100% spelt

Tom/toad.de.b recently posted  *here* about a new organic sprouted whole wheat flour he'd run across in his local market that is produced by One Degree Organic Foods. I was delighted to learn that One Degree OF is located here in British Columbia Canada, not far from Vancouver in the city of Abbotsford. One of our local supermarkets carries two of their products, the Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat flour that Tom featured in his post, and an Organic Sprouted Spelt Flour milled from grain grown in Lumby, located in the Southern Interior of B.C.

A rare treat indeed to have a locally grown grain to use and since I haven't baked with spelt in over a year the decision was an easy one to make. When I think of spelt breads, particularly100% ones as these loaves are, the nutty flavour of the grain is what first comes to mind, and not far behind that is the fragile nature of the dough due to it's lower protein content. What spelt flour lacks in gluten strength, aptly described by http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/nicodvb as wheat's “poorer cousin” is more than made up for by its earthy, well rounded flavour that compliments a wide variety of toppings and accompaniments. Toasted almonds and dates were included in this mix along with honey and a touch of apple-cider vinegar. Increasing the dough's acidity just a little goes a long way toward strengthening a dough made from spelt or durum flour, both of which typically have low or poor quality gluten content. Although the One Degree flour shows a protein content of 13.3%, how much of that is gluten based isn't clear. If this mix had included a sour leaven of some kind I wouldn't have bothered with the vinegar but since I was using a spelt pate fermentee as the preferment I decided to hedge my bets by including it. Between the preferment, vinegar, or the flour itself I'm not certain which contributed more to the overall strength of the dough but it resulted in a mix that showed very little of the tearing so common with high ratio spelt doughs.

The loaves took on a rich brown colour during baking and I detected a whiff of the cider vinegar as it baked off but no evidence of it upon tasting. The primary flavours are those of the grain and the toasted almonds accented by a touch of sweet from the dates and honey. The crumb is fairly soft and moist with a very nice texture compared to other 100% Spelt breads I've made. Overall I'm quite happy with the final results of this bake and the performance of One Degree Organics Sprouted Spelt Flour.

Best Wishes,

Franko

Procedure: 

Other than the six hours it took for the pate fermentee to dome, indicating it was ready for final mixing, this is a relatively quick bread to make.

DDT 76-78F/24-25C 

• No autolyse needed, just dump all the ingredients except the fruit and nuts in the bowl and mix by hand until the dough comes together. Knead for a few minutes (less than 5) until the dough begins to build strength and becomes smooth. If the dough begins to tear stop kneading and let it rest for 5 minutes before resuming.

• Cover the dough and rest it for 15 minutes, then press it out to a disk and cover with the fruit and nuts. Fold the dough over and slowly work the fruit/nut mixture into the dough until evenly dispersed. The dough has 2-3 stretch and folds during bulk fermentation so any clumps of fruit or nuts tend to even out by the time it's completed BF.

• This dough had 70 minutes BF time at 76F/24C with a stretch & fold at 20 and 40 minutes. After bulk was complete the dough was rounded lightly and rested for 15 minutes before scaling at 740 grams per loaf, then shaped and put for a final rise of 60-70 minutes. 

• Preheat the oven and stone to 465F/240C. Watch the final proof very carefully during the last 20 minutes as an all spelt dough can over-proof quite quickly. When the dough has a little less than doubled remove it from the proofing environment and let it air dry for a few minutes before slashing.

• With preferred steam system in place and oven vent blocked, slash the loaves as desired and place in the oven. Lower the temperature to 440F/226C and bake for 10 minutes, remove steam system, vent the oven and bake with convection on for a further10 minutes. Lower the temperature to 430F/221C and bake for a final 15 minutes, rotating the loaves if necessary for even colouring.

• Check the loaves to ensure full baking either by tapping the bottom for a hollow sound or use a thermometer looking for an internal temperature of 206-210F/96-98C. Cover and cool on a rack for 6 hours before slicing.

Link to working spreadsheet *here*

Here I am again with another highly hydrated white spelt loaf. This time around it's sourdough raised...

I didn't set out to make this sour but boy, I mean wow is this sour!

If ever proof was needed that warm and wet makes for a more sour bread, then this is it!

My firm sourdough contributes a lot of dough strength via its acidity and lack of protease activity. This coupled with much fermentation mean't that even at 100% hydration the final dough became too strong and was impossible to shape without tearing. As a result the loaf looks rather ugly..

Here's what I did...

Ingredients:

• 50g Italian sourdough (taken after overnight, room temp rise)(50% hydration)
• 200g White Spelt flour (Doves Farm)
• 200g water
• 4g Salt

Dough was mixed initially at 50% with 100ml of water, followed by an autolyse before adding the rest of water in 25ml increments to achieve 100% hydration. Bulk fermentation for ~5hrs at 30C with a few s&f's in between. Room temp proof for ~3hrs.

Crumb
 

This bread has a very nice acetic acid scented crust. But under that rough and bumpy crust lies a shockingly sour crumb... I can still taste it as I write this.. I really can't emphasise enough just how sour this bread is... The most sour ever...

Michael

This requires a lot of kneading to create a dough with strength. It starts out as a liquid soup. 40 mins kneading by hand. A messy job!

Recipe:

• 200g white spelt
• 200g water
• 2g yeast
• 4g salt

Mixed dough:
 

Baked:
 
The final dough was easily 4 times the size mixed dough and baked with a little spring. Slightly over-proofed consequently blew some bubbles at the side.

Crumb:

A fine even crumb due to the required intensive mix and the poor gluten properties of spelt.

I challenge anyone to mimic this recipe. I'm sure you will struggle!

Michael

Over and out.

When some friends invited us to the beach at West Wittering (near Chichester, England) last week, they asked me to bring some spelt bread, as they try to stay away from wheat.

Based on my previous experiments with spelt I came up with two very delicious.

Not even the fine sand on Wittering Beach (which gets just about everywhere) could do harm to the culinary experience (on the way home it was mentioned that we passed the food test ;-) )

== UPDATE ==

Several commentators inspired my to go fluffy with spelt - Today I made a small 100% Spelt Pugliese (light spelt flour),

the formula and photos are at the end of this post.

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Here are some pictures:

The 100% Wholegrain Spelt (with a hint of honey and malt):

The same loaf, cut:

This loaf has a deep flavor. The rye malt and honey palance the spelt flavor very nicely without dominating it.

The other loaf was a 40% rye / 60% light spelt mixed bread:

Here the crumb:

With a lot of rye present, this dough is quite a sticky mess. Try to handle it with a very light hand, taking care not to deflate it when shaping.

The formulas are on Google Docs:

Spelt and Rye Sourdough

== Update 30/05  6.19 GMT ==

Corrected the worksheet to read "Spelt Flour" instead of "Rye Flour"

This one is really 100% Wholegrain Spelt

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100% Wholegrain Spelt Sourdough

You can download / export the spreadsheets as Excel files (or other formats). The formulas are preserved, and you can adjust yield and other fields (marked yellow) to your liking.

Happy Baking,

Juergen

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Here comes the Spelt Pugliese:

Here the crumb - nicely open and light:

And here the formula:

I used light stoneground spelt flour from Sharpham Park

Bulk fermentation: 2 hours at 26dC, final rest 40 minutes

The formula is again on Google Docs:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkcYHhPxccKtdC1JOFpnWXJhYTZhbll4NWZKbFV3LVE

Happy Baking,

Juergen