Peter Reinhart's  Thin Wheat Crackers on p.291  in  Whole Grain Breads

My interpretation used Spelt Flour type 700 glatt (fine) with additional 30g flour to the recipe.

Twentyfour hour rest on the counter top before cutting into small shapes and making windowpanes.  Place on parchment and continue to thin out the crackers...  Keep a towel handy to wipe off oil.  If I do this again I will use two tablespoons less oil in the recipe.  I like mine without the salt wash, which does give the crackers a little more strength but the crunch is better without it.

1000 words:

I have already written about Bäcker Süpke's wholegrain spelt bread with whole grains in my 'other blog'.
But I think the TFL blog would be a much more appropriate place for this recipe.

I've made this bread several times by now, and it always turned out flawlessly. It's nothing I could claim any credit for, but , seeing how charming Meister Süpke is in his comments, I don't really think he'd mind the extra publicity. So I sat down and translated the original recipe, hoping to spread this around the blogosphere a little.

There are only two minor changes I made to the original recipe, apart from the translation, that is.

For one, I shied away from adding the soft, boiled grains to the dough at the very beginning and kneading them for half an hour. I feared they would completely disintegrate and so I decided to add them only for the last ten minutes. And it works very well, the grains remain whole and apparently it makes for something like a double hydration technique, with the dough being able to build up strength before I add the final bits of liquid with the grains.

Also, the original recipe calls for a bit of 'Brotgewürz', bread spices. Which is all very nice, but also entirely undefined as far as I know. So I guessed and used ground caraway and coriander seeds in equal proportions. Which turned out to be one of my luckier guesses lately. Both spices blend pitch perfectly with the taste of the spelt, warming and brightening the taste without being really distinguishable on their own.

This bread has become a constant fixture of our diet, and I can only stress that it is the least 'healthy' tasting whole-grain bread I've ever come across. It never stops to amaze me that it's really brown and not grey, that it's rather sticky than crumbly, open-crumbed and yet perfectly sliceable with a nice but demure crunch to the crust.

Roasted in the oven with just a few drops of honey until the corners start to turn dark, this bread makes a perfect treat on its own, or a great coaster underneath a grillt goat's cheese, or basically anything that needs a solid, earthy partner.

The only thing I am not really happy with is the name, unwieldy as it is. Even in German with its infatuation with endless strings of words it's a rare thing to need 47 letters to name a single bread. But for a bread with such a long list of strong points, I am more than willing to put up with a lot, even this behemoth of a name.

Bäcker Süpke's wholegrain spelt bread with whole grains
(translation and any mistakes are mine)
(makes two 850g loafs)

for the boiled grains
200g spelt grains
400ml water

for the sourdough
340g wholegrain spelt meal
10g ripe sourdough starter
340g warm water

for the soaker
200g wholegrain spelt flour
20g salt
120g water

for the final dough
190g wholegrain spelt flour
7g dry yeast (one sachet)
[EDIT: The original recipe uses 10g presumably fresh yeast, equaling half a sachet dry yeast.]
40g runny honey
1 heaped teaspoon ground caraway
1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander seeds (or more, to taste)

for decoration
rolled spelt, about 2 tablespoons

On the day before baking, bring the grains and the water to boil in a small pot. Cover and leave to simmer gently for about 10 minutes, then take off the flame, stir, and set aside, covered.

Mix all the ingredients for the sourdough until just incorporated. Cover and set aside.

Mix all the ingredients for the soaker until just incorporated. Cover and set aside. Leave all three bowls to ferment overnight in a cool room, but not the fridge, for a minimum of 16 hours.

On the day of baking, combine the sourdough, the soaker and the final ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and knead at lowest speed for twenty(sic) minutes.
I am not kidding. The original recipe says twenty minutes and the dough really needs every second of it. You'll see, in this case it makes all the difference between wet flour and a dough.

Leave to proof for an hour. Deflate the dough and add the boiled, cold grains.
The original recipe says to discard eventually remaining water, but I add it to keep the amount of added water identical each time. Never had much of it left with the grains, anyway.

Knead at low speed for another ten minutes.
That's half an hour kneading all together. Any wheat dough would be a neat rubber ball by now, but here, it just works perfectly.

