Originally published here:
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Over the weekend, made this whole spelt sourdough for the first time, using my long-maintained white flour starter. Never made a more delicious loaf! Eric’s video was so helpful to use along with the basics of the recipe. Always appreciate your updates, Eric. I ran short of time and did 3 stretch & folds at 10 minute intervals before leaving dough to rise overnight (which it did nicely). Baked in preheated Romertopf, leaving top on for whole 45 minutes. Sorry I didn’t take picture because the loaf emerged with both great crust and wonderful crumb. Thank you, Eric!
Great! Glad it worked out so well, Brooke.
Absolutely wonderful recipe! This was my second time baking bread (I made no knead sourdough last week) and I’m very happy with the results. I did the strech and folds every 15 minutes and baked with the la cloche top on during the whole time. I substituted honey for maple syrup as I’m on a low FODMAPs diet and I also added 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts and 1/4 cup of a mix sunflower seed and pumpkin seeds. I can see myself baking this every week! For those out there on the same diet, according to Monash University 54gr of spelt sourdough bread is considered low FODMAPs and should be tolerated by most individuals with ibs, but make sure to not include honey or agave (both are high FODMAPS). Here is my loaf:
Thanks Eric
I am from Brazil and here spelt is dificult to find, but I managed to get 1kg of that.
Made you recipe twice
This is the second one:
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Good work! Beautiful shape and crust.
My first attempt ran into a problem when I lined my proving basket with parchment paper. The dough would not release from the paper. I had to scrape it off - grr. Any idea why this happened? Should I have oiled or floured the paper? Was the dough too wet? Appreciate any tips.
Novice Baker.
I’d try a light spray of oil first. If that (or something else) works, please let us know.
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I’ve never made bread before in my life.
Followed your recipe using a kefir starter from this blog.
http://www.culturesforhealth.com/how-to-use-kefir-sourdough
I did about 5 hours of rising then had to refrigerate and then another 7 hours overnight. Proofed in a glass loaf dish. Pretty happy with my first result. It’s quite dense but I suppose that’s how it’s meant to be.
Thanks so much for the clear, simple and easy to follow instructions!
If anyone is wondering, temperatures for me were about 27C during the day and about 18C overnight.
Do you grind your own whole spelt flour? Do you do it on the ‘bread’ grind?
Hi Eric,
I just made my first loaf of bread, this spelt sourdough, using your recipe. Thank you! However, my bread didn’t turn out quite right. I was hoping you could help me troubleshoot. The loaf cooked for 45min @ 450 in my dutch oven (past 195F degrees), but burned on the bottom. I got a bit of a malty smell during baking. (Also preheated the dutch oven for 30min, and took the lid off for the last 10min.) When I cut into it after about an hour, the crumb was not quite dry but a little gummy. I’m wondering if my problem is in the proof? Proofing began yesterday morning, but I wasn’t noticing much of a rise so I bounced the bagged dough around my kitchen to find warm spots. But then it got too late at night and I had to pop it in the fridge till this morning. Then this morning, I took it out and parked it next to my preheating oven (then inside the microwave) for a few hours so it could warm up and rise. It did, but still felt pretty firm. Is my freestyle proofing the problem or could it be something else? This is also the first recipe I’ve made with my sourdough starter. (This is my first time at a few of things.) Thanks again for any help or advice! Andrea
Hi Andrea,
It doesn’t look like you’re all that far away from a great loaf. Here are some guesses at what might be going on. It looks like your Dutch oven is cast iron. Cast iron transfers heat faster than ceramic, so in some ovens, the bottom is prone to burning before the loaf is finished baking. An easy adjustment is to put a cookie sheet under the Dutch oven. This usually provides enough of a heat shield to allow for a more uniform bake. Then you can let the bread bake longer so the internal temp passes 200ºF. It’s also possible that your oven is running hotter than you think. You could try lowering the temp and baking longer. Could also be a combination of the above too. Or none of the above. 
I have no idea if or how your proofing effected the outcome. Too hard to tell. I’d have to see what it looked and felt like before you baked it. But at least you can play around with other stuff and see if you can narrow the variables next time around.
Keep us posted.
Thank you, Eric! You rock. Will take all your feedback into consideration. Appreciate your time and experience! Starter may be more ripe now as well, so I’m excited to try again with more knowledge and (hopefully) better yeast. On with the bread adventure! The breadventure!
Just tried this recipe with 500 g sprouted spelt. It totally flattened out once I turned my dough out onto parchment for baking. Why does that happen? And no oven spring. Decent crumb, not very sour, slightly burnt flavor.
High hydration doughs and/or proofing too long will contribute to flattening out. So you could try adjusting one or both of those variables next time. Sprouted flour may also contribute since sprouting may weaken the gluten. Your bread looks good but it is difficult to get a good rise given the above.
A lot of people will bake doughs like this in a baking vessel of some sort with sides that shore up the dough and force an upward rise.
The degree of sour can be all over the place and is not so easy to control. I don’t know where the slightly burnt flavor is coming from.
Hi, Eric! Love the site and your videos (and thanks for the fresh starter!). I plan to make this next weekend and want to add toasted walnuts & raisins. Any thoughts on whether I should soak the raisins to avoid leaching moisture from the bread or do you think it’s not needed? Many thanks!
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I lean towards soaking raisins first. Not so much because they might leach a little moisture from the dough otherwise, but because with soaking they’ll be that much more plump and flavorful in the final loaf.
Many thanks, Eric.
Hi Eric, there is a mention of an updated recipe that includes instructions for a Dutch Crunch variation, which I found intriguing, but am unable to navigate to that post. Can you help?
thanks!
Michelle
Thanks for letting us know that link somehow got broken. It’s fixed on the post now and here it is: Whole Spelt Sourdough Bread – Breadtopia