Troubles with Einkorn

I've been experimenting the past year with only baking 100% Einkorn for all my breads and yes its slack. No matter what I have done thats just the way that it is. Thats not to say that you can't make a decent loaf with it, I've made plenty that my family really enjoyed. Shaping has never been easy, with or with autolyse so I now rely on the baking vessel to hold the shape together (a cast iron DO in my case). Just keep experimenting and enjoying your Einkorn, I've run the hydration all the way to 85% so I know that although it's very slack, I also know that it can be lightened up with plenty of hydration. Most of of all, have fun and enjoy your Einkorn.

Hah, window pain describes the sometimes agony of trying to get my dough to that stage!

More seriously, have you tried a long, cold ferment? Your dough will stiffen up whilst it's still cold from being in the fridge, allowing shaping with more ease. Are you using a banneton with a cloth lining whilst you prove? If not, give it a go. The cloth absorbs some dough moisture giving you better skin and hence a better shape. With such a fragile cell structure to your dough might it also be affected by how carefully you place your dough in your pot?

Jumping backwards, I wonder if einkorn, like rye, can benefit from a long autolyse with the sourdough levain (before you add the salt, egg, and sugars)? The acidity of the sourdough destroys some of the rye enzymes which promote stickiness. I get a much more satisfactory crumb in my rye loaves by doing this. Might be worth a try? Maybe without the eggs?

in some respects. High hydrations, no real kneading, "pouring", etc. The local shop I bake for has some Doves Farm stuff that's past best-before date on offer, so I might get a bag to have a play with (it's otherwise just far too expensive to bother with)

-Gordon

I find the easiest way to add eggs is simply put a bowl on the scales, "0" then break the eggs or egg whites into the bowl and add water up to the desired weight.  (the same with cups)  That way you don't have to be messing with reformulating the flour, salt, etc..

Mini

(I underlined some points)

Please follow these useful tips for the best results.

• Einkorn may be substituted cup for cup with regular whole wheat flour in some muffin, pancake, cakes and cookie recipes. However, sometimes, the amount of liquid in the recipe needs to be reduced by roughly 15-20%.
• When consulting jovial’s recipe section, it is best to work with a kitchen scale. We will never measure the same cup of flour, but our scales will be in harmony.
• Don’t substitute jovial’s einkorn flour in recipes that call for whole grain einkorn flour ground from our wheat berries and vice versa without considering that the added bran and fiber in whole grain flour absorbs more liquid than the all-purpose flour.
• If your bread dough mixes up at a normal texture because you add more flour to lessen its sticky texture, your dough will end up drying up and baking dense later because einkorn absorbs liquids much slower than regular wheat. Make sure your dough is nice and wet and sticky, but that it doesn’t expand too much on your work surface after kneading.
• All einkorn bread dough are no-knead, because excessive kneading does not help develop einkorn’s gluten. Knead with your hands just until the dough is completely hydrated and avoid using a standing mixer.
• Einkorn’s gluten is weaker than normal flour, so when you let a loaf of bread made with dry active yeast rise, don’t let it proof to the old standard “let the dough rise until it has doubled in size”. If the dough rises too much, it will deflate in the oven. Make sure the dough springs back when you press on it with your finger. It is better to under-proof than over-proof with einkorn.
• Because einkorn contains less starch than regular wheat, cakes can bake a bit denser so we like to add an extra egg or egg white to the batter.
• Beat less and at lower speed or by hand for lighter textures in cakes and muffin recipes.

We have been working with einkorn flour for more than five years and can help answer questions. We want you to love this precious ancient grain as much as we do, so please contact us at info@jovialfoods.com. We’re here for you.

I've been working with Einkorn for a relative short time compared to BobBoule or Mini Oven and have made some progress with their help. The latest attempt came down to the realization that I couldn't really handle the dough and that a machine could do it. Maybe the gluten needed more exercise. 

400g Einkorn and 300g water were mixed and let sit at 50F for sixteen hours or so then let warm up to room temperature. To the bowl of a stand mixer add the autolysed mixture 100g Einkorn starter ( 100 % hydration newly fed and active ), 30g honey, 30g olive oil, 10g salt and 5g IDY. Knead with dough hook stopping occasionally to scrape the gloop off the hook while adding more Einkorn, I can't tell you how much exactly probably half a cup. Knead for 10 min until it looks like there is some gluten built.

Let the dough bulk ferment until some obvious expansion is noted 40-60 min then poke with a silicone spatula and slightly stir to access the structure, realize there isn't much and prepare a pullman pan. Dump the dough into the pan and proof until once again some expansion is obvious. Cover the pan and place in a 325 F oven.  Come back 30 min later and remove the lid to reveal a loaf with a sunken center an obvious case of over proofing. Finish the bake until the loaf is 200F.

Time to sit back and think of what to try next. Einkorn is not easy that is what makes it so much fun plus the taste of course.

Stu

Might stimulate some enzymes.  

I got my hands on a kilo whole einkorn flour yesterday.  I am eager to mix flour into my starter today. 

I've had the einkorn starter sitting out warming up from being in the fridge, stirring and breaking apart the chunks of bread with a fork.  All the stirring is making it difficult to judge the yeast population by gas/dough expansion.  I want to make sure it is as fermented as it should before feeding it with the flour.   Enjoying sniffing it.  It's wonderful!

