Making Homemade Whole Wheat Bread from Scratch

For today’s Happy Homesteading post we are heading to the kitchen!! I found the perfect Homemade Whole Wheat Bread Recipe and made it from scratch just like the pioneers would have made.

History

I can still remember my Grandmother talking about homemade bread. She remembered her mother making homemade bread once per week growing up. She said it was the best tasting bread ever. This picture above is my Great-Grandmother Lillie Olson’s brother Herbert Olson. He has a sad story – he died at the age of 26 years old from a well accident leaving behind a young wife and 2 small boys. I think this is one of my most favorite pictures from my family history. I love the way he is holding the wheat after a long hard day. They all worked so hard on the farm gathering up that wheat.

Making my Homemade Whole Wheat Bread Recipe from Scratch

I have made rolls, pie crusts, cookies, cakes but I had never made a loaf of whole wheat bread. So I asked around and got an amazing recipe from April Homer. I tried to make one recipe by kneading it by hand (in honor of how they used to do it back in the old days), and one using my kitchenaid.  Lets just say I will be using my kitchenaid from now on.

The trick to making this Whole Wheat Bread Recipe is to use vital wheat gluten and to grind your own hard white wheat. There is a huge difference in wheat types – the hard white wheat makes awesome bread.

Grinding The Wheat

First thing I want you to do is watch the 1 minute video of my little son grinding some wheat we used to make whole wheat pancakes. It’s entertaining.

I busted out my Back To Basics hand wheat grinder and got to work grinding out a bunch of wheat flour. I had to grind out 24 cups of wheat to make my two large batch recipes. And I did it all by hand.

After the first few minutes of grinding I discovered how NOT FUN grinding wheat is. It is a workout on the arms for sure.

I called out “Who will help me grind the wheat??” Said all the kids, “Not I”. Said my husband, “Not I”. How irritating.  At this point I starting feeling quite sorry for the Little Red Hen.

After I finished it was time to begin making the bread. I decided to use my Kitchen Aid mixer for this first batch.

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 Cups hot water
• 1 Tablespoons salt
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 Cup oil
• 3 Tablespoons yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2-3/4 cup vital wheat gluten
• 11-12 cups freshly ground hard white wheat flour

DIRECTIONS

Mix together 4 Cups hot water, 1 Tablespoons salt, 1 Cup honey and 1/2 Cup oil in your Bosch or Kitchen Aid mixer using dough hook. Mix until dissolved.  Then add in 6 cups of whole wheat flour (hard white wheat), one cup at a time.

Mix about 10 minutes until stringy in Bosch with dough hook at speed 2 or KitchenAid speed 2nd one in. It will look like this:

Then add 3 Tablespoons yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water, 1/2-3/4 cup vital wheat gluten, and 5-6 cups more wheat flour.

Add flour until dough starts to come off sides of mixer, and you can pinch dough where it doesn’t stay on your fingers. The recipe says she never measure flour…just to go by consistency.

Then mix for 5 minutes using the dough hook on lowest speed.

Place in oiled bowl, cover with towel and rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes. Here is my beautiful dough!!

I stuck mine in the oven with the light on to help it rise nicely.  Next is the fun part! Punch it down and rise in the bowl again another 30-45.

Punch down the dough again.

My grandmother handed me down these beautiful old bread pans – aren’t they cool? Look how the metal is wrapped on the pan. I decided I wanted to try to use these old pans as well as my own pans to see if there was a difference.

Here are all three pans sitting next to each other – 2 old ones and my own favorite 12″ loaf pan I purchased on Amazon.

Next I cut the dough and shaped them into loaves (will make 4-5 regular sized loaves or (3) 12 -inch pans).

Let rise in pan until 1 inch above pan, about 30 minutes. I think I could have let the ones on the ends raise a few minutes longer. 

Then bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn down to 325 degrees for 25 minutes more.

Cool for 10 minutes, then place in bags and freeze while still warm. Look how lovely they all turned out!!! And it tasted like heaven….heaven with butter.

It took around 3 hours to make bread – most of it waiting to rise. I was so happy it turned out looking and tasting like actual bread!!

So then I got the big idea to try to make another batch using a different recipe all without electric tools. We mixed by hand, and then I kneaded for 15 minutes with my own fabulous muscles. My young helper joined in with the kneading too.

