Sounds like this recipe is a keeper. Use it as a base for your other recipes and for the pizza crust too. Perhaps up the hydration a tad to increase extensibility and add in some olive oil.
It’s amazing how a little einkorn goes a long way. Tartine has a lovely country loaf sourdough recipe using bread flour and 10% whole wheat. I swapped the whole wheat for Einkorn and at just 10% I noticed a big difference and a lovely flavour.
Wow! I read this over and over again.
Do you generally stick with 10% poolish/start/levain for long term fermentation with home milled flour?
Yes, recipe normally are not clear about whether the water in the starter is counted towards the TH, it should. What bothers me more is when starter hydration is not mentioned!
I have not baked with einkorn, I have a question. The 54% starter:540 grams ripe start (270x2) is this 270 water and 270 flour?
For the long fermentation equation: 10% starter (100g: 50g flour + 50ml water), how much of ripe starter do you use here? Do you use 1:3 or 1:5?
Thank you,
a
Ahn,
I ONLY use home milled flour. However, it is not always freshly ground. I will grind about 10# and store it in a 40 degree frig. It is always used up in about 2 months.
Let me explain a complete ‘formula’ to make hydration clearer.
Step 1: Flour…let us say I use 1000g . If I am doing a long fermentation (using Einkorn whole grain flour), my TH will be 81%. (It could be as high as 87%.) I generally use 10% Total Hydration. This includes the liquid + the hydration in the starter. My starters are always 100% hydration as this makes determining the water content of the hydration easy…50% of total weight.
My formula would read: 100% Flour: 1000gr @ 81% TH (1000 x .81 = 810 gr water total…incl water in starter).
Since my starter is 10% of my flour, it will be 100gr starter (1000 x .10 = 100 grams). Since 50% of this starter is water, 50% of 100 grams starter is 50 gr. water.
My TH (total amount of water) is 810gr - 50 grams (starter hydration) = 760 grams of additional water needed.
Now I can write my ‘formula’
100% Flour: 1000g @ .81% TH (810grams liquid)
Starter: 100g (of which 50grams is water)
Liquid: 760 grams (810-50 = 760
Salt: 10 grams (since Einkorn is very resistant to stretch already, not much is needed)
Note that, in the above formula, I have no % before the starter, the liquid or the salt. To get those %s, I must divide the grams used by the total 1000gr of flour. Therefore, 100 grams starter/1000 grams flour = 10%. 760grams liquid/ 1000 grams flour = 76%. 10 grams salt/1000grams Flour = 1%. I will rewrite my formula as:
100%: Flour: 1000grams @ 81% TH (1000x.81=810grams T.H.)
10%: Starter: 100grams (of which 50%…50 grams…is water)
76%: Liquid: 760grams additional water
1%: Salt: 10 grams
One other thing to note…Most formulas would simply state the hydration as 760 grams and make assumptions about how much water is in the starter. That missing 50 grams of water can make all the difference between success and failure. For this reason, about 24 hours before I need my starter, I take a small portion from my ‘starter jar’ and put it into another container. Then, I feed this small amount (usually ~ 25 grams and equal ratio of water and flour. Notice that I am NOT ASSUMING that my original starter is still 50%:50% since dehydration could have decreased the hydration! By taking a small amount from the ‘starter jar’, I am insuring that my levain/starter for the dough is 100% hydration. Hope this helps.
BTW…The actual starter/levain used for long fermentation varies according to the length of time you want to allow the dough to ferment. For me (in my home), 10% starter/levain allowed a 9 hour fermentation (with time to spare for shaping and proofing). This allowed me to leave it at room temp overnight (~70 degrees F). Obviously temp (lower or higher) would have either increased or decreased the fermentation time. Also, increasing/decreasing the starter/levain would have increased or decreased the fermentation time. This 10% just happened to be perfect for me. Many times, I only want a short fermentation (4-5 hours). In these instances, my starter/levain would be much larger…closer to 54%.
Anh,
I made a mistake in the above. With ‘step 1’, I stated 10% TH. I meant 10% starter/levain. Sorry for the inconvenience. (I also spelled your name incorrectly…please forgive me)
Mary,
You really helped a great deal!
This really helps me a lot. Long fermentation = lower % inoculation (poolish/starter/levain) vs. short fermentation = higher % of inoculation.