Pour into a rectangular baking tin lined with non-stick paper. Even the dough and cover loosely with the rolled spelt. Leave to proof in a warm place for about an hour to one hour and a half.
The dough will increase about 20% in volume at most, and when ready will stop springing back if gently poked.

Preheat your oven to 220°C. Bake with steam for the first minutes and immediately reduce temperature to about 160°C. Bake for 100 minutes. Take out and leave to cool on a rack. Rest a day or at least until fully cooled before cutting.

Freezes perfectly well, and tastes especially well toasted.
We usually bake on stock and freeze the sliced  bread, thawing individual slices in the toaster. Talk about two sparrows and one stone.

Some more wise remarks of Bäcker Süpke:

• Always add all the salt to the soaker. Otherwise, the enzymes of the wholegrain flour will produce harmful byproducts leading to a grumbling stomach.
• Wholegrain doughs, especially wholegrain spelt doughs, have to be wet - rather add a little more water.
• Bake long and 'slow' to get all that moisture out of the bread.
• Always use very little yeast and long final proofs, else you wouldn't get a sliceable bread.
• Playing with the honey and the spices is a great way of tweaking this recipe!

I'm a long time lurker and first time poster.

Last week I finally got a decent sourdough starter going, based on the instructions in Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. I used it successfully to make Pierre Nury’s Rustic Light Rye and some Sourdough Waffles, both of which came out well with the clear instructions provided. I decided to try making some 100% whole grain bread, which I've never had much success with, and finally settled on jmonkey's recipe.

I used the stretch and fold technique for kneading, shaped it into a boule, and baked it in a 450ºF oven on a stone. Also, since I can only get soft whole wheat here, I added vital wheat gluten to the flour to compensate (around 2-3 tsp/cup).

It might be too caramelized for some tastes, but I liked the way it came out (thanks jmonkey!). I expected the crumb to be more open based on what the recipe said, but I think I may have underproofed the loaf a bit. Next time I will also put the stone lower in the over since the bottom took much too long to finish. As far as taste goes, it was delicious, one of the best whole grain breads I've had. What do you think?

Chris

For over 3 years I've been baking artisan style breads in my (really lousy) gas oven without a baking stone but was never quite satisfied with the result. I finally purchased a good baking stone. This is my first effort with the baking stone...

Sourdough Sesame Seed Batards with Spelt Flour

The height of each of these batards is about 4 inches (compared to the 3-1/4 inch height I got without a stone) for a similar type of dough and prebaking dough weight.

The recipe (one of my own devising) uses a white flour 100% hydration sourdough starter. About 20% of the total flour weight is spelt flour (home milled from organic spelt). In an attempt to add sesame flavor to the bread without compromising rising, I use 8% sesame seed meal, which is ground from whole sesame seeds using a small electric coffee mill. Additional sesame seeds are on the outside of the dough. Dough hydration is 68%

I am pleased with this first effort using my new baking stone, although I obviously need to become familiar with this newest addition to my bread baking equipment arsenal.

Onwards and upwards - SF

==========================

For those who are interested, this stone is a Dacor baking stone. It is 1/2 inch thick and measures 15" x 20". This was a good size for my oven, as my oven rack measures 17" x 25". I believe that smaller size baking stones from Dacor are marketed under the brand name Old Stone Oven; these smaller stones are widely available.

The stone was purchased from fantes.com for $50 USD plus shipping. The packaging was excellent and shipping was prompt.

I am including two images of this baking stone from the fantes.com site in this post to give an idea of what the baking stone looks like...

I'd love to find a store that sells a great selection of flour, preferably in larger quantities, like 5 pounds or maybe 25 pounds for a staple like bread flour.  Living in DC, I'm able to get just about anything I want, but many times they are in small packages and expensive.  For example, I can find a rather pricey 2# bag of spelt (I think it was about $5-6) or even Teff flour at a local egyptian grocer.  There aren't any farms in the area; the closest spelt seems to be north of harrisburg, which would be a long trip.  Shipping flour is quite expensive; for example a $30 bag of 25# of spelt is like $11 to ship and ends up being a better, but not exactly great price at ~$1.60/lb. and 25# of flour is a lot to keep around of kind of flour for an individual baker.

