How To Feed A Crowd With Home Baked Whole Wheat Sourdough?

Thinking of baking a large quantity of sourdough for an upcoming party, either to serve at the event or send home with guests in a gift bag? (Check out my DIY Custom Bakery Bags which truly are the cherry on top!) You truly can do it, it just takes planning ahead, the right equipment, and freezer space! Unlike the white challahs I make and freeze, that are really only great for a month or so after freezing, the whole wheat sourdough is great for even several months! I just brought a large whole wheat sourdough loaf to a shabbat celebration, and everyone was raving about it. Afterwards I told my husband I’d baked that loaf at least two months ago and he was quite surprised. So yes, fresh is of course always better, but the sourdough I’ve baked and frozen and then reheated a bit to defrost was also delicious. So, with that in mind, lets break down the process of making a large quantity of sourdough, in my case using 20 plus kilos of flour total, not including the starter. (I baked enough for 25 regular sized mishloach manot for neighbors, and 3 large mishloach manot, with many small loaves, for our head Rav and two others.) Ready?

Prerequisites For Baking A Large Quantity of Sourdough Bread:

1. This venture is only for someone who is truly experienced with sourdough bread baking. (I spent months practicing, truly.)
2. This is only for someone who is truly confident in the results of their sourdough bread baking. I had many many flops until I at last produced whole wheat sourdough that was delicious and whose results were consistent. When that first successful batch came out of the oven, I did a little dance, and was so happy as there was enough time before Purim to pull of my large batch baking plans!
3. Make sure you have all the recommended pots and proofing baskets, or given my info figure out what would work for you.
4. Make sure you know exactly how many and what size pots will fit in your oven. If you want to use the baking tray consider turning it upside down to allow for a bit more surface area for the pots. (A neighbor for whom I calculated what pots to use in her 70cm oven told me they didn’t fit, which I could not believe, and it was because she had been using the tray in the usual manner. Using the rack also provides more surface area, which is what I use, though the tray would work as well for my current setup.

How To Plan Bulk Sourdough Baking From Scratch:

When baking sourdough in a large quantity, I think it is best to bake small loaves, as they are great for gifts, great for putting on a bread board with other rolls and there is more crust, which most folks love. Whole wheat sourdough bread is very very filling, so one of these smallish loaves can even be enough for four people. I took on this venture using supplies that I already had, but if I were to purchase all the necessary supplies, to make the round loaves in the photo, in an efficient way, I would buy the following:

• Four (or in my case six as I have a 90cm oven) 1.5 quart cast iron pots (see photo below)

• 8 round proofing baskets, 18cm diameter and 9cm deep (outside dimensions of basket) the depth is VERY important as it allows for a taller and more desirable loaf given the relatively small pot size.

That said, if you love the look of a variety of shapes and sizes of loafs and rolls, so a combination of shapes and sizes will work, but will be more effort and possibly less efficient as far as how many baking sessions you will need per batch of dough.

What Basic Sourdough Tools Were Used?

In the photo above you can see all the basic tools that I used, though the digital kitchen scale did not make it into the photo, nor did the electric mixer, the glass jar holding the starter, nor the large plastic bowl with a cover that holds the dough during bulk fermentation. As far as small tools I do recommend the following as pictured:

• a danish dough whisk, a great tool and avoids all the mess of trying to remove sticky starter from the utensil you used to stir the mixture

• a dough scraper, even a simple plastic one like this is good

• a flour sprinkling ball, very useful

• a lame tool that curves the razor blade for scoring the dough, I love using it

What Size and Shape Proofing Baskets Were Used?

For each batch of whole wheat sourdough, with 2.25 kilos of flour, (not including the levain/starter quantity) I used the following baskets based on what I have and what size loaves I wanted to produce. If I could have planned and had access to the necessary pots (meaning I lived in the USA, I would have done all the loaves in the same size basket, as explained above, ) but here I was basically making do with what I have, and not complaining since I in any case have a nice selection of baskets.

