and more active when it’s fed rye, and 2) rye is the most affordable grain I purchase.

Great options for fresh flour to feed your sourdough starter include:

• Rye (my personal choice)
• Hard white
• Hard red
• Einkorn
• Khorasan (A.K.A. Kamut)
• Spelt (my second favorite)
• Durum
• Alternative (GF) grains

What fresh milled flour is best for sourdough

The flour you’ll use to feed your sourdough starter and the flour you’ll use to make sourdough bread may or may not be the same. For instance, I personally use rye flour to feed my starter every day, but I stick with grains like Turkey Red (a hard red wheat) or Dakota Snow (a hard white wheat) to make sourdough bread.

Make sure you don’t try to use any soft wheat berries or low-gluten grains to make sourdough bread.

AVOID using:

soft white wheat

soft red wheat

rye

ancient grains (if using, no more than 50%)

In general, stick with hard grains (hard white, hard red) for the best results with sourdough bread. Later one once you’ve mastered fresh milled sourdough bread, experiment with other grains. But I recommend keeping it as simple as possible when you’re starting out.

How to make a fresh milled sourdough starter

Without further ado, let’s make a fresh milled sourdough starter, from scratch. Making a fresh flour sourdough starter is a simple process of mixing flour and water together, but it does take some patience as you wait for it to become active.

I recommend using fresh milled rye flour, but other options are hard white/red wheat, spelt, einkorn or khorasan.

Day 1: In a clean jar, mix equal parts water and flour by weight together, stir well, and cover with something breathable (NOT airtight). Let sit. You can measure with volume or weight, just keep the flour and water in a roughly 1:1 ratio.

Day 2: Discard about half of your starter, then feed it. The easiest way to make sure you’re feeding the proper amounts at first is to weigh how much starter you have, then feed it the same weight in both flour and water, making sure it’s a thick, pancake batter-like consistency. If it’s thinner than that, add a little more flour. 

As an example, if you have 25 g of starter, feed it 25 g of flour and 25 g of water.

Day 3: Discard half of your starter (again), and feed it the same amount of flour and water that the starter weighs.

Days 4-6: Continue this feeding pattern, feeding every 12-24 hours. I like to feed my starter first thing each morning to stay in a routine. You should start to see bubbles and some activity in your starter by now.

Week 1-2: Your starter should be bubbling, doubling in size after it’s fed, and looking happy by the beginning of week two. But don’t try to make bread with your starter before it’s actually active and established. In the first few weeks, even if a starter looks active and happy, it most likely isn’t strong enough to make bread with yet. Be patient and try making discard recipes with your starter at first (like discard crackers or overnight griddle cakes) before diving into fresh flour sourdough bread.

Feeding sourdough starter with fresh milled flour

If you’re used to feeding your sourdough starter store bought flour and are transitioning it to fresh milled flour (or starting a brand-new fresh milled starter), you’ll notice differences. Because fresh milled flour is so different from commercial flour, your starter will react to it differently.

You’ll notice that your starter rises and becomes active more quickly. That’s because fresh flour is alive with nutrients that your starter loves. The downside? It also stays active for much shorter times. A fresh milled sourdough starter needs routine in order to thrive, and is much less flexible than a commercial flour starter. When I was feeding my starter commercial flour, skipping a feeding or two here and there? No big deal. With a fresh flour starter? Skipping a feeding or two leads to crusty tops, very sad starter, and a longer bounce-back time than with commercial flour.

A fresh milled starter needs to be fed very regularly and routinely to survive.

How and when to feed a fresh milled starter

Your best bet is to feed your fresh milled sourdough starter every morning, when possible. I’ve personally found that my fresh milled starter isn’t happy in the fridge, so I keep mine at room temperature. If you’re able to keep your starter in the fridge, feed it once a week.

My method for feeding my starter is very eyeball-ed and simple.

1. Discard starter if it’s starting to have too much “bulk” to it. I don’t like to feed massive amounts of starter, I see it as a waste of flour. Save the discard for recipes later.
2. Add filtered water to your starter until it’s watery and “murky” looking. How much water you add depends on how much starter you want the next day.
3. Mix the starter + water together.
4. Add flour until your starter becomes thick and well-mixed. I aim for pancake batter-like thickness.
5. Fresh milled starters soak up a little more water than conventional flour ones, so keep it just a tad less thick as you’re feeding it than you’d like it to be in the end.