I found the information about the traits of einkorn and rye really helpful!
Thank you again,
a
Hi. I need some help. I am only on my 7th try making sourdough bread and have just come to the realization that part of the problem is because I am using Emmer Farro Whole Wheat that I grind myself using the Vitamix Blender. I am not doing this for any other reason than on a whim a long time back I started buying Whole Grain Emmer Farro from bluebirdgrains.com. I think I saw some recipe using Emmer Farro. Technically I know nothing about heirloom grains or anything like that. I just like organic and whole wheat. My use of the whole wheat thus far is limited to making quick breads and substituting my own ground whole wheat with whatever the recipe calls for. Since I am in that mode, when I started sourdough bread baking, and I saw Whole Wheat in the recipe, I just substituted my Vitamix ground Emmer Farro. My first sourdough is what I will call my beginner’s luck loaf. It was a no-knead recipe. Everything was a-ok. My 3rd loaf was a disaster, and Abe tried to come to my rescue but it was beyond help. Loafs #2 - 7 are all my attempts at a NOT no-knead (i.e. i do stretch and pulls etc. etc.) So the problem I have been having is my dough is way too sticky to do normal pre-shaping or final shaping. I did some googling and I found that this is the case because of my use of Emmer Farro. Loaf #5 had 20% Emmer Farro, #6 had 20+% EF #7 had 40% Emmer Farro. I just like to use my EF for some reason 
The rest being King Arthur Bread Flour. Hydration is 73%. Should I only do no knead if I want to use my Emmer Farro wheat? Should I decrease hydration? Not autolyze the EF? Any suggestions will be much appreciated. Thanks. Oh BTW all loafs besides #3 tasted very good even when they did not look good. Loaf #7 tasted AND looked good but the shaping step was a challenge. I was sure I had a pancake, surprisingly it was not.
Did you take notes on that beginner’s luck loaf? I think I would try to replicate everything you did on it. If you’re able to recreate the results, then change only one thing with your next bake (autolyse, % emmer, stretch and fold).
Emmer wheat should be fine even at 100% as long as you’re not expecting a fluffy tall bread but I don’t know how fine a Vitamix grinds your emmer, and that could be a factor in how dense your loaves are. There is a big difference in the gluten development potential of fine flour vs. coarse flour.
I think your hydration is good.
You may also be having that unshape-able feeling from gluten degradation – which can happen if your autolyse is long and/or if you are doing too much of a bulk fermentation.
For example, perhaps you de-gas the dough a bit with your stretching and folding (normal) but then you still expect the dough to double in size (or whatever expansion you were targeting). You’re going to have exhausted more of the food supply for the microbes in your dough. You may want to stop that first rise before doubling (or whatever your target is) because more fermentation has happened but it’s masked by the dough handling.
Here is an 80% emmer
And 100% emmer
THANK YOU Melissa for your response. I would be what you would call “all over the place”. A real novice here. A friend who gave me my starter and who helped me with loaf #5 said EXACTLY that - change only one thing :\ I am going to try to abide by that.
Just to illustrate how all over the place I was: Loaf #1 was America’s Test Kitchen “Almost No-Knead Sourdough Bread”. It calls for 3 2/3 c All Purpose Flour. No Whole Wheat. Maybe that’s why it worked! Loaf #2 was a King Arthur recipe found here: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/guides/sourdough/bake and while following this I was confused with some of the instructions so I continued reading up on sourdough bread baking on the internet and was quite skeptical of the % starter specified in the recipe. 454g starter for 687g of flour (of which 85g was supposed to be King Arthur Premium whole wheat flour). The proportion of starter is 66%. This recipe is what got me started on the path of using my own Emmer Farro whole wheat. To me whole wheat was any whole wheat. (Sorry). Loaf #3 was so bad I think I blocked out which recipe I used and it probably is for the best as I’m sure the failure is not because of the recipe. Similarly Loaf #4 was an attempt to recover from #3 and I think I was using the same recipe as #3. Loaves #5, 6 and 7 are all my friend’s recipe. By now I have read up on Baker’s percentages etc. etc. and am pretty much following the recipe except that i kept increasing the proportion of whole wheat and decreasing the bread flour and pretty much staying with 73% hydration. What I found when i increased the Emmer Farro to 20+% is that during bulk fermentation, the dough progressively got wetter and stickier. It seemed to be very actively fermenting. I was waiting for 1 hour between stretch and folds. For all loaves I carried out Bulk Fermentation to 5 or 6 hours. That is because I really did not know how to tell when to stop. And as it got stickier, I thought I need to keep going. So in the end, I think you are right, I am doing too much bulk fermentation.