The baskets I used for each batch are:

• 4 round 18cm baskets (makes a nice loaf, used with roughly 300-400g of dough)

• 2 round 16 cm baskets (makes a large roll, used with roughly 200g of dough)

• 1 oval 25 cm long basket (makes a regular sized loaf, used with roughly 500g of dough)

• 2 oval 17cm long baskets (makes a large roll, used with roughly 200g of dough)

What Size Cast Iron Pots Were Used?

Fortunately my daughter was in the USA and brought back a second small pot for me, which was totally necessary for this baking adventure. I wish I had four or five such pots to enable baking more small loaves at a time. One can (and should!) work on producing sourdough loaves that do not rely on the pot to keep them from spreading, so a small loaf can be made in a larger pot…….working on that one! Also round shapes tend to spread more than oval shapes, after removing from proofing basket and scoring, so keep that in mind. I have read that round loaves are more simple for beginners, but not sure why honestly.)

I used:

• 2 Amazon Basics cast iron pots, 1.5 quart, inside dimension is 18cm, used for all the loaves proofed in round baskets

• 1 Amazon Basics cast iron pot, 4 quart, inside dimension is 28cm, used for all the loaves proofed in oval baskets, with the two smallest loaves going in the pot together.

How Much Time Is Needed?

The amount of time you’ll need depends on the quantity you’ll need. With the supplies as described, you can bake 7 loaves per 2.25 kilos of flour batch. I feed my starter the night before, and prepare my dough the next day. Shaped loaves are then refrigerated for a minimum of 12 hours before baking. A cold proof in the fridge that is more than 15 or so hours can result is a more sour loaf, so not recommended, but see what works for you. Given this process, the earliest I could bake after shabbos would be Monday, and one could make a batch a day, for a total of five batches in one week, with the last bake on Friday morning. One could also theoretically make larger batches, and mix by hand, but you’ll need more baskets and honestly handling more dough is more difficult and therefore a bit on the stressful side unless you are really really experienced. I have made batches using 3 kilos of flour, but have now happily settled at batches of 2.25 kilos of flour, which allows me to use the mixer initially which I’m doing to hopefully strengthen my dough and avoid some of the huge mess since i do not use plastic gloves, as many folks do, but for me, plastic, and more garbage? Yuk.

I baked as follows, (might be missing an additional batch, don’t hold me to it) working backwards, and given that Purim day was a Wednesday:

• Fresh Batch – batch #8: baked on Purim morning, dough prepared the day before, those results were given to the Rav and used by us at the Purim seuda.

• Fresh batch – batch #7 baked on morning of Fast of Esther (to give that night to two recipients) dough prepared the day before.

Week prior to Purim: Batches #4, #5, #6 baked 3 batches and froze.

Two weeks prior to Purim: Batches #1 #2, #3 baked 3 batches and froze.

In Conclusion:

Baking sourdough whole wheat bread is truly rewarding for those who don’t mind the extra time, effort and mess! For me, feeding my family bread that is truly healthy and delicious (though could/should transition to organic flour) is well worth the effort, and hearing feedback from so many friends/neighbors about how much they enjoyed the bread made the Purim effort well worth it, for me. When I was in the middle of the seamingly endless baking madness I had doubted my sanity, but now I do plan on doing it again next year, or for at the least those that reported back how much they loved it.

I don’t advise this for anyone with a stressful job outside the home, nor someone who will get crazy with flour and the big clean-up involved. One can bake sourdough bread even with a 9 to 5 job, but it may require getting up earlier, and might only work when the weather is cool and the bread rises more slowly. Many sourdough bread baking enthusiasts have a temperature controlled box of some kind, which is good to know, though not sure what kind of quantity these boxes can hold.

Okay, that is all for now, around here if you’ve made it to the end of this article, this topic must truly interest you, and happy to be of help! Right now we are preparing for Passover, so while there are loaves of sourdough in the freezer to enjoy over the next two weeks, no more baking will be happening until after Passover. I will continue to feed my starter weekly before Passover, and then after Passover take it out again, give it a boost a few times and then start the sourdough baking adventure once again.