I thought rye starters fed with altus smelled and tasted great, but einkorn sourdough starters fed einkorn altus smell fantastic!   Way up there on my joys-of-sniffing starter scale.  I'm looking forward to the bread from this starter before I've even made it.  It's smelling very yeasty after a few hours at 23°C.   I don't even care if it's a brick!  but I will try very hard to get a more open moist crumb.   I've got 25g of flour soaking with 125g of water to make tangzhong or water roux to include in the dough.   Time to zap it.  :)

I noticed with the simple recipe I posted, I forgot to subtract the 25g of flour used in the roux from the 500g flour in the March 29th recipe.  Perhaps 475g should be the corrected amount.    

I want to slip in a small chia loaf into the works.  

Here is the crumb results of the simple recipe with water roux and egg white and a starter with lots of altus in it.   Six hour ferment 22°C then chilled.  Next day shaped and left to almost double, baked in clay baker.  Whoops!  Bottom rack is a bit too hot!  This loaf smells and tastes like it had molasses in it.  (that must be the altus)   

and crumble into the Einkorn sd starter or into the dough.  If dried, add enough water to bread crumbs to get same as dough hydration.  If moist, decide if crumbs feel moist enough and add a spoon or two water.  Crumbs or chunks of bread do fall apart easier if added to the liquids, allowed to hydrate and smushed a bit.  

You will love the flavour boost!

My little kitchen helpers.  The gauges help me determine the rise of the loaf and when to bake.  

Tiny glass has a flattened ball of dough from the loaf in the clay baker.  Similar thing, just before the volume doubles in the glass, I bake it.  Depending on how fast it rises, I judge the time I need to heat up the oven. 

The paper pinned to the side... when the einkorn loaf rises almost to the paper (paper is at "double") remove, cover and bake.  Next time, more dough in the pan or a smaller pan, this is definitely an under-filled pan.  

Yep, I don't mess with hot clay bakers.  I do soak this one for 10 minutes under water.  It has no glazed surfaces but it helps to let it drip dry (a few minutes) after soaking and smear the lower half with a light film of butter.  Then I put the dough in to proof.  Bake on the next to lower shelf or lower middle of the oven.  I can even put it in a cold oven (shorten the proofing time) and turn the fan on full blast for fast high heat.  When the temp is reached, I start timing the loaf bake and after a few minutes turn down the heat to desired.   

After baking with it, I let it dry out opened on a radiator for several days before putting away. 

I am trying my hand at 100% Einkorn as I type this.  Just tossing it all in, so to speak.  12 hour autolyze, levan ala Terwilligaer, over night and fresh poolish, and a 24  hour retard in the fridge (with about 3 hours doing very gentle stretch and turns after combining everything).  Lot's of wet hands work.  I like how it is behaving, but I can see final proofing is going to be interesting.  Or more to the point, releasing from my proofing basket is going to be interesting.  I'm thinking I might cold proof and right into the oven.  I'll judge depending on how it looks in the morning.  I have to check my final numbers but I think I am hovering at 80% hydration.

Well, not unexpectedly, my final loaf spread out a bit instead of going vertical.  But, I had zero sticking issues and it slashed beautifully. I think if I had put it into a pan, it would have done very well.  Regardless, it was reasonable and very flavorful.  Unfortunately (or fortunately in a way) I don't think I am a huge fan of Einkorn.  The fortunate part is that I won't be obsessed to get this right. :)  I'll probably play with some 20-40% additions and see how that goes.

to tackle this again.  

Raspberry einkorn/spelt muffins were a real hit last weekend using substitutes in Mike Avery's blueberry sourdough muffins.  I've now got a water diluted very ripe einkorn starter chocked full of einkorn/hazel nut bread cubes (frozen, toasted and cut) fermenting on the counter top at 20°C  (heat turned off in the house so starters are naturally slower than normal) And thinking of combining long fermented einkorn sourdough with muffin thinking and fast rise of soda to reduce the sour and raise the bread.  The late warm roux addition behaved in such a way as to make me think that part of the rise in that well risen einkorn/hazelnut loaf was due to a acid<>base neutralizing reaction in the dough.  

Back to muffins... to lengthen the wet time... a real challenge with a "quick bread"   ...or is it?  

I'm looking at the title recipe and thinking this is not unlike a muffin recipe.  It only needs a little oil and soda... soda at the last minute, because it clumps usually sifted and blended with the flour, stirred minimally and portioned into a form.  Also would adding soda to a finished water/flour rough increase the reaction good or bad?

I might change the recipe at the paragraph on "Baking."   Instead of turning out and kneading, this would be the time to add soda taking advantage of the soured dough reaction and pop the dough into the pan or shape a loaf.  How long to wait?   No wait, push the dough into the hot oven.   

Looks very promising and fresh from the oven...  Soft crumb (still warm)  and this is only half of the dough!

When the second half loaf rose as high as the baked first half, I popped it into the oven covered with foil. (it's still in there)  The first half loaf took 40min total time in the oven. The hole in the middle was made from my probe thermometer.  

 I find it tastes too salty, next time lower to 6 to 8g

This is almost as soft as W-bread!

I mixed up the dough at 9:30pm and put it outside to drop to 11°C in the morning, then 8am it stood in my 20° kitchen getting good and ripe, tripling in volume until I deflated it and added the soda/roux at 3:30 pm.  

The second loaf went into the oven at 4:37 pm.  After 30 min, I removed the foil and am giving this flour dusted scored loaf  another 10 minutes to brown.