Successful Sourdough with 100% Fresh Milled Flour (Unsifted)!

I just got my Mockmill 200 3 days ago and decided to go all in and do a 100% fresh milled flour (unsifted) sourdough loaf, despite warnings by professional and experienced bakers that working with fresh milled flour is a whole different animal and may humble you. I’m blown away that I was able to do this on the first try!

I’ve included my full instruction, but TLDR if you’re already creating great sourdough loaves with commercial flour, the most important thing is hydration in two ways:

1) Overnight autolyse – This gives enough time for the bran / germ to get hydrated and soften. This greatly reduces the impact of the bran acting like “razor blades” and slicing the gluten network, which explains why we get much less rise typical with FMF bread

2) Increase hydration – Normally with commercial flour (I normally use Central Milling bread flour) I do 80%. But it didn’t feel nor move the way it normally does with the FMF, so thats why I added more water to bring it to 90%

Day 1 – 9PM
1. Feed starter at 1:5:5 with whole wheat flour (central milling — this is not FMF) and keep in a temperature stable place like an oven that isn’t turned on
2. Begin Autolyse – Add freshly milled (unsifted) 500g Central Milling Organic Hard Spring Red wheat berries and mix on low speed in stand mixer with 400g filtered water (70F) until no dry patches of flour
3. Go to sleep

Day 2 – 5AM
4. Once the starter looks like its peaked (shows a dome, about 3x growth), add to dough and mix on low speed in stand mixer on low speed for 2 minutes
5. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes
6. Add 12g salt (Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt) and 50g filtered water, then mix on low speed in stand mixer until water has absorbed into dough
7. Coil Folds – Rather than give a cadence and number of folds, I recommend coil folding until the boule is nice and taught (the most you can get it before tearing occurs). As you let bulk fermentation happens check periodically (I did hourly) to see if the boule has lost its shape. Keep doing coil folds and checking periodically until you notice the boule is holding is mostly holding its shape (ok if it loses some tension). This is a sign you’ve built good dough strength
8. Bulk Fermentation – 6 hours at 72F
9. Pre Shape, then bench rest for 20 minutes.
10. Shape, stitch, and place in banneton within a plastic bag
11. Continue fermentation for ~4 hours or until you pass the poke test
12. Place dough in fridge and cold ferment until the next day

Day 3 – 5AM
13. Place Dutch oven in oven and preheat at 485F for 40 minutes
14. Rub brown rice flour onto dough and score
15. Place dough into Dutch oven and add 20g of ice cubes (~2 ice cubes), then cover with lid
16. Bake for 20 minutes, remove lid, bake for additional 20 min
17. Wait 2 hours to cool before cutting into loaf