Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

I get bored easily so like to experiment with variations on recipes. I've been making bread from my rye sourdough starter a couple times a week, so I'm on a quest to find my favorite sourdough recipes. This one is great. It's made entirely with white whole wheat flour, but it is fluffy instead of dense like most homemade whole wheat breads. Most of the sourdough recipes I've seen either use multiple rise times or allow the dough to proof for 12+ hours, but this one only has a single, four-hour rise with no dough reshaping. That is mostly because I forgot about it while doing other things and when I came back to the kitchen, the dough was huge so I thought I might as well bake it. My forgetfulness paid off, because this is my favorite sourdough variation so far.

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

1 1/2 cups sourdough starter
1 cup soy milk, room temperature
1 Tbsp active dry yeast
3 Tbsp wheat bran
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp salt
3 Tbsp Earth Balance, softened
4 cups white whole wheat flour (plus more for kneading)

Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, then turn dough onto a floured surface and knead for several minutes, until dough is smooth and stretchy. Form dough into a loaf shape on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet, then cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm area to rise for at least four hours.

Preheat oven to 400F at the end of the rising time. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Variation: For a denser, even more flavorful bread, try replacing the white whole wheat flour with freshly ground red winter wheat flour (one of my local grocery stores has a wheat berry grinder), the Earth Balance with olive oil, and the sugar with molasses.