May 14, 2015 - 2:22pm
Spelt
I read so much about Spelt flour I needed to try it. So off to Wholepaycheck Foods for some Arrowhead Mills organic spelt flour.
I used the recipe posted in this entry by TXfarmer substitute 50 grams of honey for the Agave. Also watched the video.
Its fermenting now. Can I use the usual methods of bulk fermenting and cold proofing to bake in the a.m Anything else I need to know? In the meantime I've got a starter going for an everyday bread for us...just in case...Vermont SD or a 123 Rye.
TIA
Wendy
Share
doesn't quite say what amount of time the retard was just overnight. She does note often that the dough is fragile and that you don't want to over ferment or over proof it.
I will add that is very fast compared to a WW bread. I actually had a shaped retarded spelt bread blow up in the fridge once and it over proofed at 36 F in 8 hours, I cut out the bulk ferment like txfarmer does but used more levain - a very bad idea and outcome. Since then i managed to get a spelt bread to work out with a 12 hour retard but really had to cut the pre -fermented flour down. I say make sure you check it at 8 hours hours, everyone should get that much sleep, but don't be surprised if it is pretty poofy by then either. Things happen very fast in the AZ heat so you outcome may vary.
Happy Spelt baking
nice to work with actually....wet but very supple. It shaped nicely and I'm putting it in the fridge overnight (@8 hours). It had little bubbles on the skin as it was shaped so I'm hoping it will develop nicely. If not, bird food! Oh and not sure if I should score it...the video guy didn't but I probably will..I'm basically using all the techniques I learned here but 100% spelt.
I'll report back tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback!
Wendy
in the oven. I baked it along side my regular bread which came out as usual. The spelt loaf burned and was flat but the crumb looked good and what wasn't burned is very tasty. I didn't veer to far from the original baking temps...mine were 500/475 dF for first 8 minutes then I bumped it down to 450/425 or a little less...my oven tends to burn 25 dF or so lower than the registered temperature.
So back to the drawing board to research the recommended baking technique and I think I might have a nice loaf. I also baked it in my enamel DO instead of my Lodge and didn't use parchment so it stuck big time...with dough that wet parchment is definitely the way to go.
One blonde, one black
Spelt crumb shot
And the successful loaf:
I didn't use all my spelt starter for this loaf....going to build it back up and make a second attempt....or maybe go for 50% spelt next time.
Whole Spelt, White Spelt or a mix?
Spelt needs a lower hydration than ordinary wheat
The original recipe is still a quite high hydration for spelt but it looks like whole spelt. If on top of that you introduced white spelt then what you might've gotten away with 100% wholegrain spelt it was less forgiving for white spelt.
You swapped agave for honey but used a lot more honey, almost twice as much. The original author recommended to use more honey then agave because of sweetness but didn't specify how much. I think too much sugar in a bread might also have an effect (and don't forget that it also has an effect on the hydration somewhat).
Spelt needs less fermentation time than wheat. So that has to be watched too. Why don't you use the same weight of honey as the agave even though it will be less sweet. Just for chemistry wise to see how it turns out.
The original recipe is 70% hydration for what looks like whole spelt. A regular whole wheat does well at 75% hydration so this has been dropped by 5%. If adding white spelt then why not do 60% hydration for the amount of white flour and 70% hydration for the amount of wholegrain to work out the final hydration. And take into account the levain too.
Don't do stretch and folds for spelt as not good for the gluten. Do a knead at the beginning to form the gluten then just fold the dough a couple of time through the bulk fermentation.
I'm just throwing out ideas here. If you have followed any of these then I do apologise.
in retrospect I probably should have done a 50% for the first time out. I'm the kind of person who goes all in even tho I might be making the mistakes. If they happen, I learn from them.
So what did I learn from this exercise? Parchment is my friend and bake the whole spelt at a lower temperature.