Any ideas on where I could get a good selection of specialty flour in semi-bulk packaging?  I love this sourdough spelt recipe but at $7/loaf its a bit steep to justify making all the time :)

I tried out this recipe:

http://www.breadtopia.com/spelt-bread-recipe/

And it was great!

I especially loved the honey, which was added to aid in fermentation, but left a nice residual sweetness behind as well.  I think I might have had a bit extra honey in there when I made it.

The ingredients were thus:

530 grams (about 5 cups well fluffed up) whole spelt flour
350 grams (~1+1/2 cups) water
10 grams (1+1/2 tsp) salt
3 Tbs honey or sugar or 2 Tbs agave
1/4 cup sourdough starter

The video goes into details which I've summarized below:

You basically combine the ingredients and let sit for 3 hourr at room temperature, doing a single stretch-and-fold at one hour intervals.  You then let it bulk ferment overnight, pinch the top to make a tight skin and seal, let sit in a proofing basket for an hour and a half and bake until 200F on the inside.

Has anyone else tried this recipe?  I think this is the best wheat bread I've tasted in my (short baking) life.

Eric's latest video masterpiece at Breadtopia is a whole spelt sourdough.  I was anxious to try it.  So anxious that I didn't notice that I had white spelt flour, not whole spelt.  No matter, the flexibleness that is bread took over, and it came out fine.

Hi, I'm a new poster, though have been reading for a few weeks since another forum posted a link. It's certainly a fantastic resource.

I tried a spelt loaf for the first time yesterday, from R. Bertinet's Crust book. The dough was very stiff (only 65% hydration). It turned out ok, but not brilliant, so I doubt I'll be in a rush to do it again.

I'm planning on trying bagels for the first time next, "Crust" has a recipe, but I'm going to have a look at some here before I get stuck in.

This is the most delicious Bread that I have ever made:

The 1/3 cups of water added noticeably more moisture to the bread than the recommended 1 1/4 cups for 4 cups of flour.  Breads with the recommended amount were a tiny bit too dry.

Mixed Grain Juniper Berry Bread:

1 1/3 cups Water

2 cups Spelt Flour

1 cup All Purpose Flour

1 Cup Buckwheat Flour

3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

2 Teaspoons Sea Salt

4 Tablespoons Juniper Berries

1 1/2 Packages of Red Star Active Dry Yeast

Finding a satsifying recipe for a high-extraction miche has been an ongoing quest over the last few months. I've tried numerous recipes including Peter Reinhart's BBA recipe and Hamelman's Pointe à Callière  with varying success. This, my most recent attempt is one of the best so far. The hydration is at 73% and the dough contains roughly 26% whole spelt flour. Sourwise, it's mild, much like the Poilâne miche from which I've drawn a lot of inspiration. For those who like it uber-sour, you can always extend the bulk ferment (refrigerated overnight perhaps?) and reduce the amount of first build in the final mix. For me though, this has the balance that I like - sweet, sour, savoury and nutty which should get even better overnight. 

First Build

67g Sifted Whole Wheat Bread Flour
50g Whole Spelt
50g Bread Flour
83g White Starter
83g Whole Wheat Starter
167g Water

Final Dough

200g Sifted Whole Wheat Bread Flour
150g Whole Spelt
150g Bread Flour
300g Water
500g First Build
15g Salt 

Mix all the ingredients for the first build and leave to ferment for 4 to 5 hours until it reaches peak activity.

For the final dough, mix all of the mature first build, flour and water and leave to autolyse for 20 to 30 minutes.

After autolyse, sprinkle the salt on the dough and incorporate by mixing for about 1 minute.

Knead the dough briefly until it just starts to feel smooth and elastic (no more than 5 minutes)

Bulk ferment the dough at room temperature for 2 hours with 3 stretch-and-folds at half hour intervals.

Turn out the dough and shape into a large boule.

Proof the dough in a well floured/lined circular container (eg banneton) for 45 minutes in a warm place

Turn out the proofed dough and score as desired.

Bake in a preheated oven with steam at 500F for 10 minutes followed by a further 30 to 40 minutes at 375F until it reaches an internal temperature of at least 200F.

Allow to cool completely before slicing. 

Enjoy!

FP