As for too long an autolyse, the recipe I am following called for 1 hour. But of course the original recipe is 800g bread flour, 100g rye, and 100g whole wheat. While I had 600g bread flour and 400g Emmer Farro.
Please advise on what I should change in terms of autolyse and bulk fermentation. I will stick with 40% Emmer for now.
I have since found a Whole Emmer Sourdough Bread recipe on this site (breadtopia). I am excited to try that also.
The Vitamix is just convenient. I am not sure it is the best whole wheat grinder. I have not mastered the technique for getting a consistent ground flour. At times I would have 99% ground flour where when I sift it through a sifter there is barely anything left on the sifter. And then at other times, there will be quite a lot of unground whole wheat/bran.
I attached a pic of my Loaf #7 with 40% Emmer F. It was hard to work with but I am more than happy with the result.
That is a superb looking bread! I think any awkward dough wrangling is well worth a loaf like that. Congratulations! Comfort with shaping is slow to acquire for home bakers because we’re not in a bakery setting doing hundreds of loaves a week.
I would be what you would call “all over the place”.
It seems like it’s working for you. 
Edited to try to answer your actual question: I’m not sure I would change what you’re doing in terms of autolyse or bulk fermentation. Specifically, I think the bread is nicely fermented so I wouldn’t decrease the bulk. You could experiment with no autolyse vs autolyse, and you might decide one way is better for your wheat. Off the cuff, I’m pro-autolyse for your vitamix ground emmer, because the autolyse softens the bran.
Melissa, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for the compliment/comments!!! It gave me a lot of encouragement. I will try another loaf with 40% Emmer Farro before I try the Whole Emmer version. Have a wonderful day!
P.S. I just finished reading “Demystifying Sourdough Bread Baking” article here on Breadtopia. Guess what, he prescribes using wet hands during the shaping step as well!!! I’m going to have to try that.
I want to pick up on the matter of enzyme attack, mentioned in this thread. I have now made three batches of dough from home-milled Turkey Red wheat berries that I recently received from Breadtopia. Using my usual bread making procedures I get dough lacking a coherent gluten network. Though much of this thread discusses Einkorn flour, the recommendations to keep things cooler, use shorter fermentation times, and add salt early on seem like they might help me get loaves that will have coherent gluten and a proper crust.
Is incoherent gluten a general problem with Turkey Red flour dough, or might there something off in my sourdough culture? Are there other techniques that will produce better behaved dough from fresh milled Turkey Red? Thanks in advance for suggestions.
I have repeatedly encountered the same issue when using home ground Turkey for 100% WW breads. The 100% WW loaves I was making used active dry yeast, not sourdough, which suggests that your starter is not the issue. I haven’t had problems when the Turkey is blended with AP or bread flour.
My understanding is that 100% WW is a whole different animal, so maybe I just need more experience with it; still, I wonder if Turkey is lower in gluten-forming proteins. I really don’t know. If that’s the case, what heritage wheat might be strong enough for a 100% loaf? I planned to do some experiments making the same recipe with commercial WW flour or adding salt to the autolyse, but since the question is being raised here, I’ll wait to see what others’ experiences have been. Both the question and any suggestions are appreciated!
-AG
Hi, thanks. I’ve made a lot of wholegrain bread. It is never as light as white flour bread but it can have a soft enough crumb. People do all sorts of things to make it rise well. The Turkey Red was different. I have an experiment going to confirm that my sourdough was not the problem, so I’m happy to have your evidence. I have made a batch of dough from a 90% extraction of Turkey Red wheat flour and it, too, had compromised gluten. However, it may have been over-proofed. I’ll get around to testing that within the next week. I do like the taste of this flour a lot.