And while it was tasty I'm not sure it will be something I regularly bake...the flour is expensive...3 x the wheat and rye which really is our favorite. 2lbs is $5.50 where as 5lbs of the other is $5.00 and I get my bread flour in 50 lb bags so the cost is like $.30/lb Not really worth it IMHO but nice to experiment.
i still have half a bag...enough for one more whole loaf or two 50%'ers. Or if you have a recipe you'd like to share, I could try that.
the original poster was referring too http://breadtopia.com/spelt-bread-recipe/
HOWEVER I have noticed he/she has changed things. The hydration and most noticeably the starter amount which should be 60g (taking one cup as 240g).
Funnily enough this was my very first successful sourdough I did which catapulted my sourdough baking.
I think follow the original recipe and not the "revised" edition on here and see how it goes.
but I will now try that recipe before completely giving up on spelt. I think though I'm going to just use my wheat starter rather than make a spelt one. I wasn't happy with the spelt starter I made and knowing I wouldn't use it much more, dumped it...yup..don't judge ;-D I will feed it equal amounts of wheat and spelt though.
I'll report back in a few days...we have a fresh loaf to eat first. I hope the birds and squirrels are not too picky about burnt crust because that's where this first loaf ended up.
Other starters. Smaller bubbles and will be more "foamy" (for want of a better word). It's not as spectacular as whole rye for instance. I don't think it'll make a difference if you make a bread flour starter. It's only 60g.
The birds and squirrels probably are hoping for flops ;)
I bake sourdough spelt 3 times a week. Batches of 3 or 6 loaves. (about 450g cooked weight)
I treat it like regular wheat. The (spelt) starter is used directly from the fridge most of the time (although I need to bulk it up for > 4 loaves). It's mixed/kneaded at about 9pm, then left overnight - I try to leave it in a coolish place, but right now that cool place is at about 20C. 6:45am I tip it out, scale/shape/prove it.
Either in a banneton or couche. Spelt will flow into a pancake if you let it. It's got a good enough amount of gluten, but overall its very soft.
After an hour its into the oven - directly onto the oven shelf or onto a Silpain mat (depending on the oven its going into) The shelfs in the big oven are 10mm thick steel, the smaller oven has the silpain mats placed directly on the grids.
It will flow when you transfer it and a little before the oven spring takes effect.
A bit of honey in it will lighten the flavour a little and also make the crust go quite dark - don't worry about it being dark.
And despite my scoring, it often bursts out somewhere during the bake.
I recently dropped the (bakers) %age of starter from 40% to 30% and it didn't seem to make much difference. My recipe is simply: 100% flour, (mix 30/70 whole to white), 30% starter @ 100%, 53% water, 6% honey, 1.5% salt.
825g of flour in total is a good quantity for 3 small or 2 larger loaves.
This:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v_v9fahGlk
is spelt loaves in their first 10 minutes in the oven (speeded up & before I started to use the Silpain mats)
-Gordon
Thanks, Gordon...so you bake 30% spelt to 70% white or bread flour? I think I'll try your formula....but with my wheat starter. Do you steam your oven when you bake on sheets?
The method I used was 3 builds of the starter over 2 days then mixed it all, autolysed 30 minutes, stretch & folds 20 minutes apart, 3 hour bulk ferment then shape and into bannetons for overnight. Out of the fridge while oven preheats @30 mins. then baked it like my other loaf.
Do you do anything different, i.e., temperature, baking time, etc.
I meant 30% wholemeal spelt and 70% white spelt - so 100% spelt flour. That's the same as my basic wheat sourdough - 30% wholemeal wheat and 70% white wheat. I have separate spelt, wheat and rye starters, so I can make a fully spelt sourdough loaf which pleases the locals here.
I don't do successive "builds" of my starter(s) They are used either directly from the fridge if I have enough, or I do a bulk up if I need more. e.g. for 6 small spelt loaves I'd need 500g starter - which is more than I keep in the fridge, so I'd take 100g from the fridge, add in 200g spelt and 200g water, mix and leave for a few hours (and immediately top-up the fridge jar with 50g white spelt and 50g water and put it back in the fridge)
The spelt dough is usually hand mixed - I mix everything, salt as well then leave on the counter for 30 minutes, then give it a very quick knead then leave it overnight. In the morning I scale, pre-shape, shape and leave to prove in a couche or banneton then bake.