Print

fresh milled sourdough starter, step-by-step

Ingredients

• rye flour see notes
• water

Instructions

• Day 1: In a clean jar, mix equal parts water and flour by weight together, stir well, and cover with something breathable (NOT airtight). Let sit. You can measure with volume or weight, just keep the flour and water in a roughly 1:1 ratio.
• Day 2: Discard about half of your starter, then feed it. The easiest way to make sure you’re feeding the proper amounts at first is to weigh how much starter you have, then feed it the same weight in both flour and water, making sure it’s a thick, pancake batter-like consistency. If it’s thinner than that, add a little more flour.
• Day 3: Again, discard half of your starter, and feed it the same amount of flour and water that the starter weighs.
• Days 4-6: Continue this feeding pattern, feeding every 12-24 hours. I like to feed my starter first thing each morning to stay in a routine. You should start to see bubbles and some activity in your starter by now.
• Week 1-2: Your starter should be bubbling, doubling in size after it’s fed, and looking happy by the beginning of week two. But don’t try to make bread with your starter before it’s actually active and established. In the first few weeks, even if a starter looks active and happy, it most likely isn’t strong enough to make bread with yet. Be patient and try making discard recipes with your starter at first (like discard crackers or overnight griddle cakes) before diving into fresh flour sourdough bread.

Notes

I recommend using fresh milled rye flour, but other options are hard white/red wheat, spelt, einkorn or khorasan.

What you’ll need to make a fresh milled sourdough starter from scratch:

More like make a fresh milled sourdough starter (step-by-step):

• Which wheat berries to use (a simple guide)
• Sourdough with fresh milled flour: what you need to know
• Sourdough bread recipe made with fresh milled flour
• The best fresh milled flour blueberry muffins
• Join Fresh Flour University today & learn all the tips it took me 7 years to master. Use code SOULYRESTED to save $$.

The post Make a fresh milled sourdough starter (step-by-step) first appeared on Souly Rested.

And I get it.

The idea of using fresh milled flour at all can be intimidating, add in a live, fermented yeast culture, and even experienced cooks may run to the hills. Or I guess toss in the (kitchen) towel might be a better analogy.

But I got your back. If you want to know how to make potentially the most nutrient-dense, deeply delicious loaf of bread you will ever make, stick with me.

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What does sourdough bread taste like when made with fresh milled flour?

Fresh flour tends to lend a nuttier, sweeter, fuller flavor than refined flour to anything you bake with it, but especially bread.

Then the delicious notes of subtle sourness brought in by your sourdough starter make this bread irresistible.

Combining the sourness of the starter + the sweet boldness of the fresh flour = perfect flavor combination.

Not to mention the health benefits of fresh flour and the fermented benefits of sourdough combined are ideal on your gut, your blood sugar, and your waistline.

What can be bad about bread that tastes amazing and is good for you?

Does my sourdough starter need to be made with fresh milled flour?

If you want this to be a purely fresh flour loaf, you will need a starter made or fed consistently with fresh milled flour. But feel free to use your starter as is too, if it’s always just been feed refined flour. Either way will work fine and give you a delicious loaf of bread.

But when possible, the more fresh flour you use, the better. The higher mineral content of fresh flour produces more acid in your dough, which helps with the fermentation process of sourdough.

And, keep in mind that sourdough starters eat the flour you feed it through a process of fermentation, so you’re not directly eating the flour that your starter eats anyway.

Sourdough Bread Made with Fresh Milled Flour

How to make sourdough bread with fresh milled flour

The most important thing about making sourdough bread with fresh milled flour is knowing how to care for your fresh flour sourdough starter, so we’ll start there…

Unless you’re storing it in the fridge and only bringing it out to use it, you’ll want to try to feed your sourdough starter with fresh flour and water twice daily. (But I pretty much screw this up at least once a week, so keep reading.)

I like to keep my starter the consistency of heavy cake or pancake batter. This leads to less giant “holes” in each slice of bread. If you like a more open crumb (aka big air holes in your sourdough), that’s totally fine, just feed your starter more water than flour and keep it a more runny consistency.

