Tartine Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Overnight Leaven Build

Refreshment Feeding (Young Leaven)

Autolyse

Final Mix

For Baking

Pantry swaps

Method

1. Night before, about 10 pm: mix 40 g active starter, 200 ml room-temperature water, 100 g all-purpose flour, and 100 g whole wheat flour. Stir just to combine, put a lid on, and let it ripen on the counter overnight.

2. Next morning the leaven should smell sweet with a slight hint of acid and be active and bubbly. Drop a little into water – if it floats, it is ripe and ready (the float test).

3. Build the refreshment feeding: mix 100 ml water at 80 F (27 C), 50 g all-purpose flour, 50 g whole wheat flour, and 200 g of the overnight leaven. Stir to combine, cover, and set aside. This is a young leaven: sweet, low in acidity, and very active.

4. Mix the autolyse: in a medium stainless bowl combine 800 ml water at about 86 F (30 C), 300 g all-purpose flour, and 700 g whole wheat flour. Stir with a sturdy spoon to hydrate the flour and break up clumps, then finish by hand for 15-20 seconds with a wet hand. Cover with plastic wrap and set a two-hour timer. The cooler water curbs the faster fermentation of whole grain flour.

5. After two hours, the refreshment should sit right at ripeness – sweet, yeasty, very little acidity. Add 200 g of the refreshment and 20 g salt to the autolyse. With generously wet hands, use a squeeze-and-rotate motion for about two minutes, until the starter and salt are well distributed. You are not building strength or kneading – just combining. Wrap and set a 30-minute timer.

6. Bulk fermentation: at 30 minutes, do the first set of folds. Stretch the dough as far as it will reasonably go and fold it back over itself, about 8-9 folds total, then tuck the seams under to create tension. Cover and rest 30 minutes, then repeat the same 8-9 folds (16-20 folds total). Leave the dough untouched for 2-3.5 more hours – about 2.5 hours at 76 F (24 C) – until it is buoyant, alive, and about 20-30% larger.

7. Pre-shape: lightly flour the dough and the work surface, turn it out, and cut it into two roughly equal pieces. With a two-handed move – push with the left hand, tuck with the right, from about 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock – tighten each piece into a round. Cover with a tea towel and let them relax for 15-20 minutes.

8. Shape: for a batard, pull the bottom 3-4 inches up and fold it over the top, stretch the sides out 3-4 inches like wings and fold them over with a sticky seal, tuck the top down halfway, criss-cross the corners down to the bottom, then roll into a tight cylinder – thumbs pushing forward, fingertips tucking under. For a boule, use a round proofing basket instead. Flour the basket, place the shaped loaf in it, and cover.

9. Proof: let the loaves rise on the counter 60-120 minutes, depending on how hot the house is – about 90 minutes is the sweet spot. The loaves should grow 30-40% and the indent from a poke should pop back just a bit. Then refrigerate overnight.

10. Bake the next morning: preheat the oven to 500 F (260 C) with a Dutch oven inside (or a Challenger bread pan for the batard). Cut a round of parchment, dust it with semolina, and flip the loaf onto it. Score all four sides with a lame or a serrated knife. Lower the loaf into the pot, put the lid on, and bake covered at 485 F (252 C) for 20 minutes. Remove the lid, drop the oven to 465 F (241 C), and bake uncovered about 25 more minutes – 45 minutes total. Cool on a wire rack.

Notes

Servings: 24 (12 slices per loaf). Per serving (estimated): 160 kcal, 35 g carbs, 6 g protein, 1 g fat, 4 g fiber.

All quantities come directly from the narrated video and are exact. Hydration runs about 80% overall – whole wheat flour absorbs much more than sifted white flour, and the extra water is what gives the open crumb. The only deviation from the Tartine book formula is the autolyse, pushed from 40 minutes to 2 hours so the whole grain fully hydrates.

Three whole-grain rules drive this bake: more water for extensibility, a long autolyse so the flour fully hydrates, and cooler water (about 86 F / 30 C) to curb the faster fermentation that whole grain flours cause – the dough has far more food for the yeast and bacteria than a white dough.

The refreshment feeding is the trick that makes a long autolyse possible: instead of letting the overnight leaven over-ripen during the 2-hour autolyse, you feed it fresh water and flour and let it ripen again while the dough hydrates. The result is a young leaven – sweet, barely acidic, very active – mixed in at the final mix.

Nutrition is estimated from standard USDA values for the flours; the creator gives no macros. Fiber comes mostly from the whole wheat flour.

This is not a beginner sourdough recipe – you need an active, predictable starter, and it helps to have baked sourdough before.