I have a stock of organic whole red fife flour purchased from a local farm several months ago. My first runs with it seemed to show that it was too weak to be the only flour in the bread - the dough would start breaking down around the time it was proofed to my eye- it made tasty bread, but the crumb was tighter than hard spring wheat loaves. So I was mixing it with some hard spring wheat and getting good results. Recently, I read that Red Fife is actually a high gluten wheat, so I reconsidered my process and ( after a few adjustments ) got this amazing loaf using only whole red fife, water, salt and starter.
I think the main key was to let the flour soak for a few hours ( with salt) prior to adding the levain. It let the gluten develop well before the acid-producing cultures were introduced. No dough breakdown and I could let the proofing go longer. A further improvement could be to do shaping a bit later and/or shape tighter.
Formula
400 gr whole red fife flour
340 gr water
6 gr salt
mix and rest 4 hrs
meanwhile make a starter build that will be ready in 4 hrs.
mix in 100 gr starter with dough at 4 hr mark
knead well. Bulk ferment until small bubbles throughout ( about 5 hrs at current room temp ~68 F ). Preshape, shape. Rest an hr at room temp, fridge overnight. Cook covered in a 450 deg F oven 20 minutes. Uncover, reduce heat to 400 F, cook 15 more minutes.
i cut it before it was fully cool. But as the m&m says “not sorry”