Mishchuk spelt sourdough
My last bake yielded 10 beautiful loves of bread, that turned out great with a soft crust and a nice mild flavor. This is the first bake that I did with spelt flour, but I got to tell you I absolutely loved the bread. As a meter of fact the next day I went out and bought myself 25lb of organic spelt flour. Back to the bread, this bread was baked in my WFO all 10 loaves at one time. Here is how I made this and I plan to make some other variation of this bread.It takes about 9 hours to bake this bread, meaning 20 minutes for the bake and the rest for kneading and resting the dough.
Ingredients for baking 10 small breads 1.5Lb each.
1kg (1000gram) rye starter 150% hydration.
3kg (3000gram) organic spelt flour.
1kg (1000gram) organic white flour.
2.5kg (2500gram) water, room temp.
75gram sea salt ground.
I start by doubling my starter a night before the bake from 500 gram to 1100 grams, since I will start mixing all the ingredients at about 5 am I figured that I need to mix my starter at about 9:00pm the night before, that way it will have 8 hours to double and become very active.
On the morning of the bake I take all the starter except 100 gram, which I will use to get my new starter for next bake, add it to with all my ingredients and hand mix it for about 3 minutes.
Rest the dough for 20 minutes this will allow the flour to fully absorb the water.
I believe that one of the secrets to having great bread is to make sure that the dough is well kneaded, so after 20 minute rest I knead the bread for about 15 minutes, (you also get a great work out in the morning if you do that).
Rest the dough again for 30 minutes, the dough should feel soft and elastic with a slight stick to it.
Final kneading, again mixing it for about 20 minutes.
First rice will take about 4-6 hours and that can vary, your dough should almost double in size before you will shape it in to breads.
When the dough almost doubled divide into individual breads, you can free form it, or use form. After forming let it rest for the second time, rising until it almost doubled in size, this will take about 2 hours. Cover the breads with a towel and you can spray a light mist of water to prevent it from drying.
Make sure your bread oven is nice and hot, test the floor of the oven by sprinkling some flour on it. After the bread has almost doubled place in the oven close the door and bake for about 20 minutes.
If you are baking this in you home oven you will need to preheat your oven to 455 F, bake for about 30-40 minutes.
This bread will be darker in color because of the spelt flour and the rye starter. You can also use light spelt and spelt starter, adjust the spelt starter to 100% hydration.
What do you think of this bread??
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