Thanks for the reply. I’m with you on the flavor! That’s why I keep trying to make it work. To be honest, I suspect enzymatic activity more than I do weak gluten. I’ll try adding salt to the autolyse during the week and let you know how it goes, but the commercial whole wheat experiment will have to wait until I can find some. (I fear this all might be a lesson in why the world needs professional millers and their fancy gadgets and gauges!)
-AG
In my experience, Turkey Red and Red Fife seem to have less gluten than conventional / hybrid hard red and white wheat. I use red fife a lot because I slightly prefer the flavor of it to turkey red, but I strongly prefer the flavor of both turkey and fife over hybrid hard red. Hard white doesn’t really have a strong flavor to me at all.
I frequently make a 100% whole grain loaf using home milled flour made from 1/3 hard white berries and 2/3 red fife berries. The crumb I get is a long way away from the kind of openness you can get with roller-milled white bread flour, but is something that I am happy with:
latest version of my recipe / methodology here:
@anothergirl 100% whole wheat is absolutely a different beast than roller-milled white bread or APF flour. Most people believe that the bran in whole grain flour physically disrupts gluten formation and I’ve seen some good evidence in my experience that this is at least partly true: if you sift out a lot of the bran, the flour will perform more in the direction of white flour in terms of gluten formation than the whole grain you started from. This is not specific to turkey red in any way - it’s true of all whole grain flour in my experience. If you are used to baking bread with roller-milled white flour there are a bunch of adjustments you need to make to get good results with whole grain flour: hydration needs to go up, proofing times usually need to go down, and you have to get used to a really different dough feel along the way to understand where you are in the process.
The salt sounds like a good idea. If Turkey Red was the primary bread wheat 100 years ago people must have been able to bake with it ok. Shouldn’t be so challenging…
Thanks, @homebreadbaker. Your example is a handsome loaf with a pretty open crumb. I’ve got some hard white and may try them with the TRed. For now I’m going to keep experimenting without the white, become fully familiar with how the TRed behaves under a range of conditions.
@Homebreadbaker, thanks so much for your comments. I’d be happy with that, too. What a gorgeous loaf! I have some hard white wheat berries on hand and might give your formula a try. In the meantime, I’m interested in trying to learn more about the nature of Turkey wheat.
As mentioned, I haven’t had any issues with the dough breaking down when I blend up to 70% Turkey with 30% AP or bread flour. Unfortunately, 100% fresh milled Turkey is a whole ’nother story. My first thought is that enzymatic activity might be high and adding salt to the autolyse might slow it down enough to make the dough workable. My second thought is that the gluten-forming proteins in the wheat might be relatively low when compared to modern hybrids. My third thought is that I’ve been using high hydration formulas, one using a mash and the other using a food processor fitted with a metal blade. It’s just possible that the mash or the heavy duty equipment might not work well with the heirloom wheat. Thus, testing the formulas with commercial WW could shed some light on the problem. It will be interesting to see where all this leads. Thanks for the help, everyone!
WOW! This thread has been answering some questions I’ve had about my results using Turkey Red! My thanks to @tstavely @anothergirl @homebreadbaker @spiderpeck @Fermentada Am I missing anyone? LOL!
I haven’t baked 100% whole grain bread (would love to, but have to only bake up to 30% whole grain in my breads due to my husband’s medical needs. My rye is the only exception. That one is 50% whole rye). BUT, I’ve noticed a difference when I choose to use my Turkey Red as the whole grain component versus using Hard Whole White Wheat. I keep both. Red Fife is an awesome choice and I’ve used that too, with good results. I really like the flavor of Turkey Red but have noticed a lesser rise in the bake, even when blended about 25-30% with the Organic High Protein Bread Flour. I’ve noticed the same thing when I use Kamut as my whole grain portion. When I use the Whole White Wheat as the whole grain component, I do get a slightly higher rise. Yes, there’s a much milder flavor aspect with the white wheat which is why I use it a lot. Sometimes I just want some of the nutrition of whole grain but more of a “white flour flavor.” My bakes depend on my mood as to which whole grain I’ll add. Does that make sense? Sometimes it’s just a straight white bread flour loaf (which tends to “explode” out of the clay baker, LOL). The plain bread flour loaves are humongous! The smile on my face when I open the lid of the clay baker and see the size of baked loaf: WOW! Gotta love that!
Anyway, this has been a great thread. Thank you all.
Leah
