Slightly off topic, but I recently over-hydrated a bagel dough, too. I thought the mixer was struggling way more than it should so I added what I thought was a bit of water, but it was enough to make, well, a beautiful dough, but it wasn’t a bagel dough. Probably not as extensible as yours, as I was able to make bagels, but there were problems at every stage. A good lesson learned!
Due to the nature of Emmer it may very well not suit a long final proof in the refrigerator. I’m thinking you overdid the bulk ferment too (unless doing a lowish hydration strong bread flour recipe then doubling is rarely a good idea). Aim for a dough which is tacky but not sticky. Perform some gentle stretch and folds and go easy on the bulk ferment. Then shape and a quick final proof before baking. How about a pan loaf?
I will bake my six-bagel-almost-became-a-challah boule tomorrow – after a 36 hour final proof in the refrigerator. Totally on topic 
The hardest part of the overhydrated bagel dough for me was probably the transfer to the boiling barley malt water. So sorry you dealt with this too!
Thank you @Fermentada, @homebreadbaker and @anon44372566 for taking the time to pipe in and giving me some pointers. Yes I think i overdid the bulk fermentation. It was a hot day, and the dough was at 80 degrees. Being a newbie in bread baking, i lack the self confidence to diverge from the specs laid out by the recipe. Even when i KNEW I should.
Paul, I did read the Demystifying article early on in this sourdough journey and i found it VERY helpful. I should go back and re-read. I did 50/50 Bread Flour and Vitamix ground Emmer Farro. I specify Vitamix ground because I have not ruled out that it is my not so fine ground Emmer that is part of the problem. AND yes, I think Emmer even at 50% still needs a wall to keep it from pancaking (thus bread pan or clay baker would work better).
Abe, yes Emmer seems to be “unusual”. I can not use Emmer in my starter else my starter becomes soupy. I uploaded a video on how Emmer looks like after 2 or 4 hours with 66% hydration: https://youtu.be/ymRwzBSJhHE I did this to determine whether or not a long autolyze might help me with my soupy problem with Emmer. i think not. Because of this result, I worried that a 10 hour Bulk Fermentation will also be a problem. I wonder if perhaps I should lower the hydration even further down from 80%.
Melissa, I like your suggestion of rebranding my product as a Ciabatta. Hehe. Yeah, I was already in trouble at first coil fold. It did not help that I did 2 more after that. 
But this is not the first time I did not listen to myself. I now have a 50/50 Bread Flour/Red Wheat Berry (Vitamix ground) in the fridge waiting to be baked. Same no-knead recipe. I went the full 10 hours because I did not see the response here in time to mend my ways. So it is somewhat overproofed also. But because it is not Emmer, coil fold was easier. Using a Le Creuset to bake. Want to see if this will pancake. I did find the crust using the Le Creuset much crisper than when baked in my leaky clay baker (my clay baker’s top rocks like crazy and does not provide a good seal).
Thanks again everyone for your help and advice.
I just saw your video of the emmer. Oh my. That is a batter. Out of curiosity, are you using Breadtopia’s emmer wheat berries? I had a much dryer looking dough with Breadtopia’s emmer in that recipe I wrote back in 2017.
How did your half bread flour - half red wheat bread come out?
Here’s my bagel boule. It didn’t have a big score bloom, but the crust and crumb are yum (swipe thru the photos for the crumb). Because I had no idea the hydration or the amount of flour I added, I can only guess it’s about 80% bread flour and 20% sprouted hard red spring wheat and red fife wheat.
Melissa, what a gorgeous bagel boule. I will take your not so big score bloom anytime.
So I lied. I did not do 50/50. I did 40% Red Wheat (I think I did this in case the Red Wheat behaves like the Emmer). But for the life of me I do not know what my rationale was for staying with the 84% hydration. I remember thinking, Melissa said decrease for the Emmer. But maybe not for the Red Wheat. So you can tell from the first pic that it more than doubled right? As such I overproofed again. But I was able to manage coil folding. So Red Wheat is no where as sticky as Emmer. I was still not able to “lift” the dough into the banneton though. So i more or less poured it into the proofing basket. <— I swear I feel like such a klutz.
But! The resulting loaf was not half bad in my opinion. And it did not pancake in the Le Creuset. And it tasted yum.
My whole grain Emmer Farro is from Bluebird Grain Farm in Washington. I have been buying from them for years. I use it for desserts and quick breads. I was not a bread baker mostly because I am supposed to watch my carb intake (not that dessert aren’t high in carbs). I did not discover Breadtopia until Shelter-in-Place, so March 2020.
@homebreadbaker will be happy to know that I re-read his article Demystifying article and will try very hard to “listen” to my dough next time.
This coming weekend, I am doing the no-knead bread yet again with Bluebird Grain’s Pasayton Whole Wheat flour. So this one I am not grinding with my Vitamix. I purchased a bag of flour by mistake. I am walking through making this recipe with a friend who is going to try her hand in sourdough baking. This is what you would call “blind leading the blind”. 