Baking starts at 250C with steam for 12 minutes then down to 210C (ish) for another 20-22 minutes. (my bigger oven has water injection, the smaller one which is the one in the video just a tray in the bottom which I throw a cup of water into)
More here too: http://moorbakes.co.uk/sourdough-made-easy-part-1/
I'm tempted to give a method similar to yours a go though - essentially do the bulk ferment through the day with stretch & folds - but it needs a lot of fridge space overnight!
-Gordon
more than one kind of spelt flour locally. Thanks for the details though. I will probably try something similar but with spelt, ww wheat and/or bread flour mixed. I am going to try your method of starter right from the fridge as I know mine are lively creatures.
The consensus from the family is that while its a nice diversion (whole spelt bread) its not as desirable as the other bread I've been making. So being that I don't eat the bulk of the bread, I have to bow to a greater power! Thanks again.
I'm in the UK and we can get wholemeal and white spelt flour here - it's all quite costly though. The white has the usual statutory additives that all white flours get here. (unless you sift your own)
I find spelt has a bit of an earthy/flat taste to it - it's not unpleasant just different - adding some honey seems a common thing to do, so I follow that trend.
I live in an area where there are lots of people who like some of the older grains and traditional methods and the spelt sells well.
-Gordon
has a recipe with spelt so I'm experimenting today. Applying all the knowledge I have gleaned from hanging around with you folks, I modified amounts: 250 gr/50% spelt, 250/50% bread flour, 100gr/10% starter, 300 gr/60% water, 40gr/4% honey, 10gr/1% salt and 6gr/.06% yeast and we'll see what we get. Let's hope its not more bird food!
Thanks again,
Wendy
And 100g starter should = 20% starter
I see you're going for hybrid. Best of luck. Better give some other bread "offering" to the birds who are wishing for more food.
I had my husband the engineer, trying to scale down the recipe into grams and my head started to hurt...ha ha....so I winged it. I now know I need to take his kg sized one and divide by 10 (which doesn't exactly equate to his "cups" amounts, but he wanted to help. I'll report later. The recipe uses a mixer...I just got done slapping it against the counter for 6 minutes and put it into bulk ferment. I expect the yeast will pump it up pretty well and we'll have fresh bread by noon!
Oh and those birds are fatty fat fat....yesterday they got plenty, although burned, spelt bread and day old rye. Today they will probably get some bacon and cheddar that was in the freezer and didn't measure up to my standards once defrosted. I guess I'm a bread snob and will now only eat absolutely fresh!!!
Oooh my head hurts just thinking about it. In the UK we stick to grams. When I was a rookie and tried to follow instructions in cups it was a disaster.
I present my 50% Spelt loaf with Oat hat...crumb later when cooled...the boys are out so nobody is drooling over the loaf with a knife!
Looks superb. What a crust! Birds are gonna go hungry today.
Mines preshaped and bench resting at the moment.
Its delish! I have enough spelt to make one more later this week. This is a nice sandwich loaf...the crust is a bit softer than the rye. I was afraid it might have over proofed but it looks ok.
And I see a lovely ear from your scoring.
I could sell a loaf that looked like that any day...
Just had an order in for Spelt loaves for Monday (Not a normal spelt day for me), so maybe I'll try a subtle change or 2...
-Gordon
The yeast really gives it a boost combined with the active starter! I stopped using yeast for the most part but I think I'm going to go back especially when I have a time constraint. Aside from the starter, the entire operation was about 4 hours start to finish. Having the loaf proof in the microwave with a cup of boiled water reduced bulk ferment to 1.5 hours and final proof was just long enough preheat the oven...about 30 minutes...because I was afraid of over proofing.