But you will find with fresh flour there is just a little more difficulty in getting the bread to rise. A thicker starter helps combat this problem a little as well.

Also I find that fresh milled rye flour tends to get my starter more active than other flours. Read more about that below.

People ask all the time why their starter isn’t doubling in size. One answer is that you might just not be feeding it enough flour in your flour/water equation. Try feeding your starter at a thicker consistency and see if that helps.

A few sidenotes:

I tend to forget to feed my starter twice a day, a few days every week. It will survive some neglect. You will just need to spend time “building it back up” to a bubbly active starter, but that’s not too hard to do.

I don’t know the science behind it, but a fresh flour starter does seem to need to be fed more often than a regular starter. If not, it develops a hooch–that gray liquid that covers the top that is the alcohol given off as your wild yeast is fermenting. When you see hooch, no worries, just pour it off the top and feed your starter.

What to do the night before you’re making your sourdough bread, with fresh flour 

The night before your bread-making day, you want to autolyze your flour. That’s a fancy term I learned in one of my latest reads that I’m loving, Flour Lab, by Adam Leonti. Don’t let the fancy term scare you if you’re not a bread chef and connoisseur (not many of us are, me included).

Essentially, when you autolyze flour, you’re letting the fresh milled flour and water get to know each other and rest, before any other ingredients are involved. This brief rest time hydrates the flour (which can be a little tricky to get just right with fresh flour) and activates the enzymes that are so important in the bread making process. Bonus, it makes the mixing a little easier later on too.

To autolyze the flour, all you need to do is get out a medium sized bowl and place in:

1 1/2 cups warm, filtered water 

3 cups of fresh milled flour (I use this heritage grain. About 2 cups of berries, or 375 grams, will be needed in your grain mill.)

Mix just these two ingredients, cover bowl with towel, and let them sit for at least 10 minutes. I tend to let them sit for an hour or so. today 4 1/2 hrs. Then mix in:

1 cup sourdough starter

After mixing, let sit for 10 additional minutes. If the dough is still too moist after resting, add a generous tablespoon more of fresh flour and mix in well. 

Cover your bowl with a towel & let set overnight on your kitchen counter.

What to do the morning that you’re baking your sourdough bread, with fresh flour 

In the morning, you’ll find your dough is taking up more space in the bowl. 

Add these ingredients:

1 tb sugar (I use maple sugar or this organic sugar)

1 tb salt (this salt is my favorite. Use code SOULYRESTED to save)

1/2 cup of fresh milled flour ( I use 65 grams of this heritage grain)

Knead just until all combined and nice texture; not too sticky. If you’ve let your flour soak up the liquids for plenty of time, at this stage you will have a nice, non-sticky dough. If it is sticky, use wet hands for kneading and working with it and you should be fine.

Place your dough in bowl twice its size, that you’ve prepared with a thin layer of oil (I spray on avocado oil using this wonderful tool), and cover bowl with a towel (or plastic wrap that you spray underneath, so the rising dough won’t stick to it). 

What to do the afternoon that you’re baking your sourdough bread, with fresh flour 

When it’s about 1.5x in size, it’s time to work with your dough. (Sourdough doesn’t double. If it does, it’s probably overproofed.)

First, get your oven preheating to 425, with your bread pan in the oven, also preheating. (I love my bread pans.) Then jiggle the dough out of the bowl and onto your counter (believe it or not, there shouldn’t be a need for flour on your counter, but dust some rice flour on if you find you need it).

Gently flatten the dough, using light finger or knuckle pressure. Create a ball of dough by pulling a top “corner” in, pressing down, and rotating your circle of dough 90 degrees. Keep doing this until your dough is no longer stretchy, about 10-12 pulls/turns. You now have a nice ball of dough. Having a nice ball now means a firmer, airy loaf of bread later.

Turn the ball over and lightly dust with rice flour. Cover with a towel and let it rest for 10 minutes. (This is called a “bench rest.”)

After 10 minutes, smooch your ball of dough into a rectangle the right length for your pan (or just a square for an artisan loaf that will be baked in a dutch oven).