Have a great rest of the week and as always, THANK YOU SO MUCH for your feedback. It has been extremely helpful.
The 40% red wheat looks great. Going past doubling on the bulk and that 84% hydration are both easier with a stronger flour than emmer. The crumb looks lovely. Good luck teaching your class this weekend. I’m sure it’ll go well!
Does anyone have experience with Rye and refrigeration? I make many over 50% ryes that always turn out perfect if I follow my recipe BUT I can never leave anything alone (something in my DNA). I twice have attempted to refrigerate the doughs and each time they turn out as a brick. I was hoping the dough would ferment puff up and as it was in a pullman pan I would not need to knock it down hopefully keeping some of the entrained gases. Well does not work!
Normally I mix, shape and set my bakes in the retarder at 55F for 14 hours and then the timer shuts off the retarder at 3am and it comes up to room temperature. I normally bake at 8am or so.
I have tried this with the rye and it does not work. My bible the “Rye Baker” says ferment @78F until the dough cracks on top. If I do this I have a perfect loaf. This does not happen when the dough is cold. As a matter of fact I saw tiny bubbles breaking the top of the dough and it was not rising.
Any comments? The picture I attached is a 100% home milled whole grain Einkorn I made along with the rye,
my bet is you can tell which is the brick.
Am I barking up the wrong tree?
I don’t have The Rye Baker (hope to one day) but have made a few of his 100% or high percentage rye recipes that I’ve found online.
If I recall correctly, unlike wheat dough, for rye an extended ferment buys you nothing; retarding the dough does not get what you’d get with a wheat dough (i.e., flavor, gluten strengthening, etc.). I think your comparison of how you do your usual bakes (I assume some variety of wheat) with that of the two rye bricks proves this. I don’t think a longer ferment will produce the necessary cracks on top. It needs a shorter ferment at a warm temp.
Btw, which recipe of Ginsberg’s were you making? Just writing this has made me decide to get going on my next rye… Thanks for the nudge.
I think if you refrigerate the rye dough when the fermentation is roaring, then it’ll be fine.
I often refrigerate Eric’s Artisan Rye recipe (50% whole rye) for the final proof and it does well. Also this Danish Rugbrod though that has more spelt flour than rye flour – I guess the name is from all the whole rye berries. That said, I have made it from all rye flour, but unfortunately it was so long ago that I can’t say how I handled the final proof, but here’s a video of how fermented it was before the putting it into the pullman pan for the final proof. You have to swipe to thru to the 5th slide.
This is a 75% rye that’s a pretty brick – sometimes you just gotta decorate it
For someone that does not have Ginsberg’s book you are doing a great job of explaining what he does. I just can’t keep well enough alone so my attempts at making things better sometimes flop. 
I make the Orange-Raisin quite often and if I make it the right way the crumb is soft, chewy and on the lighter side. I also make my rendition of a Swedish Limpa Rye which is a major cross between Peter Reinhart and Eric from Breadtopia. I had difficulties with both of their recipes until I made some changes to the grains that were soaked, the flours in the preferment etc. Again if I make it according to my recipe it comes out perfect. Have tried that one in the retarder both bulk fermenting at 48F and slow finish rise overnight at 55F and I had a brick.
I just got done slicing into my “brick” and it is soft inside but did not rise much. Will be making a nice bunch of rye crackers out of these as soon as the Rofco warms up. The brick is very eatable not just the way I would prefer it.
Appreciate the feed back I believe you are on the money.
Your Rugbread looks like my brick without the seeds LOL… Actually the result is what I have with mine and is not typical for what I make. The fermented part in the video I can’t compare because it was in the retarder for 11 hours and bulked in the pan, was afraid to disturb it. It actually contracted when it baked. Never had that happen before as it pulled away fro the ends of the pan.
AND you have way tooooo much time on your hands the breads all look gorgeous!
I had to stop yesterday and get out my bible from Ginsberg and he is pretty specific when it comes to proofing and temperatures. It was his book that actually straightened out my starter that I use for everything now. I have 2 other sources of people that have or had a retail bakery and I’ll post the question although my response may be days or weeks in coming.
If I remember my first try at cold proofing the rye it was an almost fully proofed loaf I wanted to slow down so to bake in morning. It was fine until I did that. Sometimes I wish I still was into boating all I needed to do was drill a hole in that one and put my anchor line through it … 
Interesting about the contracting - that would almost seem like overproofing? It’s so hard to say.
I totally love to do decorations on bread with seeds or a lame. Give me a cake to decorate, though, and you’d think I was a blindfolded four-year-old.
Your cracker idea sounds delicious. I’m sure the sea creatures will be sad you’re not using the bread as an anchor.
The orange-raisin rye actually made a fantastic cracker. Almost as good as my Mixed seed and Fig crackers I made up a year or so ago.
Make lemonade out of a lemon I guess the saying goes.
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