To Soak or Not To Soak

Moving climates, and working with different brands of ingredients call for a change in bread making as well. Also, I have been reading up on soaking whole grains before using them, and I am still a bit confused on whether or not this is truly health beneficial to our family who doesn't suffer from any sort of grain intolerance right now. But, I do find dough that has been left over night easier to work with the next day. For instance, the method: Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day - gives you such a nice chewy yet light crumb textured bread.

There is some proof to show that soaking your whole grains with the liquid from your recipe overnight may help reduce phytic acid in the grain making it easier to digest and easier for the body to absorb more minerals. There are countless websites that talk about this if you Google "Why Soak Whole Grains". There are also countless recipes for whole wheat bread you might try. I used my own recipe and adapted it for a pre-soak using the instructions found here.

This is my first attempt at doing a pre-soak with my whole wheat flour:

 This is after combined 1/3 Cup of oil, 1 & 3/4 Cups warm water, 2 TB of plain Yogurt, 6 Cups of Whole Wheat Flour together. The consistency was extremely dry, yet wet. I left this overnight to "soak".

I proofed my yeast in 1/4C warm water, 1/2 Cup brown Sugar, 1 TB Yeast, and added 1 TB of Salt all to the soaked flour and let in knead until it was elastic-y, and I could do the "window-pane" test. (About 10 minutes in the machine). I ended up adding approximately 1 more cup of flour.


Making sure I rose the dough in a warm environment, I was pretty pleased with the results. The second rise wasn't fantastic, but I achieved excellent "oven-spring" which is exactly what you want!

After cutting into the bread, I was pretty disappointed. I allowed it to cool, but it was still soggy inside, even after baking for 40 minutes.