Categories: Food & Wine

How to Knead Whole Wheat Dough

This article deals with how to knead whole wheat dough. It’s not the same as white bread dough. It’s not hard to learn how to knead your bread to achieve a great loaf in the end. This is a step by step account of how I do it. I learned how to make whole wheat bread by reading and following Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. It’s the best mentor a bread maker can have.

Ready your space before you put the ingredients together. You will need a nice sized space to knead your dough on. I have an island and a kitchen table. I have found the kitchen table is best because it is shorter and I can use my body strength instead of just my arms. This helps me to do a better job of kneading. Set a wee bit of water or flour in a small bowl on the table. How wet or dry your bread is will determine which you use. The humidity of your house affects your dough. Also get a large spatula or dough cutter out. I prefer a dough cutter, its the best money you’ll spend on bread making tools.

Put the dough ball on a slightly floured table. It will be sticky! That’s okay, gently push or knead the dough with your left hand and scoop it up and over with the dough cutter in the right hand. You will be tempted to throw either water or flour on the dough to make it easier to work. Don’t. Instead, dampen your hands with the water or get a little flour on your hands. Now keep kneading. You should knead a single loaf dough ball 300 times or approx. 10 min. You will knead a double loaf for 600 times or approx. 20 min.

You may get tired while kneading. Don’t hurt yourself. Take a bit of a break and rest your hands and arms if you need to. But pick up where you left off and don’t skimp on the kneading count. As you near the half way point, you will notice that your dough is not sticky like it was. It is now getting a springy or elastic feel to it. That’s great! Keep going. By now you have given up the dough cutter and are vigorously kneading with both hands. If you try to stretch the bread dough at this point, it will tear. By the time you knead if for the full count, the dough will stretch without tearing.

You could stop at half the time and your bread would be edible. But the proofing (rise) and the texture would not be nearly as good. When you are close to being done kneading, look at it closely. If you are using a finely ground whole wheat flour, the color will be whitish. If you are using a coarsely ground whole wheat flour, you will see a whitish color with brown flecks. In my pictures you will see mine has turned whitish with the flecks showing. I used a medium ground whole wheat flour.

Tips:
When you are kneading make every stroke count. Make them substantial pushes against the dough.
You can make bread without this much kneading. But it certainly won’t be as nice a loaf.
Do not panic! I know the urge to start throwing water or flour on a very sticky dough. Use your cutter and keep at it.
I don’t think you can “over” knead dough by hand. But you can overdo it with a machine.

own experience
Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book