I don’t know what happened this time. Maybe I didn’t knead it good enough, not really sure. But it never would rise up above the pan, so I just baked it anyways. It looked and felt like a brick. Not good.  You can see the difference between my first batch and second batch.

So the next day we decided to go and feed some birds with my mishap. It was fun. And all that grinding and kneading bread by hand literally went to the birds. I wonder if that’s where that saying came from..

I am going to stick with my first recipe and try to make it a lot more often. We have already eaten through 2 loaves of it, it is super delish!

WORTH THE COST? YES – each loaf cost $1.36 to make -most 100% whole wheat bread costs $3-$4.00 at store. If you regularly shop at Bakery Outlets though you might find a loaf for less there possibly.

WORTH THE TIME? YES if you have 3 hours at home you can make it. It’s mostly waiting for the rising process. NO if you are super busy, gone all day long working. 

Price Breakdown:

Whole White Wheat Berries about 6 lbs per recipe ($1.90)

• Amazon: 5 lb. bag $11.95
• Amazon: 50 lb bag $52.08
• I get my wheat from LDS Canneries 25 lb. bag for $11.45 *best deal
• Winco: around $0.57 lb. for hard red, not sure if they have hard white or not

Honey 10 oz ($1.60)

• Walmart $7.38 per 32 oz. bottle 
• Costco $12.79 for 5 lbs ($1.60) *best deal

SAF Yeast (0.15)

• Amazon: 4 lbs for $14.84 
• Winco 1 lb. for $3.00 *best deal

Vital Wheat Gluten ($0.33)

• Winco bulk section: $2.68 lb. 

Oil + Salt (about $0.10) anywhere
Final for 3 loaves: $4.08 for the recipe = $1.36 per loaf

Final thoughts on making my own Homemade bread.  I like that I know all the ingredients that went into making my own homemade wheat bread.  It is a great deal considering most whole wheat breads run close to around $3-$4 per loaf. The only better deal I think you can get is if you were to go to a Bread Outlet store – you might be able to get some for $1.00 per loaf. Probably won’t taste as good as your own though. I am going to try to make my own bread from scratch for the next month – once per week and see how it goes. 

 Do you make your own homemade Whole Wheat Bread? How often do you make it?  Also feel free to share your recipes in a comment below and I would love to try yours out too. 

Homemade Bread

Course: bread

Cuisine: American

Keyword: bread, homemade bread

Prep Time: 2 hours 25 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours

Servings: 6

Calories: 1125kcal

Author: Karrie

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread is the best tasting bread ever!

Print Recipe

US Customary - Metric

Ingredients

• 4 cups hot water
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 cup honey
• 1/2 cup oil
• 3 tbsp yeast dissolved in 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/2-3/4 cup vital wheat gluten
• 11-12 cups freshly ground hard white wheat flour

Instructions

• Mix together 4 Cups hot water, 1 Tablespoons salt, 1 Cup honey and 1/2 Cup oil in mixer using dough hook. Mix until dissolved.
• Then add in 6 cups of whole wheat flour (hard white wheat), one cup at a time.
• Mix about 10 minutes until stringy.
• Then add 3 Tablespoons yeast dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water, 1/2-3/4 cup vital wheat gluten, and 5-6 cups more wheat flour.
• Add flour until dough starts to come off sides of mixer, and you can pinch dough where it doesn’t stay on your fingers.
• Then mix for 5 minutes using the dough hook on lowest speed.
• Place in oiled bowl, cover with towel and rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes.
• Punch it down and allow to rise in the bowl again another 30-45 minutes.
• Punch down the dough again.
• Cut the dough and shaped them into loaves (will make 4-5 regular sized loaves or (3) 12 -inch pans).
• Let dough rise in pan until 1 inch above pan, about 30 minutes.
• Then bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn down to 325 degrees for 25 minutes more.
• Cool for 10 minutes, then place in bags and freeze while still warm.

Nutrition

Serving: 1Slice | Calories: 1125kcal | Carbohydrates: 204g | Protein: 39g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 1170mg | Potassium: 338mg | Fiber: 23g | Sugar: 46g | Vitamin C: 0.3% | Calcium: 16.6% | Iron: 33.5%

This is one recipe I like to make in advance and freeze. See some of my freezer meals I make too here.