I then make a kind of “house” shape then roll the dough, from the pointed “roof,” down, firmly pressing the dough together with each roll. I will pinch the seam and/or pull the log or circle of dough along the counter to try to eliminate a seam.

I place my log of dough on parchment paper inside of the lid of my ceramic bread baker. (While the bottom of the pan is preheating.) I cover it with a kitchen towel and set it in a draft-free area for about 1/2 hour.

You can know it’s done rising when a gentle finger poke doesn’t bounce back. 

Score your bread then transfer to your hot baking pan.

Using the paper to lift it easily, remove the loaf out of the lid it’s been rising in, place it (on its parchment paper) into the hot bread pan, and cover with the lid.

Bake both on center rack at 425 for 20 minutes. Then remove lid and leave an additional 10 minutes or so, until crust is done. 

If you’re a visual person…

I documented my bread making on my instagram stories. Find the whole bread-making process right here.

While you’re there please say “hi” and follow my page. Instagram is my favorite “hang out,” & I’d love to see you there.

The hardest part of making sourdough bread with fresh flour?

This last step is possibly the hardest part of the entire process… At least it is for Bill.

You have to wait before cutting into the loaf.

If you slice into your loaf right away, you will have doughy, squishy bread. Wait 20 minutes, and you’ll have a firm, airy piece of bread that you are bound to love.

How to have the best crust on your sourdough bread?

For added amazingness, brush an egg (with a little water added) to lightly coat the top of your dough after its 2nd rise but before baking. Then sprinkle everything seasoning all over top. YUM.

Go here for my recipe for making DIY Everything Seasoning.

Want to know even more about fresh flour?

Go here to dive into my free e-course all about fresh flour. You’ll be glad you did.

I talk about my grain mill, as well as the 11 other kitchen tools I seriously would hate to be without, in this episode of my podcast… Click below or listen on Apple Podcasts here.

Your Questions About Making Sourdough Bread with Fresh Milled Flour

Which flour is best for feeding a sourdough starter?

It’s all a matter of preference. While I typically feed my starter fresh milled rye flour (made with these wheat berries), I will also use whatever flour I have some extra of. Go here for a full list of all my favorite grains and how I love to use each fresh milled flour.

In my opinion, rye flour has the best results, making my starter nice and bubbly. It makes sense, because rye is naturally rich in yeast. More here on feeding a fresh flour sourdough starter. And more here on making a fresh milled flour sourdough starter.

If you want to feed your starter store-bought refined flour, I won’t judge you. In the end, sourdough starters eat the flour you feed it through a process of fermentation, so you’re not directly eating the flour that your starter eats anyway.

Can I use plain flour instead of fresh flour for my sourdough starter?

If by “plain” you mean store-bought, white refined flour, yes, you definitely can. Honestly, you can use any flour you would like to feed your starter, even if you plan to only use fresh flour for making your bread. Conversely, you can use fresh flour to feed your starter and then use refined flour to make your bread. Any way you “do” it, it’ll work, and it will be 100% better than buying store-bought sandwich bread.

Can you bake with milled flour?

I bake with fresh-milled flour all the time. I share all my favorites here. 

Here’s my recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies made with Fresh Flour

How do you use fresh milled flour?

That’s a great question with a longer answer than I can give you here, but dive into my totally free recipes & resources.

Products I Love Using for Making Sourdough Bread with Fresh-Milled Flour

Pssst… Want in on my real food secret? I get all the best ingredients & healthy snacks by doing my monthly food shopping with Azure Standard. Their quality and prices can’t be beat, I haven’t found quality wheat berries anywhere else anywhere near their prices, and we love to get staples there that I can’t even find at the local grocery store. See if they deliver near you. 

More on Fresh Milled Flour:

• Why You Should Grind Your Own Flour (cost, health benefits, and more)
• Homemade Tortillas With Fresh Milled Flour (recipe)
• Why I Started Milling My Own Flour (and 5 tips for you)
• Chocolate Chip Cookies Made With Fresh Flour (recipe)

–> AND DON’T FORGET! … Go here to dive into my free recipes & resources for fresh milled flour. You’ll be glad you did.

“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.”
Isaiah 55:2

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The post Sourdough Bread Made with Fresh Milled Flour first appeared on Souly Rested.