Leader's spelt loaf

Depends on a bunch of factors but I normally ignore the times in the books.  I bake the bread when it is ready and sometimes that is an overnight rise.

Hi Carl,

LeadDog is right that there are lots of factors at play, and considerable flexibility may well be needed when considering times given in books.

Are you using wholemeal or white spelt?

Just to say that wholemeal spelt is vitamin and mineral rich, and generally extremely fermentable.   My experience suggests, maybe not quite so much as dark rye, but more so than a regular wheat flour

It leads me to thinking something is not right with the leaven you have prepared.   That does not, however, mean you should ditch the starter.   Maybe you need to do some "feeding" work on the starter to bring it back to full activity; then make a fresh batch of bread.

Best of luck; give us a shout back if you need to

Andy

It's not going to rise in 2 hours, and it really should not, as it only has ~5% prefermented flour. I have seen the recipe at breadcetera, I assume that's the one you're referring to, and to me it looks like a reasonable attempt to make some sense out of the mess Leader's recipe is.

Hi Carl,

Good on you about the starter; looks like suave is near the mark; there is insufficient leaven to raise the bread at 5%!

Anyway, I've dug out Leader's "Local Breads".   Can you let me know exactly which recipe you are following please?

Thanks

Andy

Here's a sourdough spelt recipe on breadtopia.  While I have Leader's book at home, I wonder if this is similar.

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

Ok I dug out my "Local Breads" and now I remember what I did to make the bread.  In the book Leader has you using German Rye sourdough for the starter at 10% of the Spelt Flour.  In the written directions he talks about a Spelt Starter.  I just made a Spelt Starter and made my bread with it.  I have read and seen people who have had problems with Spelt bread becoming pancakes so I don't follow his directions to knead the dough for 10 to 18 minutes.  I stop mixing the the dough first comes together really good.  People seem to think that the gluten in Spelt is fragile and you can over work it real easy like.  There also seems to be a lot of variability in Spelt some flour will make good loaves and another flour will make pancakes.  I have enjoyed making Spelt loaves and like the flavor of 100% Spelt bread.

Carl prefermented flour in this recipe is the sourdough starter.

I can second LeadDog's comments about baking with spelt. I find that you really have to let the dough do the talking. I feed up my white starter with spelt. I mix by hand, let the dough rest a bit and then do a couple of short kneads. I may do a stretch and fold if I'm home to do it. I try to keep the temperature on the coolish side during proofing. Don't let the dough overproof at any stage.

I've also found the flour highly variable. Australian spelt is wonderful and quite strong but flours that I've gotten labelled as 'imported' have ranged from just ok to so bad that it was only good for quickbreads/pancakes (and I had ten kilos of that one!)

Happy Baking

Liz

I noted it took my dough 6 1/2 hours to ferment and 3 hours to proof where on page 100, it is written 2 to 2 1/2 hours to fement and 1 to 1 1/2 hours to proof.  I did not note the room temperature. (darn)

I used my hands.  I'm a lazy kneader so chances are good I let the dough just sit 30 minutes after mixing it all together before kneading.  I used the metric weights and rye starter.   I had also lowered the oven rack slightly below middle and corrected the  PROOF THE LOAF paragraph to singular (one loaf as opposed to more) while waiting on the ferment.

Mini